icing 1

TOWN OF ALEXANDRIA

ICING ON THE ST. LAWRENCE RIVER

Photo from the Nellie Taylor collection, taken by Charles Grenell.

By January, in those colder years of yore (c1910), the River had frozen thick enough to start harvesting ice. The cakes needed to be at least 18 inches thick, but by the time the cold thickened the ice to 28 inches, it was considered too heavy. Here the work gang has posed for a picture, their pike poles in their hands. They used the sharp hook at the end of the pike pole, as well as the point, to guide the ice cakes from the open hole into the canal, and then, with a man on each side of the canal, they used their pike poles to push the wet cakes onto the bobs while the loader, with tongs or an ice hook, placed them. It was cold and heavy work. The man just back of the slide is holding a spud, which spudded the partially cut cakes from the edge of the ice hole.

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Nan Dixon

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