Aug 9

Ice, as far as the eye can see!  The first glimpse of shimmering blue icebergs is so stunning it defies description.  Like enormous silvery alien spacecraft they float in a surreal landscape above the dark sea, unmoving, austere, eerily silent.  Closer, waves wash over hollows, spilling in frothing cascades over the glistening ice.  One, adrift like a giant half submerged aircraft carrier foundered mysteriously in the middle of the sea.  One, a graceful silken silvery vase, perfectly upright.  One like the Sidney Opera House, and one a massive conch shell.  Stunning in their beauty and their size.

We have arrived in the northernmost tip of Newfoundland as the massive Petermann Ice Island passes just offshore.  Spawned a year ago from a glacier in the north of Greenland it is moving south in the Labrador current 24 km per day.  Initially 250 sq. km., it is now a mere 45 sq. km., and 11 km long, lying just along the NE shore, off St Anthony.  (http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/view.php?id=51615 )

So big it generates its own weather, it is also creating a wonderful display of fragments of ice along the coast, unheard of at this time of year.  Some harbours have been blocked off by bigger pieces for days at a time, and others are filled with floating and foundering blocks of varying sizes.  Seen from shore, the ice island fills the horizon, lit by a band of light breaking through the clouds above it.  From the sea, it appears as an unbroken line of icy cliffs, spackled with toppled mountain tops, rift valleys and brilliant lines of clear icy blue. 

We've feasted our eyes on this amazing spectacle.  We took a boat trip out amongst the ice, gathered bergie bits along the shore, and hiked the cliffs to view the vista.  Our gin and tonic was spicy with the effervescent bubbles of 10,000 year old air erupting from icebergs in our glasses!  (There is a local company cashing in on the bounty with sales of iceberg water, and others with iceberg beer and vodka!  The cod may be gone from Newfoundland, but climate change has not defeated these hardy souls!)

Today we move ahead in glacial time to the recent past, only 1000 years ago, and visit L'anse aux Meadows, the Norse settlement on the Strait of Belle Isle at the tip of Newfoundland.  More on Vikings tomorrow!   Cheers!