Mark Synnott at National Geographic:
Jacob Keanik scanned his binoculars over the field of ice surrounding our sailboat. He was looking for the polar bear that had been stalking us for the past 24 hours, but all he could see was an undulating carpet of blue-green pack ice that stretched to the horizon. “Winter is coming,” he murmured. Jacob had never seen Game of Thrones and was unaware of the phrase’s reference to the show’s menacing hordes of ice zombies, but to us, the threat posed by this frozen horde was equally dire. Here in remote Pasley Bay, deep in the Canadian Arctic, winter would bring a relentless tide of boat-crushing ice. If we didn’t find a way out soon, it could trap us and destroy our vessel—and perhaps us too.
It was late August, and we’d ducked into the bay to ride out a ferocious gale. For more than a week, the wind had raged, sweeping six-foot-thick chunks of frozen seawater down from the polar cap. Some were the size of picnic tables, others as big as river barges.
More here.