‘Unusually’ Thick Arctic ice pack traps boats
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Unusually heavy Arctic pack ice has trapped multiple vessels, stymied the fishing season and triggered a high-stakes rescue operation from a sinking ship off Newfoundland.
Five fishermen were rescued Wednesday from the Avalon Princess fishing boat, which started to take on water after getting stuck in thick sea ice near La Scie, N.L.
Trevor Hodgson, the Canadian Coast Guard’s superintendent of ice operations for the Atlantic region, said the heavy ice is more than two metres thick in some areas off the province’s northeast coast.
“We had a bit of stuff that forms over the winter, the normal ice in the area,” he said. “What we’re experiencing now is the ice that has come south through the Arctic due to melting up there.”
What’s unusual this year, Hodgson said, is the way the winds have pushed the thick pack ice towards land rather than out to sea.
He said ice conditions are so bad the Coast Guard has been unable to free trapped vessels with its icebreaker Amundsen. Three fishing vessels remain trapped in ice off northeastern Newfoundland.
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