Icebergs to us, you know, we kind of grumble at them because in Newfoundland
like, we fish, and the icebergs are in the way. You're leaving to go out 200 miles
off, trying to get around those icebergs, you know, they're like a speed bump. If you run
into one like the Titanic ran into one, right? If you make your living at sea,
you take what the sea gives you. In Newfoundland, the sea has given them cod.
That was my life. I grew up as a fisherman. They over-fished it. Like in the 90s,
they shut it down. Then shrimp. Now the shrimp is gone. Then crab. And now they're cutting
the crab. I mean, the crab is almost cut in half now. As the North Atlantic
has been overfished, fishermen have turned their sights on a new bumper crop
of icebergs. There's more ice breaking off the polar cap due to climate change
so there's more icebergs coming south. It's resulted in iceberg harvesting for iceberg
water, beer, and vodka, but mostly the icebergs have brought tourists. I am
captain of this little tour company. I mean, I only started last year, I bought this
little boat. So once again, the sea's bounty is lifting up the province. People
flew to Newfoundland, you know, from Asia, from everywhere, all
over the world just for an iceberg. We're here to visit an iceberg. This is the
first time in my life. When I was a teenager, my dream is go to Greenland.
So yeah, the iceberg is come from Greenland.
There's a few reasons for why icebergs have become such a big draw in
Newfoundland. First off, it's basically the only convenient place in North
America to see them. These icebergs are at least 10,000 years old when
they break off the polar cap. And over two to three years, the Labrador Current
carries them south. It's also become easier to find them through an online
map hosted by the government and people sharing iceberg locations through social
media. Now, the polar cap is indeed melting at an unprecedented rate. Did you
see the big piece? There was a big crack in the polar cap and they were expecting
a really big piece to break off. That's what happens for us to get icebergs. But
it's actually, counter-intuitively, the colder winters that bring more
icebergs to Newfoundland because the pack ice protects it as they drift into
comparatively warmer waters. And so last year, there was over a 1,000 icebergs,
including this one, which went totally viral, but this year it's been a much
slower year. The winds are changed. Like last year, like almost every day, it was
northeasterly wind, but this year like the winds are opposite, like southwest, so
instead of pushing the ice toward land, it's pushing it off. There could be a big
impact on our business for this year. Fresh iceberg, only just caught.
I got 70 people working with me that have jobs because of icebergs. The jobs
thing is a big deal. Newfoundland has the highest
unemployment of any Canadian province, and with the decline of the fisheries,
the province has strategically invested in tourism to attract visitors to these
stunning landscapes. And millennial-age tourists now make up a sixth of all
visitors. I think there's just been a shift in the mindset of travel. It has been
fostered by Instagram and things that makes this aspiration to be in the image.
I say to people, Newfoundland is essentially the cheaper Iceland. Tourism is growing
but, you know, I can anticipate like, you know, an end to it. Once the adventurous
people see everything, will there be more people to come? There's two types of
people, right? You got people that travel and you got people that don't.
Like you've got people that live at home, content to live home, and then do their
job, and get up in the morning, go to bed in the night, and they'll never go to Newfoundland
to see an iceberg, and they'll, you know, they'll never do anything. They'll just
live their life and die.
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