The Candle Ice Story Options

[Leslie_Pierce]

The Candle Ice Story

On the first day that we were walking transects, we had to walk around a deep slough for the second time. We were tired and didn’t feel like the long walk around, but we also didn’t feel like getting water in our hip waders either! So, off we went. Just about the time that we were finished sampling the transect, we heard a funny tinkling noise. We were near the edge of the large lake south of our camp, and as we turned around and looked at the lake we could tell the sound was coming from it. We ran over and saw that the lake still had a large sheet of ice floating near the center. The wind was blowing in our direction, and we could see that the sheet of ice was moving in our direction, too. We finally realized that the tinkling sound was coming from vertical “candlesticks” of ice clinking into each other as the sheet of ice moved.

Soon the ice was at the water’s edge and we watched the sheet move over a large clump of mud and peat. The ice continued forward, pushing up and over the obstacle, dropping “candles” of ice as they fell on the other side of the mud clump. We hopped on top of the brittle ice and took a short ride of almost one foot. Finally, the ice stopped moving, and the last “candle” of ice fell off of the ice edge. We picked up some of the pieces of ice and they looked like icicles about 10 inches long and 1-2 inches in diameter.

Here’s the series of pictures that I took while the ice was moving:









The whole thing may have lasted only about 5 minutes, but it was well worth walking around the slough (even ten times!) to see!

[Janet_Warburton]

Wow - that is really neat! Great pictures of the event. Thanks for sharing!

Janet

[Leslie_Pierce]

Hi Janet,

Wish you all could have been there! Brian and I had never seen it happen before and we felt pretty lucky to have witnessed it!

Leslie