Yes, I mean iceberg. My neighbor John and his girlfriend went iceberg-seeing in St. John’s, Newfoundland, on the Atlantic coast, in early June. From there, rent a car and take the inaccessible mountain road very close to the glacier. I was so moved by Jon’s description that I was inspired to write this article.
The demand for travel has increased these days due to the feeling that the Covid pandemic has held us back. Are airports and airlines ready for the influx of tourists? Globe and Mail transportation reporter Eric Atkins wrote last week about how airlines are expanding their schedules to meet demand, amid concerns about labor shortages. Staffing issues last summer led to lineups, flight delays and lost luggage epidemics at some airports, hopefully not this time around.
What are you ready for? So let’s see the iceberg. But it is better to know a lot of information before going. Here are some tips you might find useful if you want to give it a go, too.
What is an iceberg?
A large piece of ice that has broken away from its parent glacier in a natural process called calving. Icebergs floating in warm water eventually melt. Scientists estimate the lifespan of such an ice sheet from first freezing in a glacier to its final melting in the ocean is at least 3,000 years, possibly as long as 10,000 years.
Formation of Glaciers:
An iceberg’s mother glacier can flow many kilometers beyond the coastline in an ocean inlet, a large, floating glacier. Later, small icebergs were formed from these huge glaciers by tidal and wave action, or perhaps by earthquakes. Small icebergs can break away from the main glacier as a result of forces acting on the underwater part of a glacier. In these cases, icebergs suddenly emerge from below the water table. Although they were born thousands of years ago in the midst of the original glaciers. Icebergs float in the salt water of the ocean, but they are made of frozen fresh water. Increasingly, iceberg formation is also affected by climate change. Once detached, the waves or currents of the ocean bring us to different places, we are overwhelmed by the sight.
Most of the Northern Hemisphere’s icebergs come from Greenland’s glaciers. Sometimes they flow south with currents in the North Atlantic. Icebergs are also formed from glaciers in the US state of Alaska. In the Southern Hemisphere, almost all icebergs originate from the continent of Antarctica. Icebergs can also be very large, with some icebergs near Antarctica as large as Sicily, the largest island in the Mediterranean. One-eighth of an iceberg is visible above water, with most remaining below the water surface.
Easy ways to see icebergs:
You can fly into St. John’s International Airport, a city on the Atlantic coast of Newfoundland. But the sooner you can make your booking, the better. We have no way of knowing when other people will be booking, so when you decide to confirm your tour, the tour may already be full! The advice is to book as soon as you decide to visit the icebergs.
Newfoundland, Canada’s easternmost province, is most notable for icebergs drifting from Greenland in Canadian waters off its coast. However, their arrival may be somewhat uncertain in terms of timing in each season. However, for those with years of experience chasing icebergs, according to them, the best opportunity to see and photograph them is from early May to mid-June, or the time may be longer depending on the weather.
The guides are local! Raised to see icebergs, they know where the icebergs are and how to get them to a safe distance.
Enjoy the adventure as you discover icebergs off the northeast coast of Newfoundland. Take photos or hang out with 10,000-year-old icebergs. You don’t have to be a professional photographer. The guides each love to show off their province, lending a helping hand! The guide company knows where the icebergs will appear, depending on where you will be accommodated.
Danger of icebergs!
The story of the well-known disaster of the RMS Titanic illustrates the danger of icebergs. In 1912, Titanic struck an iceberg in Newfoundland waters en route to the US state of New York and sank in Iceberg Alley. More than 1500 passengers drowned mercilessly. Although the builders of the Titanic proudly claimed that the ship did not sink at all.
An international ice patrol system was formed after this accident. The Ice Patrol (operated by the U.S. Coast Guard) maintains a close watch over Newfoundland’s coastline, known as Iceberg Alley because of the abundance of icebergs in the water.
Ice Patrol gathers data from a variety of sources: aircraft flights, radar and ship observations of ice. It uses computer modeling and other data to warn ships via radio or the Internet to predict the iceberg’s path. Global Positioning System (GPS) technology is also now used to track icebergs. May tragedies like the Titanic never happen again or the seas be safe. These precautions have certainly reduced the number of incidents of ship collisions with icebergs, but the risk cannot be said to be completely non-existent.
Icebergs and literature:
As an iceberg lies largely unseen beneath the surface of the sea, writers often compare their writing to icebergs. A writer can leave some plot lines unwritten, or the reader can find many things in the writing. American writer Hemingway believed that the reader could understand and be influenced by the non-written parts of the story as well as the thought parts. Moreover, when the poet writes a poem, with each line the reader sees a picture like a shadow, then it becomes a poem. Iceberg As much as we see, the unseen part is in the dilemma of thinking, as you would guess. However, how much is the size of the iceberg above and below the water? You can say these days.
Titanic and Titanic Wrecks in Popular Culture:
The sinking of the Titanic has given birth to many literary and cultural works. which have been commemorated by artists, filmmakers, writers, composers, musicians and dancers. On 1 September 1985, a joint US-French expedition led by Robert Ballard found the wreckage of the Titanic, and the ship’s rediscovery led to an explosion of interest in the Titanic story.
Numerous expeditions have been launched to film the wreck and controversially recover the wreckage. The first major exhibition of recovered artefacts was held at the National Maritime Museum in London in 1994-95. The disaster inspired numerous films. In 1997, James Cameron’s film Titanic became the first film to gross $1 billion at the box office. And the film’s song My heart will go on and on, sung by renowned Canadian singer Celine Dion, became the best-selling recording of all time. The singer became a top artist around the world.
The moment I finished writing this article, another tragic news came in the media about the Titanic. On 18 June 2023, Titan, an undersea observation submersible operated by the American tourism company OceanGate, exploded while landing in the Atlantic Ocean, about 400 nautical miles off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, to view the wreckage of the Titanic. It is confirmed that all five tourists lost their lives. I am interested in writing about this issue in the next issue.
Scarborough, Canada
