Ice cutting is a

winter Winter is the coldest and darkest season of the year in temperate and polar climates. It occurs after autumn and before spring. The tilt of Earth's axis causes seasons; winter occurs when a hemisphere is oriented away from the Sun. Dif ...

task of collecting surface

ice Ice is water that is frozen into a solid state, typically forming at or below temperatures of 0 ° C, 32 ° F, or 273.15 K. It occurs naturally on Earth, on other planets, in Oort cloud objects, and as interstellar ice. As a naturally oc ...

from lakes and rivers for storage in ice houses and use or sale as a cooling method. Rare today, it was common (see ice trade) before the era of widespread mechanical

refrigeration Refrigeration is any of various types of cooling of a space, substance, or system to lower and/or maintain its temperature below the ambient one (while the removed heat is ejected to a place of higher temperature).IIR International Dictionary of ...

and

air conditioning Air conditioning, often abbreviated as A/C (US) or air con (UK), is the process of removing heat from an enclosed space to achieve a more comfortable interior temperature, and in some cases, also controlling the humidity of internal air. Air c ...

technology.

History

The work was done as a winter chore by many

farmer A farmer is a person engaged in agriculture, raising living organisms for food or raw materials. The term usually applies to people who do some combination of raising field crops, orchards, vineyards, poultry, or other livestock. A farmer ...

s and as a winter occupation by icemen. Kept insulated, the ice was preserved for cold food storage during warm weather, either on the farm or for delivery to residential and commercial customers with ice boxes. A large ice trade existed in the 19th and early 20th centuries, until mechanical refrigeration displaced it. Due to its harvesting and trade, ice was considered a "crop". Ice harvesting generally involved waiting until approximately a foot of ice had built up on the water surface in the winter. The ice would then be cut with either a handsaw or a powered

saw A saw is a tool consisting of a tough blade, Wire saw, wire, or Chainsaw, chain with a hard toothed edge used to cut through material. Various terms are used to describe toothed and abrasive saws. Saws began as serrated materials, and when man ...

blade into long continuous strips and then cut into large individual blocks for transport by

wagon A wagon (or waggon) is a heavy four-wheeled vehicle pulled by Working animal#Draft animals, draft animals or on occasion by humans, used for transporting goods, commodities, agricultural materials, supplies and sometimes people. Wagons are i ...

back to the ice house. Because

snow Snow consists of individual ice crystals that grow while suspended in the atmosphere—usually within clouds—and then fall, accumulating on the ground where they undergo further changes. It consists of frozen crystalline water througho ...

on top of the ice slows freezing, it could be scraped off and piled in

windrow A windrow is a row of cut (mown) hay or small grain crop. It is allowed to dry before being baled, combined, or rolled. For hay, the windrow is often formed by a hay rake, which rakes hay that has been cut by a mowing machine or by scythe ...

s. Alternatively, if the temperature is cold enough, a

y surface could be flooded to produce a thicker layer of ice. A large operation would have a crew of 75 and cut 1500 tons daily. Ice cutting was a considerable export industry for northern countries in

Scandinavia Scandinavia is a subregion#Europe, subregion of northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. It can sometimes also ...

and

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

during the 19th century. It started in the United States around 1800, and spread to Scandinavia around 1820; by the mid century

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

had become a major exporter to

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

, the Mediterranean, and as far away as

Kingdom of Kongo The Kingdom of Kongo ( or ''Wene wa Kongo;'' ) was a kingdom in Central Africa. It was located in present-day northern Angola, the western portion of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, southern Gabon and the Republic of the Congo. At its gre ...

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

and

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

. Coastal

Telemark Telemark () is a Counties of Norway, county and a current electoral district in Norway. Telemark borders the counties of Vestfold, Buskerud, Vestland, Rogaland and Agder. In 2020, Telemark merged with the county of Vestfold to form the county o ...

had 1,300 workers exporting 125,000 tons in 1895–96, while the Oslo Fjord was the main European export region with

Nesodden Nesodden is a municipality in Akershus in Akershus county, Norway. It is part of the Greater Oslo Region and many residents of the peninsula Nesodden commute to work in Oslo. It is part of the traditional region of Follo. The administrative ...

municipality alone employing 1,000 men and exporting 95,000 tons in 1900, at a time when Norway's combined ice export at 500,000 tons stood as the world's largest. Domestic production and sales were the largest single market source for ice in America and Europe. From the 1850s onwards ice cutting took on large-scale industrial proportions in

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

with

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

as a key market. In the 1880s,

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

had over 1500 ice delivery wagons and Americans consumed over 5 million tons of ice annually.

Ice Sculpture

Ice cutting is still in use today for

ice sculpture Ice sculpture is a form of sculpture that uses ice as the raw material. Sculptures from ice can be abstract or realistic and can be functional or purely decorative. Ice sculptures are generally associated with special or extravagant events becaus ...

and snow sculpture events. A swing saw is used to get ice out of a river for the

Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival The Harbin International Ice and Snow festival () is an annual winter festival that takes place in Harbin, Heilongjiang, China, and is now the largest ice and snow festival in the world. The festival includes the popular attraction Ice and Snow ...

each year. A swing saw is also used to cut ice out from the frozen surface of the

Songhua River The Songhua or Sunghwa River (also Haixi or Xingal, ''Sungari'') is one of the primary rivers of China, and the longest tributary of the Amur. It flows about from Changbai Mountains on the China–North Korea border through China's northe ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

. Many

s are made from the ice harvested this way. In some countries at high

latitude In geography, latitude is a geographic coordinate system, geographic coordinate that specifies the north-south position of a point on the surface of the Earth or another celestial body. Latitude is given as an angle that ranges from −90° at t ...

s, even

ice hotel An ice hotel is a temporary hotel made up of snow and sculpted blocks of ice. Ice hotels, dependent on sub-freezing temperatures, are constructed from ice and snow and typically have to be rebuilt every year. Ice hotels exist in several countri ...

s and

ice palace An ice palace or ice castle is a castle-like structure made of blocks of ice. These blocks are usually harvested from nearby rivers or lakes when they become frozen in winter. The first known ice palace (or, rather, '' ice house'', ледяной ...

s are made.

References

External links

The Ice Industry
from 1795 to 1895. One hundred years of American commerce, edited by Chauncey Mitchell Depew
Maine Ice Industry"> Maine Ice Industry
an annual report of the Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics for the State, by the Maine Bureau of Industrial and Labor Statistics *
The Ice Crop: How to Harvest, Store, Ship and Use Ice
' (1893) in th
Science History Institute Digital Collections
*
Use Your Car for Ice-Cutting This Winter
',

Popular Science Popular science (also called pop-science or popsci) is an interpretation of science intended for a general audience. While science journalism focuses on recent scientific developments, popular science is more broad ranging. It may be written ...

monthly, February 1919, page 34.
KK.org Amish Homebuilt gas powered ice cutter to make ice for non-electric iceboxblueflower.tripod.com Homebuilt gas powered ice cutterHMdb.org THE HISTORICAL MARKER DATABASE, Ice Harvesting
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ice Cutting Obsolete occupations Water ice Ice trade Articles containing video clips

History

Ice Sculpture

See also

References

External links