Anyone who is on or near the ice of Georgian Bay this week has probably seen the Coast Guard icebreaker working to clear the shipping routes in the area. 

But getting close can be too close when it comes to the ships and what they do to the ice.

Brent Wonenberg is an experienced ice fisherman and before he ventures out onto Georgian Bay he checks the thickness of the ice with a metal bar. It's almost 12 inches thick today, or 30 centimeters, close to shore. But Wonenberg says the ice is always changing.

“It will move, it will pile on top of each other when it's thin, it will push in depending on conditions,” he says. “The wind today is onshore so it's pushing it in, making pressure cracks.”

But there were pressure cracks of a different kind today as the Canadian Coast Guard ship Samuel Risley pushed its way through the ice into Midland harbour this morning. The Coast Guard is clearing the way for the Great Lakes freighter The Frontenac.

The Coast Guard ship then headed to Owen Sound harbour but the ice there was already broken up by a freighter last week.

Brian Hall enjoys watching big ships maneuvering through the ice.

“The size and the power that would be driving the vessel, it excites me, I just enjoy watching them come in,” he says.

While it’s interesting to watch an ice breaker in action, police are reminding snowmobilers and ice fisherman that ice conditions have changed in Midland and in Owen Sound, and it might not always be obvious that the ice has been fractured.

The OPP’s Dave Hobson says the ice can be broken far from the path of the ship and the danger should not be under estimated.

“It does fracture the ice for several hundred meters in front it and to the left and to the right of it and obviously it's wide open behind it,” he says. “But people don't realize that the ice is fractured to the left and to the right even though the ice doesn't look like it’s broken.”

Wonenberg says his ice fishing days are done until the ice reforms but it will be difficult to guess how long that will take even with a forecast for extremely cold weather this week.

“I'm going to give it a couple of weeks,” he says.

While the icebreaking operation are done for now, shipping activity will continue and the Great Lakes freighter Frontenac will be back in Midland Harbour later this week. The Algorithm Rail is expected in Owen Sound some time tomorrow.