WEBVTT - Strange Ice, Part 2 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:07.040 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, the production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:13.160 --> 0:00:15.120 Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My 0:00:15.240 --> 0:00:16.040 name is Robert. 0:00:15.880 --> 0:00:18.759 Lamb, and I am Joe McCormick. And we're back with 0:00:18.840 --> 0:00:23.600 part two of our look at Strange Ice. Now, initially 0:00:23.640 --> 0:00:25.040 we didn't know this was going to be a two 0:00:25.120 --> 0:00:29.240 part series. Last time, we looked at odd ice formations 0:00:29.280 --> 0:00:31.880 that can occur on Earth, such as the main one 0:00:31.880 --> 0:00:34.880 I looked at was this thing called nieves penitentes or 0:00:34.920 --> 0:00:39.120 just penitentes, which are these very strange sort of blades 0:00:39.280 --> 0:00:43.040 or spikes or pinnacles of ice that you can sometimes 0:00:43.080 --> 0:00:46.280 find in high mountain ranges, especially in the dry Andies. 0:00:46.360 --> 0:00:50.040 And we looked at a historical anecdote of Charles Darwin 0:00:50.120 --> 0:00:52.800 trekking across the Andes and coming across a field of 0:00:52.840 --> 0:00:55.520 these things, one that had a horse frozen inside it. 0:00:56.360 --> 0:01:01.320 But we also looked at ice formations such as ball ice, 0:01:01.840 --> 0:01:05.880 candle ice, rotten ice, and a lot of other creepy, interesting, 0:01:06.400 --> 0:01:12.040 physically counterintuitive ways that ice can form or decompose. And 0:01:12.200 --> 0:01:14.800 so we're coming back today to talk some more about 0:01:14.840 --> 0:01:15.600 strange ice. 0:01:15.920 --> 0:01:18.039 Yeah, I guess this episode's kind of a release valve. 0:01:18.040 --> 0:01:20.600 From the last episode, there were a number of threads 0:01:20.680 --> 0:01:22.880 that had come up in our research that we just 0:01:22.920 --> 0:01:26.640 had to continue to pursue. So some of these are 0:01:26.959 --> 0:01:30.920 definitely still going to deal with direct examples of ice 0:01:32.440 --> 0:01:34.479 manifesting in a way that we might think of as weird, 0:01:34.600 --> 0:01:36.600 behaving in a way that some people might think of 0:01:36.640 --> 0:01:39.640 as weird. But we'll also get into some I thought 0:01:39.760 --> 0:01:44.800 very fascinating and haunting folk traditions concerning the ice. All right, 0:01:44.840 --> 0:01:48.200 what have you got, rob, So in the last episode 0:01:48.560 --> 0:01:53.480 we discussed mostly in passing the dangers of ice, specifically 0:01:53.720 --> 0:01:56.560 coastal sea ice and any sort of icy environment that 0:01:56.640 --> 0:02:00.000 humans will attempt to traverse or in any way exploit 0:02:00.160 --> 0:02:06.360 for hunting, fishing, recreation, scientific purposes. Specifically thinking about rotten ice, 0:02:06.440 --> 0:02:08.280 you know the idea that it's just not safe to 0:02:08.360 --> 0:02:12.560 venture upon. And I imagine we have plenty of listeners 0:02:12.600 --> 0:02:15.240 out there who grew up in places with icy environments 0:02:15.240 --> 0:02:18.120 who can attest to the dangers of ice that I mean, 0:02:18.120 --> 0:02:20.359 there are just so many ways that it can potentially 0:02:20.400 --> 0:02:22.640 be dangerous. There's, of course, you know the fact that 0:02:22.680 --> 0:02:25.040 ice can be slippery, you can fall, and if you 0:02:25.080 --> 0:02:28.360 fall on ice, it is hard, and you know that 0:02:28.400 --> 0:02:31.120 can hurt you as well. Then you get into areas 0:02:31.160 --> 0:02:35.120 where ice may give way. It may plunge us into 0:02:35.320 --> 0:02:38.800 freezing water, It may plunge us into hollow areas where 0:02:38.840 --> 0:02:42.440 the water is drained out, and so forth. There are 0:02:42.440 --> 0:02:45.040 so many ways that ice can pose a danger. Ice 0:02:45.080 --> 0:02:47.480 can also just be physically heavy as well. 0:02:47.760 --> 0:02:51.040 Yeah, the danger of plunging through ice into a hazard 0:02:51.080 --> 0:02:53.120 below is not only the case on say like a 0:02:53.120 --> 0:02:56.920 frozen pond or lake or something. But think about what 0:02:57.120 --> 0:02:59.720 happened to that horse that Charles Darwin came across. We 0:02:59.760 --> 0:03:02.720 don't know, but he speculated, well, maybe when the snow 0:03:02.840 --> 0:03:05.400 was packed higher, it somehow like fell into a hole 0:03:05.520 --> 0:03:08.360 or crevasse in the ice and then and then died 0:03:08.440 --> 0:03:11.400 like that, and then the rest of it sublimated away 0:03:11.440 --> 0:03:11.960 around it. 0:03:12.720 --> 0:03:15.840 Yeah, and you don't even have to have really extreme 0:03:16.000 --> 0:03:20.480 environments for potentially dangerous examples of this from occurring. Like 0:03:20.639 --> 0:03:24.240 I remember as a kid encountering situations where you'd have 0:03:24.320 --> 0:03:27.480 like a bog or you know, a marshy area, and 0:03:27.560 --> 0:03:29.400 you would have a situation where you would have this 0:03:29.480 --> 0:03:31.560 sort of ice cap on top and I guess like 0:03:31.600 --> 0:03:35.720 the water drained down during the melting, and so you'd 0:03:35.720 --> 0:03:38.880 have this this thin layer of ice on top and 0:03:38.920 --> 0:03:42.120 you could fall down through it potentially or climb down 0:03:42.120 --> 0:03:44.440 through it and play in it as a child. And 0:03:44.480 --> 0:03:46.080 so yeah, that's I guess that's one of the things 0:03:46.120 --> 0:03:48.200 that we'll be getting into here, is like ice creates 0:03:48.560 --> 0:03:51.720 unique environments that, especially to a child, can be as 0:03:51.760 --> 0:03:53.880 intriguing as they are potentially hazardous. 0:03:54.040 --> 0:03:56.680 I'm just thinking now about little rob climbing down through 0:03:56.720 --> 0:03:59.040 the ice to play in the bog. Yeah. 0:03:59.160 --> 0:04:02.760 Yeah, that was part of my childhood. So yeah, I 0:04:02.800 --> 0:04:05.280 think it should come as no surprise that there are 0:04:05.480 --> 0:04:10.280 traditional tales and folk traditions seemingly meant to keep children 0:04:10.400 --> 0:04:14.800 away from ice, Because again, ice is great fun, children 0:04:14.840 --> 0:04:17.640 are curious, and since time out of Mind parents have 0:04:17.920 --> 0:04:22.440 invented and passed down tales of perhaps more embodied threats 0:04:23.000 --> 0:04:29.160 monsters to scare children away from potentially dangerous environments. Now 0:04:29.279 --> 0:04:31.320 this may ring a bell because we discussed one of 0:04:31.360 --> 0:04:34.360 these on the podcast a few years back. This would 0:04:34.400 --> 0:04:38.000 be Jenny Green Teeth, a river hag of English folklore 0:04:38.200 --> 0:04:42.080 widely understood as a kind of nursery boogie to keep 0:04:42.240 --> 0:04:46.320 children away from the water's edge bogie rather not boogie. 0:04:46.960 --> 0:04:50.280 Yeah. I think Jenny could be used to warn children 0:04:50.320 --> 0:04:54.159 of the dangers of water in multiple environments. But the 0:04:54.200 --> 0:04:57.280 one that I remember being really salient was like in 0:04:57.360 --> 0:05:00.840 certain regions of England, there might be places where there 0:05:00.839 --> 0:05:03.320 were holes or pits in the ground, maybe maral pits 0:05:03.440 --> 0:05:05.440 or something like that, that had been hollowed out and 0:05:05.440 --> 0:05:08.240 then filled in with water. And sometimes this water would 0:05:08.279 --> 0:05:11.960 have coverings of like algae or plant matter or something 0:05:12.000 --> 0:05:13.520 on top of it that would just make it look 0:05:13.640 --> 0:05:15.920 very green, make it look like it was just you know, 0:05:16.080 --> 0:05:19.400 a continuation of the grass almost. 0:05:18.839 --> 0:05:23.120 Yeah, yeah, And you know to your point, you know, 0:05:23.160 --> 0:05:25.720 once you have a folk creation like this, it can 0:05:26.240 --> 0:05:28.279 be deployed in various ways. It can sort of take 0:05:28.279 --> 0:05:33.520 on different meanings and different stressors in different stories. But 0:05:33.560 --> 0:05:36.560 there are many variations on this theme in global traditions 0:05:36.560 --> 0:05:39.680 where there's some sort of supernatural being that is associated 0:05:39.720 --> 0:05:42.560 with the water and the dangers of the water, especially 0:05:42.640 --> 0:05:45.960 for young children. The Japanese Kappa is one that we've 0:05:45.960 --> 0:05:49.000 also discussed in the past that sometimes takes on these connotations. 0:05:50.120 --> 0:05:52.520 And then of course this is another thing we're discussed 0:05:52.560 --> 0:05:54.640 in the show before. There's, of course, the nineteen seventy 0:05:54.640 --> 0:05:58.880 three British public information film Lonely Water, also known as 0:05:58.960 --> 0:06:01.799 the Spirit of Dark and Only Water, featuring the voice 0:06:01.839 --> 0:06:05.680 of Donald Pleasance. This very much carries on the tradition here, 0:06:05.760 --> 0:06:10.560 and it's often discussed as something that traumatized an entire 0:06:10.600 --> 0:06:12.200 generation of British children. 0:06:12.560 --> 0:06:16.400 It sounds like it worked. I mean, are you going 0:06:16.480 --> 0:06:18.800 to go play in the flooded mind pits now? 0:06:19.320 --> 0:06:24.760 Yeah? You know. It's a complicated topic though, the use 0:06:24.839 --> 0:06:29.880 of boogiemen and boogie women, I guess to frightened children. 0:06:30.279 --> 0:06:34.640 I remember reading about some of the works of Francisco 0:06:34.720 --> 0:06:41.560 Goya in which he was criticizing this and taught and 0:06:41.600 --> 0:06:44.960 like tying in this whole idea that like, by having 0:06:45.279 --> 0:06:49.799 parents that invoke supernatural threats to keep children in line, 0:06:50.200 --> 0:06:53.719 they're not only potentially protecting their child from these threats, 0:06:53.800 --> 0:06:58.480 but they're also instilling supernatural belief at an early age 0:06:59.279 --> 0:07:03.880 that then, you know, matures and becomes these other modes 0:07:03.960 --> 0:07:08.600 of supernatural belief that to some may be seen as 0:07:08.680 --> 0:07:10.400 more harmful in their adulthood. 0:07:11.240 --> 0:07:14.680 So, like his ideas, if you teach a child to 0:07:15.360 --> 0:07:18.320 fear spectral dangers, even if it's useful in keeping them 0:07:18.320 --> 0:07:21.000 away from a real physical danger in childhood, maybe they 0:07:21.160 --> 0:07:24.760 just grow up to continue to project spectral dangers that 0:07:24.880 --> 0:07:25.880 are not necessary. 0:07:26.560 --> 0:07:28.560 Yeah, I believe that's the argument. Though. Of course, this 0:07:28.680 --> 0:07:32.320 is a complicated issue, so you know, obviously it's there 0:07:32.360 --> 0:07:34.600 are a lot of a lot of ins and outs here, 0:07:34.680 --> 0:07:37.000 so I don't want to simplify it too much. But 0:07:37.040 --> 0:07:38.800 it's interesting to think about, like, what does it mean 0:07:38.920 --> 0:07:42.120 when you introduce something like this? What does it mean 0:07:42.120 --> 0:07:47.000 when you introduces something that's not even tied to scaring 0:07:47.120 --> 0:07:50.480 children so much, like something like like a Santa Claus 0:07:50.560 --> 0:07:53.040 or Easter bunny? You know what effect does that have? 0:07:53.200 --> 0:07:54.880 And of course you know a lot has been written 0:07:54.920 --> 0:07:58.960 and continues to be written and said about this. So anyway, 0:07:59.000 --> 0:08:02.720 given all of this, she comes no surprise that there 0:08:03.280 --> 0:08:10.840 are traditions that involve creating supernatural entities or monstrous entities 0:08:11.200 --> 0:08:15.160 that are associated with the dangers of ice and keeping 0:08:15.320 --> 0:08:18.600 children away from the ice. So I want to turn 0:08:18.640 --> 0:08:25.200 to a couple of these from Native American First Nations traditions. 0:08:26.120 --> 0:08:30.840 The first of these is the Abo damkin. This I 0:08:30.920 --> 0:08:33.640 was reading about this in the Dictionary of Native American 0:08:33.720 --> 0:08:37.880 Mythology by Sam D. Gill and Irene F. Sullivan. This 0:08:38.040 --> 0:08:42.079 is apparently an entity in the traditions of the Malaset 0:08:42.520 --> 0:08:46.679 and passima Quadi people in what is now the Canadian 0:08:46.760 --> 0:08:49.199 province of New Brunswick and the US state of Maine. 0:08:49.640 --> 0:08:52.360 The authors here describe it as a boogie monster with 0:08:52.600 --> 0:08:56.480 long hair and huge teeth. Quote, fear of him keeps 0:08:56.520 --> 0:09:00.280 small children from straying on thin newly from was an 0:09:00.320 --> 0:09:03.880 ice in the winter and unguarded beaches in the summer. 0:09:04.480 --> 0:09:06.280 Oh, so is this creature in the water? 0:09:07.280 --> 0:09:09.280 Yeah? Yeah, I was looking for more information on this 0:09:09.400 --> 0:09:12.800 and according to Native Languages as Native hyphen Languages dot org. 0:09:13.559 --> 0:09:17.400 It is also sometimes sometimes described as a fanged sea serpent, 0:09:18.200 --> 0:09:22.720 sometimes with like long red hair, and some accounts say 0:09:22.800 --> 0:09:24.920 that it might have once been a human woman and 0:09:25.120 --> 0:09:28.640 was transformed into the state. And despite the fact that 0:09:28.800 --> 0:09:32.280 some Western interpretations apparently have classified this is a kind 0:09:32.320 --> 0:09:35.679 of vampire, it is actually better thought of as a 0:09:35.800 --> 0:09:38.679 sea monster. So, yeah, this would be something that dwells 0:09:38.760 --> 0:09:41.480 within the water. Now, another one that I was reading 0:09:41.520 --> 0:09:44.400 about this one. There's also a number of you may 0:09:44.400 --> 0:09:49.439 be familiar with. Is the Qualipeluit. This is an entity 0:09:49.720 --> 0:09:52.679 in the traditions of the Inuit, and there's an excellent 0:09:52.800 --> 0:09:57.880 ride up about it on the Kikwitani Inuit Association's Inuit 0:09:58.000 --> 0:10:02.199 Myths and Legends website Inuit Myths dot Com, which features 0:10:02.280 --> 0:10:06.400 some just haunting artwork and also text that is available 0:10:06.480 --> 0:10:09.360 in both English and Inuit. Joe I included one of 0:10:09.400 --> 0:10:13.079 these images from the website here that is just absolutely terrifying. 0:10:13.360 --> 0:10:17.640 Yeah, extremely Oh no, and it's it's like snatching a baby. 0:10:18.360 --> 0:10:22.160 That's what they do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The website describes 0:10:22.240 --> 0:10:27.120 them as scaly marine humanoids that reek of sulfur, and yeah, 0:10:27.200 --> 0:10:29.880 they snatch children. They prey on children who play alone 0:10:29.920 --> 0:10:32.839 on the beach or get too close to breaking ice. 0:10:33.559 --> 0:10:36.839 They may also feature pouches on their back to stuff 0:10:36.960 --> 0:10:40.600 children in though I couldn't tell. It seemed ambiguous based 0:10:40.640 --> 0:10:43.280 on the entry and based on the illustrations. There are 0:10:43.600 --> 0:10:47.079 a couple of additional illustrations on the website. Whether this 0:10:47.280 --> 0:10:49.640 pouch is in their clothing or if this is a 0:10:49.720 --> 0:10:53.040 pouch in their body. Here's a haunting excerpt from the 0:10:53.200 --> 0:10:58.319 Inuitmiths dot com website. Quote usually the Qualiteluit jump out 0:10:58.400 --> 0:11:02.400 of the water and grab children with about any warning. Sometimes, however, 0:11:02.600 --> 0:11:06.160 you can hear them knocking under the ice. Some elders 0:11:06.200 --> 0:11:08.600 have said that if the ocean begins to become wavy 0:11:08.760 --> 0:11:12.080 in an area, or steam begins to rise from the ocean, 0:11:12.320 --> 0:11:15.280 aqulllipi lutt might be hiding underneath the water. 0:11:15.800 --> 0:11:17.040 This one is so scary. 0:11:17.920 --> 0:11:21.600 Yeah, yeah, absolutely, I love the idea that of one 0:11:21.640 --> 0:11:24.560 of these creatures underneath the ice, like tapping or knocking 0:11:24.640 --> 0:11:26.320 at it, especially. 0:11:27.000 --> 0:11:30.319 Especially because if you ever do have experiences out on 0:11:30.520 --> 0:11:32.840 ice over a frozen body of water, you can hear 0:11:33.040 --> 0:11:35.240 strange sounds emanating from below. 0:11:36.040 --> 0:11:38.160 That's right, right, And one of the things we'll get 0:11:38.160 --> 0:11:40.320 into here in a bit is things that can suddenly 0:11:40.360 --> 0:11:43.280 occur that also have sounds regarding the ice, especially the 0:11:43.360 --> 0:11:46.920 ice close to the shore. So the direct line was 0:11:47.000 --> 0:11:49.480 not made between these two topics and the material I 0:11:49.559 --> 0:11:51.559 was looking at, But I can't help but think about 0:11:51.600 --> 0:11:54.720 it now that I've researched it a little bit. But anyway, 0:11:54.920 --> 0:11:58.400 I highly recommend inuitmths dot com. The website features profiles 0:11:58.440 --> 0:12:01.559 and a handful of other mythological beam and creatures, including 0:12:01.640 --> 0:12:04.160 the two Knit who I mentioned in a recent Monster 0:12:04.280 --> 0:12:08.000 Fact episode. Wow, all right, so I mentioned the ice 0:12:08.080 --> 0:12:11.199 making sounds. So I want to move on now to 0:12:11.320 --> 0:12:15.200 the topic of what is known as ice shove. Now, 0:12:15.240 --> 0:12:18.160 this is more of a clear example of weird ice, 0:12:18.400 --> 0:12:20.520 or rather ice behaving in a way that many myths 0:12:20.720 --> 0:12:22.839 might think of as weird. Though for a number of 0:12:22.920 --> 0:12:26.320 you out there, ice shove is just a reality, potential 0:12:26.360 --> 0:12:29.920 reality of the winter months. I was reading about this 0:12:30.160 --> 0:12:34.040 in Barry Lopez's Arctic Dreams, and he mentions there's a 0:12:34.200 --> 0:12:37.600 whole passage where he's talking about like long stillness broken 0:12:37.800 --> 0:12:41.480 by sudden movement as sort of a hallmark of Arctic landscapes, 0:12:41.520 --> 0:12:43.920 and he ties this also into just like a sense 0:12:43.960 --> 0:12:47.120 of patience that is also that he observed as being 0:12:47.240 --> 0:12:52.360 present in native populations and indigenous peoples. But he cites 0:12:52.360 --> 0:12:56.120 an example of this ice shove concerning the breaking of 0:12:56.160 --> 0:12:59.679 both river ice and sea ice, and for river ice, 0:12:59.760 --> 0:13:03.640 Lowez describes it as follows, quote pistol reports of cracking 0:13:03.720 --> 0:13:06.600 on the river, and then the sound of breaking branches 0:13:06.720 --> 0:13:09.480 and the whining pop of a fallen tree is the 0:13:09.559 --> 0:13:13.280 careening blocks of ice gouge the river banks. And he 0:13:13.400 --> 0:13:17.599 describes the sea ice variation as follows quote, Suddenly, in 0:13:17.640 --> 0:13:20.400 the middle of winter, and without warning, a huge piece 0:13:20.440 --> 0:13:24.600 of sea ice surges hundreds of feet inland, like something alive, 0:13:25.559 --> 0:13:31.520 and he cites the inopiat word ivo. I hope I'm 0:13:31.559 --> 0:13:36.520 pronouncing that right. My apologies for any mispronunciations on these terms. 0:13:37.440 --> 0:13:39.960 And it is also known as ice shove. I've also 0:13:40.040 --> 0:13:43.360 seen it referred to as ice tsunamis, along with a 0:13:43.440 --> 0:13:47.480 number of other English names. Ice shoves are generally classified 0:13:47.720 --> 0:13:54.320 as onshore ice pushes caused by wind currents, changes in temperature, 0:13:54.440 --> 0:13:58.920 and other causes. As meteorologist Matthew Capucci explained it in 0:13:59.000 --> 0:14:02.000 a twenty twenty Washington Post article, there are a lot 0:14:02.040 --> 0:14:05.120 of explainers out these out there that often pop up 0:14:05.480 --> 0:14:10.360 when exceptional or notable examples of ice shoves occur, and 0:14:10.720 --> 0:14:14.559 this I believe is one of those cases. This meteorologist 0:14:14.600 --> 0:14:16.800 pointed out that as the wind blows over a long 0:14:16.920 --> 0:14:19.360 sheet of ice, it can give that sheet of ice 0:14:19.520 --> 0:14:24.080 enough momentum that it can't stop when pushed against the shore. Instead, 0:14:24.320 --> 0:14:27.920 it fragments, and then the fragments pile up in heaps 0:14:27.960 --> 0:14:31.040 of shattered ice on the coast. Conditions have to be 0:14:31.160 --> 0:14:33.560 just right. The ice has to be thin enough, it 0:14:33.640 --> 0:14:36.720 has to be brittle enough, and it generally only piles 0:14:36.800 --> 0:14:39.640 up a few feet onto the shore. But there are 0:14:39.720 --> 0:14:42.680 of course exceptional examples where things get much higher, or 0:14:42.760 --> 0:14:46.240 they go up the shore a little bit more. Apparently 0:14:46.320 --> 0:14:50.040 some places are more ideal for it. I saw Lake 0:14:50.080 --> 0:14:52.600 Erie pointed out in this article due to its length 0:14:52.720 --> 0:14:56.960 and particular orientation, and again there's some pretty exceptional examples. 0:14:57.000 --> 0:15:00.600 In June of twenty eleven, along the Chuckchisea coast in Alaska, 0:15:00.960 --> 0:15:04.600 ice shove piled up fifteen feet, and I've seen it 0:15:04.800 --> 0:15:07.880 record heights as high as like forty feet in some cases. 0:15:08.320 --> 0:15:11.240 So that's like a forty foot wall of ice fragments 0:15:11.400 --> 0:15:12.960 piling up along the coast. 0:15:13.280 --> 0:15:13.680 Yikes. 0:15:14.240 --> 0:15:18.880 Yeah, And Lopez's ice shove measurements here seeman keeping with 0:15:19.200 --> 0:15:22.440 the measurements I'm seeing in twenty twenty and ice shove 0:15:22.520 --> 0:15:25.800 on Lake Winnebago was, according to NBC twenty six out 0:15:25.800 --> 0:15:29.920 of Northeastern Wisconsin quote, a couple of hundred feet long 0:15:30.320 --> 0:15:34.000 and taller than the supper Club itself. What does that 0:15:34.120 --> 0:15:36.920 quote mean? I'm taking it out of context. The article 0:15:37.200 --> 0:15:41.520 had this footage of the ice shove piled up next 0:15:41.600 --> 0:15:43.720 to Jim and Linda's Lake Shore supper Club in the 0:15:43.800 --> 0:15:47.520 town of Pipe appears to be like a single floor building. 0:15:48.240 --> 0:15:50.000 But still that is a lot of ice. Like that's 0:15:50.080 --> 0:15:53.480 a huge wall of moving ice, or I mean it's 0:15:53.520 --> 0:15:56.240 no longer moving, but still it has moved up. It 0:15:56.360 --> 0:15:58.720 has advanced in a way that is concerning. 0:15:59.120 --> 0:16:01.560 The supper club is threatened they're gonna get ice in 0:16:01.600 --> 0:16:02.280 their hot dish. 0:16:05.040 --> 0:16:07.200 Oh man, wow. 0:16:07.960 --> 0:16:10.320 So I looked up a few pictures of this, and 0:16:10.440 --> 0:16:13.560 it is alarming because, yeah, you can see cases where 0:16:13.840 --> 0:16:16.920 I guess these are lakeside houses where the ice is 0:16:17.000 --> 0:16:19.240 just shoved right up against the house, like you're saying, 0:16:19.280 --> 0:16:21.840 happen to the supper club here, and in some cases 0:16:21.920 --> 0:16:25.040 shoved into the house and apparently causes damage, like you know, 0:16:25.160 --> 0:16:26.480 busts a wall or something. 0:16:26.920 --> 0:16:30.080 Yeah, yeah, so I you know, I guess it's the 0:16:30.160 --> 0:16:31.880 kind of thing where you had observed it and you 0:16:31.960 --> 0:16:35.800 knew that it can kind of occur. Suddenly you might 0:16:35.880 --> 0:16:38.560 have that in your mind when you can trying to 0:16:38.600 --> 0:16:41.360 convince the children not to play too close to the ice. Sometimes, 0:16:41.760 --> 0:16:44.720 though it also seems like a rare it's not so 0:16:44.880 --> 0:16:47.520 regular in occurrence that it really would happen all of 0:16:47.600 --> 0:16:50.720 the time. And coming back to our point earlier, there 0:16:50.760 --> 0:16:53.440 are a number of other more common things that could 0:16:53.480 --> 0:16:56.000 be dangerous about the ice and the ice at the 0:16:56.080 --> 0:16:59.200 edge of the coast. Or of course, even when the 0:16:59.240 --> 0:17:01.920 ice has melted, like the water's edge can still be dangerous, 0:17:02.000 --> 0:17:03.040 especially to a young child. 0:17:03.360 --> 0:17:05.640 Yeah, exactly, I mean there's plenty of danger just from 0:17:05.680 --> 0:17:06.080 falling in. 0:17:06.680 --> 0:17:21.920 Yeah. Now, another interesting ice related phenomena I wanted to 0:17:22.000 --> 0:17:24.800 talk about here. There's less to this, and this will 0:17:24.800 --> 0:17:27.959 be kind of quick, I guess, but I ran across 0:17:28.480 --> 0:17:31.680 this idea of ice blink. It's not so much a 0:17:31.760 --> 0:17:35.520 property of the ice itself, but rather an optical interaction. 0:17:35.840 --> 0:17:39.680 It's essentially a glare in the sky over an ice field. 0:17:40.480 --> 0:17:44.160 Though not to be confused with various other various actual 0:17:44.200 --> 0:17:47.000 forms of mirages, such as the fata morgana, which we've 0:17:47.000 --> 0:17:50.040 discussed in the show before. These are also found in 0:17:50.080 --> 0:17:53.560 the Arctic, and there's an entire chapter in Lopez's book 0:17:53.640 --> 0:17:57.200 Arctic Dreams where he talks about about this, about the 0:17:57.280 --> 0:18:01.119 northern lights and so forth. But basically, ice blink is 0:18:01.280 --> 0:18:04.879 just the bright white reflection in the clouds above an 0:18:04.920 --> 0:18:08.159 expanse of ice. So if you're at sea in the 0:18:08.280 --> 0:18:11.760 Arctic and you see ice blink in the distance and 0:18:11.880 --> 0:18:13.760 you know what you're looking at for and looking at, 0:18:13.800 --> 0:18:16.359 of course you can navigate by it, knowing that this 0:18:16.680 --> 0:18:19.600 means that there's likely a large expanse of ice in 0:18:19.720 --> 0:18:25.080 that direction. Likewise, the opposite is true with water sky. 0:18:25.359 --> 0:18:28.240 So if you're on a great expanse of ice and 0:18:28.440 --> 0:18:31.920 the overcast sky is bright with reflected light, you might 0:18:32.040 --> 0:18:35.399 see a dark patch of sky in the distance that 0:18:35.560 --> 0:18:38.760 indicates a body of open water beneath it. So in 0:18:38.840 --> 0:18:40.680 other words, it's you know, it's the presence of dark 0:18:40.760 --> 0:18:44.240 clouds over an area of open water in a region 0:18:44.320 --> 0:18:48.560 that is otherwise frozen. And this, you know, these are 0:18:48.680 --> 0:18:53.440 signs that indigenous peoples would have known about and used 0:18:53.480 --> 0:18:57.000 to navigate, and techniques that then would have been adopted 0:18:57.080 --> 0:19:00.840 by individuals exploring from other parts to the world. It 0:19:00.920 --> 0:19:03.959 reminds me of some of what we discussed in our 0:19:04.000 --> 0:19:09.560 episodes about Pacific navigation and how there are signs that 0:19:10.440 --> 0:19:13.320 the informed mind could look for in the sky that 0:19:13.359 --> 0:19:15.000 would indicate the presence of an island. 0:19:15.320 --> 0:19:17.200 Yeah, that's right. So listeners, if you haven't heard, we 0:19:17.240 --> 0:19:20.520 did a series a while back on yeah, techniques of 0:19:20.680 --> 0:19:25.560 navigation used by Pacific island peoples to make long sea 0:19:25.720 --> 0:19:29.480 voyages without modern instruments and stuff like that, and it's 0:19:29.520 --> 0:19:35.159 amazing how much information you can actually get from things 0:19:35.400 --> 0:19:41.879 like the stars, sea currents, birds and things like that 0:19:42.240 --> 0:19:46.520 that the untrained I would never understand to interpret as 0:19:46.880 --> 0:19:50.000 relevant information about where the position of an island was 0:19:50.640 --> 0:19:53.680 relative to you. But that was truly one of the 0:19:53.720 --> 0:19:56.679 most mind blowing series I think we've ever done, because 0:19:56.760 --> 0:20:00.199 it just opened my eyes to the fact that there 0:20:00.600 --> 0:20:03.960 is so much information in the world that can be 0:20:04.080 --> 0:20:07.000 exploited if you know what to look for, and to 0:20:07.119 --> 0:20:08.840 a person who doesn't know what to look for, it's 0:20:08.880 --> 0:20:12.000 completely invisible. You'd have no idea that it corresponded to 0:20:12.040 --> 0:20:14.640 any kind of navigationally relevant facts. 0:20:15.160 --> 0:20:17.320 Absolutely. Yeah, it's such a fascinating topic. 0:20:17.800 --> 0:20:19.960 And anyway, Yeah, this is another thing like that. I 0:20:20.080 --> 0:20:22.239 never would have thought of this, but this is very 0:20:22.320 --> 0:20:27.639 interesting navigating by the reflection of the surface color of 0:20:28.000 --> 0:20:30.680 a landscape over the horizon as it reflects on the 0:20:31.600 --> 0:20:32.440 clouds in the sky. 0:20:33.040 --> 0:20:35.320 Yeah, because to the untrained eye you would just think, oh, 0:20:35.440 --> 0:20:38.639 dark cloud in the distance. There's a white cloud in 0:20:38.680 --> 0:20:42.520 the distance, but yeah, to know what it means, we 0:20:42.640 --> 0:20:44.680 can give you vital information about where you're going. 0:20:45.080 --> 0:20:48.920 Now, speaking of the color of ice and of sea ice, 0:20:49.040 --> 0:20:52.320 this brings me to something I wanted to talk about today, 0:20:52.880 --> 0:20:57.600 which is the color of icebergs. I was thinking about 0:20:57.680 --> 0:21:02.159 how most icebergs, of most icebergs and sea ice and 0:21:02.720 --> 0:21:05.760 ice sheets you see are basically white in color. But 0:21:05.840 --> 0:21:11.520 occasionally I will see photos of icebergs that have streaks 0:21:11.960 --> 0:21:15.640 or whole surfaces that are other colors, maybe blue icebergs 0:21:15.680 --> 0:21:19.520 that look very beautiful and strange, and I wonder what 0:21:19.800 --> 0:21:22.399 makes the difference there, So I looked into this a 0:21:22.440 --> 0:21:26.440 little bit. Now, most icebergs are indeed white in color, 0:21:26.560 --> 0:21:29.520 but of course sometimes icebergs of other colors can be found, 0:21:30.080 --> 0:21:33.679 apparently especially coming off of Antarctica, and we can talk 0:21:33.720 --> 0:21:38.320 about reasons for that. But the white, relatively opaque surface 0:21:38.400 --> 0:21:43.679 of a common iceberg is caused by how ice accumulates, 0:21:43.920 --> 0:21:47.560 which is by adding layers of snow. In most cases, 0:21:48.200 --> 0:21:53.000 so icebergs typically begin as part of a glacier or 0:21:53.000 --> 0:21:56.880 a polar ice sheet, which eventually breaks off in pieces 0:21:57.040 --> 0:21:59.960 and floats away in the ocean. So it originally formed 0:22:00.359 --> 0:22:03.600 along with the rest of the glacier. And the way 0:22:03.680 --> 0:22:06.560 that forms is snow falls down from the sky, It 0:22:06.720 --> 0:22:10.840 piles up, it gets compressed, and if it doesn't melt seasonally, 0:22:11.160 --> 0:22:13.880 more snow falls on top of it and just keeps 0:22:14.040 --> 0:22:16.440 piling up and getting more and more compressed until it 0:22:16.560 --> 0:22:21.000 forms this solid chunk or sheet of ice. This process 0:22:21.080 --> 0:22:25.119 can become cumulative over many snowfalls, many seasons, many years, 0:22:25.200 --> 0:22:29.560 and eventually it forms this glacier, and then a piece 0:22:29.640 --> 0:22:32.119 of this glacier or ice sheet can break off and 0:22:32.200 --> 0:22:34.959 float away in the water. So what determines the difference 0:22:35.000 --> 0:22:38.600 in color, Well, when you see a white iceberg, what 0:22:38.720 --> 0:22:43.760 you're seeing there, apparently is the relatively uncompressed upper or 0:22:43.880 --> 0:22:47.960 outer layers of the snowpack that is forming the ice 0:22:48.040 --> 0:22:54.680 on top of it. That relatively uncompressed snow contains lots 0:22:54.720 --> 0:22:59.560 of little imperfections like air bubbles especially, and just lots 0:22:59.560 --> 0:23:06.400 of little reflective surfaces within the relatively low density outer layers. 0:23:06.920 --> 0:23:10.960 And these little imperfections and air bubbles and things tend 0:23:11.080 --> 0:23:15.680 to scatter light. They reflect all frequencies of light equally, 0:23:16.080 --> 0:23:18.760 And of course when you combine all colors of light, 0:23:18.880 --> 0:23:21.680 you get white light, so that light bounces off and 0:23:21.880 --> 0:23:25.520 it appears white to our eyes. But when you're making 0:23:25.560 --> 0:23:28.639 a glacier, as each layer of ice becomes more deeply 0:23:28.920 --> 0:23:33.080 buried in a glacier or iceberg, it gets pressed harder 0:23:33.160 --> 0:23:36.040