 Newfoundland and Labrador is the best place in the world to view icebergs. They can even be viewed from shore on a warm summer’s day. Thousands of these icebergs break off from 10,000 year old glaciers along the Greenland coast and are carried south along the Labrador Current before lingering along our shores. The numbers vary from year to year and most are seen in the late spring and early summer.
Late spring and early summer is a good time to see icebergs. These icebergs are spectacular. Some years thousands float south toward the warmer waters of the Gulf Stream where they melt. Some run aground near shore. No two are alike. These bergs break off from glaciers in the far north and their mountainous majesty is unsurpassed in the northern hemisphere.
While you can see icebergs in Newfoundland and Labrador waters most years, sometimes climatic conditions in the north result in few bergs "calving" from the glaciers and drifting south. Generally, about two years after a warm winter in the Arctic, thousands of bergs drift south. Iceberg viewing was spectacular in the summer of 1991. Visitors standing on the coast near St. John's could see dozens at a time.
Incidentally, the International Ice Patrol, established after the Titanic hit a berg and sank off Newfoundland in1912, still flies daily aircraft patrols over the northwest Atlantic during iceberg season. Its headquarters is on Governor's Island, New York. |
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