In April 2017, the small fishing town of Ferryland on Newfoundland's Avalon Peninsula woke up to a new neighbour: an iceberg estimated at about 150 ft (46 m) tall, grounded just offshore and towering over the houses along the coast. Within days, photographs of the giant were shared around the world, and hundreds of people drove out to see it.
The Ferryland iceberg of 2017
The berg ran aground in shallow water close to shore, about half a mile from the home of local crab fisherman Charlie Dunne, as he told NPR. "This is I would say certainly the highest iceberg that we've ever seen," said Maxine Dunne, who runs a bed and breakfast in the town. Ferryland's mayor, Adrian Kavanagh, told the Canadian Press it was "the biggest one I [have] ever seen around here", and noted that it sat so close that people could get a good photograph of it.
Viral headlines compared it with the iceberg that sank the Titanic in 1912. Its exact height was hard to measure, and estimates of around 150 ft were widely reported.
Iceberg Alley: where Newfoundland's icebergs come from
Ferryland lies on Iceberg Alley, the stretch of ocean running from the coast of Labrador to the southeast coast of Newfoundland. About 90 percent of the icebergs seen there have calved from the glaciers of western Greenland, and the rest from Arctic Canada. The ice itself is ancient, around 10,000 years old, compressed from snow that fell on Arctic glaciers long before the ice broke away and drifted south.
2017 was an exceptional year. By 20 April, Canadian ice forecasters had already counted about 600 icebergs in the shipping lanes off Newfoundland, against 687 for the whole of the previous season and 1,165 the season before. Scott Weese, a senior ice forecaster with the Meteorological Service of Canada, told NPR that bergs classed as "large" stand roughly 150 to 246 ft above the water.
How much of an iceberg is underwater?
Only about 10 percent of an iceberg shows above the surface; the other 90 percent lies below. That is why a berg like Ferryland's runs aground well before it reaches the beach, and why fishing boats keep their distance. According to NOAA, ice counts as an iceberg when it rises more than 16 ft above sea level. Smaller pieces are called bergy bits (3 to 16 ft) and growlers (under 3 ft, about the size of a truck or a grand piano).
Ferryland and the Colony of Avalon
Ferryland is a town of about 370 people, but it has one of the oldest European settlement stories in North America. In 1620 the land was granted to George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore, and settlers under Edward Wynne founded the Colony of Avalon here in 1621. Archaeologists have been excavating the colony since the late 1980s, and the site has been a National Historic Site of Canada since 1953. An iceberg visit pairs easily with a tour of the dig.
Iceberg viewing in Newfoundland: when and where
Icebergs pass Newfoundland and Labrador from spring into early summer. April and May bring the most bergs, but sea ice can hold them offshore, so late May and early June are usually the best time to look. The official iceberg viewing guide lists favourite spots from north to south, including St. Anthony, Twillingate, Fogo Island, Bonavista, Cape Spear near St. John's and Witless Bay. Boat tours often combine icebergs with whales and seabirds, and IcebergFinder maps recent sightings.
Keep a safe distance on the water: the province advises staying back at least the length of the iceberg or twice its height, whichever is greater, because falling ice and sudden rolls create large waves.
For more ice, see David Burdeny’s symmetrical Antarctic iceberg photograph and our Svalbard glacier comparison photographs.
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