After such a mild start to the winter, the bitter temperatures at the end of January and early February seemed especially hard to take. The storm that hit the east coast on Valentine’s Day brought snow followed by freezing rain followed by bitter cold and wind for much of New England. It made an icy mess.
Like anywhere else in the Northeast, ice is a part of winter living in the Cranberry Isles; still, we deal with a few extra forms of it compared to our friends on the mainland. The men who drive the snow plows on Islesford and Great Cranberry keep the roads free from snow and ice but they also make sure the town docks are clear for travel since vehicles drive there to deliver and pick up people, goods and mail from the ferry. When getting on or off the boat, passengers are especially cautious because the location of ice, on the stairs of the dock, changes with the rise and fall of the tide. The winter schedule for the Beal and Bunker ferry is three round trips per day from Northeast Harbor. Even in the worst of weather they are usually able to make one trip for mail delivery. Freezing spray is a real concern for the boat captains and their crew. Tide, wind speed, and wind direction are variables that combine with the speed and direction of a boat to produce spray up to 20 feet high. Add in bitter cold air and the fact that spray will freeze where it lands — on the windshield, on the radar, on the bow line, on the decks. It can quickly build up and weigh a boat down. On a cold windy day, while the ferry is docked in Northeast Harbor between runs, one can usually see the captain and crew pounding ice off the boat. A wooden maul is to a boat what an ice scraper is to a car.
Ice not only builds up on boats, but on floats as well. Members of the Cranberry Isles Fishermen’s Co-op keep an eye on the float and take turns pounding ice off when needed. If left untouched, the weight of the ice would sink the float. A few years ago, it was more common to see fishermen going out to pound ice from their boats in the harbor. With fiberglass boats the ice is less apt to stick to the hull, and mooring chains have been replaced by rope, which also helps to prevent ice build up. Still, during a windy cold spell, you can be sure that everyone with a boat in the harbor is keeping an eye on the ice.
Floating chunks of ice are another concern. Ice that builds up in protected water can break off in pieces and cause trouble for boats. Running over a chunk of ice can bend a propeller. Wooden boats are especially vulnerable as ice can chip paint or even cut into a wooden hull. The mailboat has fiberglass ice sheathing but the captain will still move gingerly to the float when there is ice in the harbor.
Wind and tide usually create enough wave action to prevent our harbors from freezing over, but in February 1923, the conditions were right for the water to freeze from the Cranberry Isles to the mainland. In Hugh Dwelley’s book, “A History of Little Cranberry Island, Maine,” there are notes from the journal of Andrew E. Stanley giving an account of the week when the harbors were frozen. On Feb. 17, “No open water in sight except at the mouth off the Great Cranberry Island Pool and by the south shore of Suttons. Coast Guard men took the mail to Seal Harbor in a dory, leaving from the Coast Guard Station and returning to a landing near Tuttles on the North Shore.” Men from Islesford walked two and a half miles to Southwest Harbor to get supplies. Buster Bunker and Marge and Les Phippen walked to Islesford from Great Cranberry. On Feb. 20, Milton “Tom” Phippen rode his motorcycle on the ice. The ice started to break up on Feb. 27 and the rest of the ice moved out with the tide on March 1.
The water has not frozen all the way across to Mount Desert Island since then, but the Pool on Great Cranberry froze over in 1934. The ice was solid enough to support a car as evidenced by Polly Bunker’s photograph on the cranberryisles.com Web site. The Sunbeam came in to break up the ice as she did again when the Islesford Harbor froze in 1947. Hugh Dwelley remembers watching fishermen walk to their boats before the ice was broken up.
Compared to other winters, maybe this one isn’t so bad. It may not be over yet, but so far there is very little ice buildup in any of the local harbors; Dip of the Month Club members will take a dip on Feb. 17 without having to climb over a pile of ice at the high tide mark on the Sand Beach; and there have been many afternoons with the happy sounds of children skating on some great ice at the gravel pit. q
Islesford, Feb. 20, 2007