Break up this year took forever. Not that it’s late or anything, depending on how you look at it is roughly on time or ten days to a week early. It started early, but what normally takes place over two or three days went on for a week or more.
This photo (or rather series of photos stitched together) was taken on the 10th. Arctic Bay has pretty much broken up although there is still a lot of ice together. “Normal” breakup occurs right around the 15th of July, so this would make it about 5 days early, which isn’t too bad considering that break up has been at least a week early for about three years now. But this process started back around the 4th of July, which is about 10 or 11 days early. And it just played out in slow motion.
Today there is much more water visible than ice, so it is pretty much complete. Of course the rest of the land fast ice here has about another two to three weeks left before it goes. As a local fellow pointed out to me on my first summer when I was feeling pretty pleased about the ice going… “This means winter is just around the corner.”