Ice cutting is a

winter Winter is the coldest season of the year in polar and temperate 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. Different cultur ...

task of collecting surface

ice Ice is water frozen into a solid state, typically forming at or below temperatures of 0 degrees Celsius or Depending on the presence of impurities such as particles of soil or bubbles of air, it can appear transparent or a more or less opaqu ...

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 The term refrigeration refers to the process of removing heat from an enclosed space or substance for the purpose of lowering the temperature.International Dictionary of Refrigeration, http://dictionary.iifiir.org/search.phpASHRAE Terminology, ht ...

and

air conditioning Air conditioning, often abbreviated as A/C or AC, is the process of removing heat from an enclosed space to achieve a more comfortable interior environment (sometimes referred to as 'comfort cooling') and in some cases also strictly controlling ...

technology. 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 m ...

s and as a winter occupation by

icemen Iceman, The Iceman, Ice Man, or Ice Men may refer to: People * The Iceman (nickname), a list of people with the nickname * Ice Men or Three Ice Men, alternative names for the Ice Saints * The Iceman, comedian and performance artist Film and tel ...

. 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 box An icebox (also called a cold closet) is a compact non-mechanical refrigerator which was a common early-twentieth-century kitchen appliance before the development of safely powered refrigeration devices. Before the development of electric refrig ...

es. A large ice trade existed in the 19th and early 20th centuries, until mechanical refrigeration displaced it. 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, or chain with a hard toothed edge. It is used to cut through material, very often wood, though sometimes metal or stone. The cut is made by placing the toothed edge against the material and mov ...

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 draught animals or on occasion by humans, used for transporting goods, commodities, agricultural materials, supplies and sometimes people. Wagons are immediately distinguished from ...

back to the ice house. Because

snow Snow comprises 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 throughout ...

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 into ...

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; Sámi languages: /. ( ) is a subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. In English usage, ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and Swe ...

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

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the ...

by the mid century became a major exporter to

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

, the Mediterranean, and as far away as Kingdom of Kongo,

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...

and New York. Coastal

Telemark Telemark is a traditional region, a former county, and a current electoral district in southern Norway. In 2020, Telemark merged with the former county of Vestfold to form the county of Vestfold og Telemark. Telemark borders the traditional ...

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 Viken county, Norway. It is part of the traditional region of Follo. The administrative centre of the municipality is Nesoddtangen. The parish of ''Næsodden'' was established as a municipality on 1 ...

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. However, 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 is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

with

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

as a key market. In the 1880s,

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

had over 1500 ice delivery wagons and Americans consumed over 5 million tons of ice annually. Ice cutting is still in use today for ice and

snow sculpture Snow sculpture or snow art is a sculpture form comparable to sand sculpture or ice sculpture in that most of it is now practiced outdoors, and often in full view of spectators, thus giving it kinship to performance art in the eyes of some. The ...

events. A

swing saw Swing or swinging may refer to: Apparatus * Swing (seat), a hanging seat that swings back and forth * Pendulum, an object that swings * Russian swing, a swing-like circus apparatus * Sex swing, a type of harness for sexual intercourse * Swing ...

is used to get ice out of a river for the Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival 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, russian: Сунгари ''Sungari'') is one of the primary rivers of China, and the longest tributary of the Amur. It flows about from the Changbai Mountains on the China–North Korea bo ...

, China. Many ice sculptures are made from the ice harvested this way. In some countries at high

latitude In geography, latitude is a 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 the south pole to 90° at the north pol ...

s, even ice hotels 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 1795-1895. 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 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

See also

References

External links