In Atlantic Canada there’s one thing you can count on during the month of May – ice. It can take the form of icebergs drifting along the Newfoundland coast or it can take the form of a frozen harbor that delays the opening of spring lobster season.
Residents take it all on stride. For example, if you happen to be talking to Tina Pretty on the staff of the Fish, Food and Allied Workers (FFAW) in St. John’s, Newfoundland, she’s apt to mention casually that she’s looking at a massive iceberg out her office window.
As of May 14 there were 14 active icebergs along the Newfoundland coast. But they have not interfered with the fishery, according to Earle McCurdy, president of the FFAW.
“There are a lot of icebergs around,” he said in early May. “They’re a nuisance to fishermen because they can destroy gear, and the boats have to work around them. I’m not aware of any that have actually prevented fishing from taking place.”
According to Luc Desjardins, senior iceberg forecaster for Environment Canada’s Ice Service, who prepares charts for the Canadian Coast Guard, this year’s high incidence of icebergs hasn’t occurred for “a few decades,” but he adds, “That doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened before.”
Responding to news reports of an iceberg getting stuck in the mouth of the harbor at Quidi Vidi on the Avalon Peninsula, Desjardins says that icebergs have a tendency to ground in bays north of St. John’s. It can also happen on the southeast coast.
He adds, “A typical iceberg season peaks during April, May and June, although there have been instances of appearances in July and August. Obviously, as the icebergs move south into warmer water, they start receding.”
Meanwhile, on the northeast New Brunswick coast the opening of the lobster season was delayed for several days because of ice – plain ice, not icebergs.
Michel Therien, spokesperson for Fisheries and Oceans Canada in the Gulf of St. Lawrence region says that heavy ice on wharves in some areas prompted the lobster season delay for everyone.
“We wanted to give all the fishermen a fair start, the opportunity to go out at the same time and set traps,” Therien said.
“The ice conditions were more intense than last year,” Therien said. “The offshore ice on the eastern side of the Gulf, northeast and west of Cape Breton and inshore was plagued by thick ice, thirty to seventy centimeters thick in some places.”
He added that the main cause was wind from the southwest pushing the ice into the area, “making it difficult for navigation and making it impossible for fishermen to go out.”
Therien says the situation is pretty much the same every year. “It was less precarious last year, but we still had to do it,” he said.
The decision whether or not to delay, and if so for how long, is made by a committee of fishermen and DFO representatives.
Both Desjardins and Therien emphasized that the phenomena on the Newfoundland and New Brunswick coasts were not related.
Desjardins said that Environment Canada’s Canadian Ice Service carries out the following activities:
“¢ Issuing daily charts and bulletins describing ice conditions in Canadian navigable waters and iceberg conditions in Canadian navigable waters south of the 60th parallel;
“¢ Providing a warning service for extreme ice events within ice-encumbered waters;
“¢ Issuing analyses of Canadian ice areas for marine transportation planning and climate monitoring purposes;
“¢ Conducting ice reconnaissance with a Dash-7 aircraft and Canadian Coast Guard helicopters;
“¢ Maintaining the Canadian Ice Service Archive for climatological purposes;
“¢ Providing Canadian ice data to the World Data Center for Glaciology.