You need to follow your dreams no matter where they lead you, even if that's onto the thick ice of the Ottowa River off Petrie Island.  Admitted, most people would then drill a hole in the ice and see what kind of fishy goodness they could yank out of there, but sometimes you've got to dream bigger.  That's why Aimé Drouin took an eight by twelve foot fishing shack and converted it into what may be the least convenient arcade in the world.

Running off a gas generator and heated by a 1940s oil furnace, this four-machine arcade boasts mahogany plywood floors, bare walls, and that's pretty much it.  The games are Terminator 2: Judgement Day, Street Fighter 3: Next Generation, Chase HQ, and an 80-game unit housed in an old Ms Pac-Man cabinet.  It's fairly bare-bones, but you try and open an arcade on an ice sheet and see if you can fit a pinball machine in there.

Unfortunately, business has been slow, with the annual ice fishing derby in particular being bleak with not a quarter spent over the weekend.  The big white and red ARCADE sign on the shack is being supplemented with an Open sign, though, so with any luck business will improve soon.  Aimé is giving it one more weekend to see if business picks up, and if it doesn't he'll probably close it down.  If you're in Ottowa head on over to Petrie Island and plunk a few quarters in one of the strangest arcades in existence.  It's easy to look at something like this and wonder how on earth it was ever supposed to work, but when something is as wonderfully odd and awesome as the Petrie Island arcade, success or failure isn't as important as knowing we live in a world where things like this can exist.

Header image credit to CBC News

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