Sea Ice

They drift silently along the coast, the icy offspring of the North Atlantic, birthed from glaciers. They float past the coast of Labrador and then further south to Newfoundland, our first island home, floating into warmer water in an area known as Iceberg Alley. 

Over the coming months, many icebergs will be visible from shore there, some running aground, carried shoreward by the tides. The bergs usually appear in April and May, spring visitors after their long journeys. The vast majority originated from the glaciers of western Greenland and some from the Canadian Arctic.

Berg ice is different from the surface ice we see rafted into piles as the ice breaks up around our current island home of Prince Edward. No icebergs here, just wave action which causes rafting of surface ice. Piles of rafted ice can last for days after the ice disappears from the surface of the sea.

We lived in Newfoundland when our daughter moved back to Canada from London in the spring of 2009. We visited Twillingate, Newfoundland, the iceberg capital of the world, to see the icy giants. From shore, we saw numerous bergs in the distance. Close to shore, several floated around, spending their last few days subject to the tides taking them towards shore.

The display of icebergs offshore has been spectacular the last decade but I remember them from my youth as well. However, global warming has sped up the melt and break-away from glaciers. Iceberg Alley is their brief, watery home. 

Numerous boat tours along the coast of Newfoundland take adventurers near the majestic giants as they make their way south with the Labrador Current. The bergs make the tour and fishing boats look miniature in comparison. 

It was a lovely day in June on Twillingate Island when we visited, and the boat tour was a highlight, though the area has some significance for our family as well. My husband's paternal grandmother was from Durrell, on Twillingate Island.

We tasted the ancient berg ice after some crew members grabbed floating bits from a nearby iceberg. It was refreshing. Enterprising people collect berg ice and use the water to make various products, including Iceberg Vodka.

While the ice around Prince Edward Island is not from icebergs, we watch every year for its evolution and eventual disappearance. It will be a few weeks before this ice is gone this year.

Going home

One of my favourite settings in the world is a beach. This feeling about beaches developed during my childhood by the sea. At that time, it was the North Atlantic and a beach with smoothed beach rocks rather than sand. For me, the sound of the sea is like music, the smell of the sea takes me back in time and the sight of its gentle lap or waves of various heights comfort me. It is one of the reasons I love Prince Edward Island so much. Though it is part of my psyche, the sea is also physically near wherever I am on this island. 

A recent wander brought my husband and I to Thunder Cove, on the central north coast. The beach there feels like it goes on forever.

From the red cliffs near the parking area, the shoreline becomes sand dunes covered in Marram grass behind which are several areas with cottages, though few are visible from the beach. This beach is pristine, beautiful red sand with little seaweed at the high tide mark.

It wasn’t crowded. The further we walked, the more likely the beach goers were cottagers accessing the beach via an occasional trail through the dunes or stairs.

We kept the golden grand-dog on lead because Semipalmated plovers darted along the sand as the waves lapped the beach. 

At the east end of the beach, more sandstone cliffs separate Thunder Cove from the next beach, a shorter though equally beautiful one. 

The sandstone here is well weathered and doesn’t look stable. It is not an area for climbing though one might be tempted to do so. Above in the earth over the sandstone, a hole indicates a bird might be home, probably a bank swallow.

Two men prepared to launch a catamaran into the on-shore breeze as the tide receded. We watched as they hoisted the sails but didn’t see them leave.

This beach is nothing like the beach of my youth, however, the essentials are the same. The sound, smell and sight take me back to another time and place but one just as beautiful. The truth is when the sea is in your blood, you are never far from home.