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Ilulissat would not have been lonely .
As well as the seals and gulls and
jellyfish , there would have been
thousands of other icebergs sailing
down the channel to the Labrador
Current . Some would have been
bigger , some smaller . All of them
would have been sturdy , creaking ,
moving mountains .
A dAngeRous jouRnEy
The journey to the Atlantic Ocean is
treacherous , however , and most
Greenlandic icebergs run aground
or melt by the time they make it to
Ktaqmkuk ( Newfoundland ). Only four
per cent of the icebergs born in 1909
would have arrived in the shipping
lanes of the North Atlantic . But Ilulissat
was one of them .
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It travelled slowly , forging ahead
through storms , squalls and lashing rain .
It was in 1912 , almost 370 miles south of
Canada , when it found itself in curiously
becalmed waters . It pressed on . It had
said goodbye to many of its travel
companions – the seals , the gulls , the
jellyfish – but a stalwart few remained .
A handful of krill nibbled the strands
of algae on Ilulissat ’ s sunken sides
and every so often an Atlantic scup or
haddock would skitter past and bubble
a greeting .
The fatEful nigHt
It was almost midnight when the horn
sounded . Alarm bells would have filled
the air , torch lights cutting through
the night . A giant shadow of human
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construction emerged from the darkness and 30 seconds later Ilulissat was shaken with the impact of the Titanic . The sound of ice ripping metal can sometimes sound like a scream .
The fate of the ship and its passengers is well known . The final days of Ilulissat are not so well documented . On 20th April 1912 , a man called Stephen Rehorek photographed it from aboard the MS Bremen . Then Ilulissat floated out of human history . It carried on into the Gulf Stream , its towering walls would have melted in the warmer waters . Within weeks , the great Ilulissat would have disappeared into the ever rolling waves of the ocean .
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Words : Adam Ferner . Illustration : Kaley McKean |
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OceAn eXploRer
It took over two years for the iceberg
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to travel 40 miles to the open ocean . |
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The warm waters of the Gulf Stream |
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coupled with the constant wear of |
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the sea and weather had reduced it |
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to half its original size – but this did |
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nothing to diminish its grandeur or |
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determination . Ilulissat was an ancient |
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being , thousands of years old . It was |
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intent on exploring as much of the |
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wider world as possible . |
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