Not doing a Whole lot of Snowshoeing but I did Find a Shipwreck

So summer is long gone and winter is almost over here in Cape Breton.  Usually winter seems to drag on but since we didn't have a particularly bad one, it flew by quite quick.  I think I only shoveled three times.  We did, however, have a lengthy cold spell with temperatures going into the minus teens for a few weeks.  Occasionally, we got a break from that extreme cold to enjoy a few hours of above zero temperatures only for it to freeze over again and provide us with a lovely (and dangerous) coating of ice.

So what's new in my world?  Well, I will be writing a new column for my local newspaper with the first article being published this Saturday, which also happens to be my birthday!  It's a column focusing on the past, present and future of my local community.  I have lots of ideas but I'm also hoping the people of New Waterford and area will contact me with some ideas.  So if you live in the area and have a business or event you would like to promote, I'd be glad to write about it.

Another very interesting thing happened back in November.  A monster storm caused massive damage to Dominion Beach (again).  I didn't want to see the damage but I had to know just how bad it was.  It was bad.  Debris everywhere, sand dunes flattened, the boardwalk severely damaged.  I walked the entire length of the beach that day like I always do.  It was hard walking with the debris everywhere but I slowly made my way down the beach where I found something that had washed ashore in the storm.  I later found out it was a piece of a very old ship.  The brass nails are an indication that it is quite old and the shape of the wood matches that of an old ship.  I sent some pictures off the a couple of local museums and someone should be out to look at it in the spring.  It's currently covered in ice and snow but still visible. This winter, I also spotted more seals on the beach than usual and the foxes and eagles are still around, seemingly unbothered by the changes to their beach.

So besides a sick cat and an idea for a new blog project, not much else is new.  I've doing a lot of writing and working on creative projects instead of spending time outdoors as it's too icy to be walking most of the time.  The lack of snow certainly makes it hard to do any snowshoeing! 





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Today I got to See an Ice Wall that was Created by an Ice Tsunami

I'm not usually one to follow the crowds but every once and a while, something will make the news and intrigue me enough to go check it out.  So when my dad called and asked if I would like to go for a drive to Irish Vale to see the Ice Wall, I jumped at the opportunity.

Now you are probably wondering "what is the Ice Wall".  If you live anywhere in Atlantic Canada, you probably heard about this phenomena on the evening news.  If you live anywhere else, you might have no idea what I'm talking about.

The Ice wall is basically....an ice wall.  It's a wall along the shore made up of ice that piled up.  At one point, the bay was frozen but a fluctuation in temperatures caused it to melt and break up and this, combined with some high winds and surf, pushed that ice to the shore where it piled up.  Actually it piled up to an impressive height as you can see in the pictures.

We arrived mid-afternoon expecting to see a few people there as it was a sunny, mild Sunday.  I was quite surprised to see that there was quite a lot of people.  Possibly close to a hundred or more.  Cars were lined up all along the highway.  We parked further down and found a path leading down onto the shoreline.  The well-beaten path in the snow was an indication of just how many people had gone through there in the week or so since the ice appeared.

Many of these people tere were parents with small children who were excitedly climbing the giant ice wall.  At one point dad asked me to climb to the top so he could get a picture.  I had good hiking boots on so I figured "why not, the kids are climbing up there just fine, so I can do it".  Not a chance.  While the ice looks like giant chunks of hard snow, it is in fact chunks of pure, slipper ice.  One step up was enough before I nearly fell.  I have no idea how those kids were running and jumping around without falling. 

We walked the entire length of the wall, which was more impressive in person than in the pictures I had been seeing on Facebook and Twitter all week.  Was it worth the drive?  It definitely was in my opinion.  Not only do I love a Sunday drive in the country, I love to see and experience new things I can take pictures of and write about.  If you don't get the chance to visit to ice wall this time around, apparently, it has happened before in that area.  About 20 years ago, an ice tsunami, which is what the media calls this phenomena, pushed ice on shore to form a wall just like the one that is in Irish Vale now.