Sounds like a very dangerous situation, one this group didn’t do much planning for. Lucky that enough people were idlly gazing at how the piece of ice they stood on seemed to have ‘grown’ a little stream near the edge. That ‘stream’ kept getting wider and wider, soon to be over 30 yards in distance.
Seems it happens every year, but this is a record number “caught”.
Upper Red Lake is huge. There are entire counties in the lower 48 which are smaller.
I remember ice fishing on some salt water river inlets up in Maine. You’d be fishing in your smelt house at high tide and be 30 or 40 yards down river at low tide.