The Last Iceberg

Newfoundland, July 22, 2008.


You might think Newfoundlanders would laugh at us, we tourists who traipse all over the countryside, paying big money to boat-tour operators, in hopes of glimpsing icebergs. After all, they see them every year, these megaliths of ancient ice broken off from Greenland glaciers each spring, drifting south on the Labrador current. You might expect a Newfoundlander to take them for granted.

We planned our Newfoundland trip around icebergs. The books said Twillingate was the top spot in the province for spotting them in June and early July, so we hightailed it from St. John’s to Twillingate, arriving there on the ninth, hoping that constituted early enough. We went to “The Iceberg Man’s” shop, hearing he was the best at tracking the bergs; he claimed an extraordinary intuition when it came to finding them. The woman selling the tours told us the outings that day had seen an iceberg and numerous Minke and Humpback whales. Sounded good to us.

We arrived at the dock the next morning. We were the only two booked on the tour, and, to his credit, the Iceberg Man told us that though there had been the remains of what had been a monster of an iceberg grounded in a nearby cove for the previous nine weeks, he couldn’t promise there would be anything left of it by today. He said we’d possibly see a few whales, but viewing wildlife can’t be guaranteed. However, we’d certainly enjoy the ride. We decided to take our chances. His daughter crewed for him, and was very informative, and it was indeed a lovely trip on a warm sunny day. The berg was gone, however, melted or floated away. The daughter said, smiling, “Just think, this is the first day in nine weeks the iceberg hasn’t been here…but you can still feel its presence.”

Right.

The Iceberg Man told us there was an iceberg down near Trinity, if we were going that way. But we weren’t, not for another week; we were on our way west and then north.

When we were in Rocky Harbour, we heard tell of the Trinity iceberg, again. And when we inquired St. Anthony, the northernmost town of any size on the island, whether there might be icebergs off the coast there, we were told again that the only iceberg in Newfound was near Trinity, Dunfield, to be exact. Seemed like everyone in the province knew where to find the last iceberg of 2008.

Before coming to Newfoundland, I had the notion that icebergs were parading by the coastline on the Labrador current, and that seeing them was a matter of chasing after them in small boats. I didn’t realize that they actually run aground – well, not aground aground, but that their massive underbellies get stuck on the bottoms of shallow coves, and there they rest, often for weeks. The Twillingate iceberg had been one such grounded berg, coming into the cove below the garbage dump when it was several times larger than a cruise ship. The Trinity berg, too, was grounded in the bay off Dunfield.

At the B&B in L’Anse aux Meadows, other visitors had just come from Trinity and were pretty sure the iceberg would still be there by the time we made it down there, which was to be in three days.

At the Doctor’s Inn in Eastport, Dr. Bob told us about a giant platform of an iceberg that had come into a nearby bay last year. It was like an aircraft carrier, he said, huge, flat. He described its colours when the sun hit it, how they changed with the time of day. He visited it three days in a row, and then it drifted off. He regrets not having taken a camera on any of his visits. He wished us good luck in finding our iceberg, and hoped we would see it in the sun. Like every Newfoundlander we had spoken to, he understood our quest.

We arrived in Trinity in the evening, tired after a long drive and a lengthy tour of the Matthew in Bonavista (replica of Cabot’s ship.) But I needed to see that iceberg, so we drove the few kilometers further, followed some other tourist cars, hiked over a small hump from one cove to another in the small village, and there she was. She towered like a spire over the cliffs behind her. She was shockingly white in the evening grey, and completely alien to the landscape. It was easy to understand why even the Newfoundlanders love their icebergs.

The next morning we took a gravel road that led out to a lighthouse behind the iceberg. We hiked a steep trail that led us to a meadow and cliffs overlooking the beautiful berg. We sat in the grass for three hours. As we sat, numerous minkes and three humpbacks fed in the water below us; they were there almost as long as we were. A few people came, watched for a bit, and left. Small boats carrying other sightseers came and went.

The iceberg rotated a slow 360° while we watched. She had broken free of the bottom, and was beginning to drift. She was turning and heading out to sea, south to warmer currents where she would quickly melt. It was as if she had waited for us; by the next day, she would be gone, the last iceberg of summer.

By the next day, every Newfoundlander would know it.




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