Icebergs like the ones depicted in this early engraving were a constant worry to the ships' captains. Bergs are huge pieces of ice which break away from the glaciers which surround Baffin Bay and Davis Strait and are carried southward by wind and current out of the Arctic. Remarkably unstable, they break apart or turn over without any warning. The engraving shows sailors taking to the ice when their ships are caught between bergs and threaten to go down. In these situations the ice pressed in against the vessels until the boards cracked and the decks buckled. If their ship was lost the seamen waited on the drifting ice floes to be picked up by another whaler
Courtesy: Picture Division, Public Archives of Canada (C-97529)
