Water one could walk on

Steve Cartwright

Rockland Harbor froze all the way out to the breakwater at Jameson Point during February's frigid weather, and lobstermen could walk to their boats. Most boats stayed on their moorings, but the island ferries plowed through the ice-bound harbor, and a Coast Guard icebreaker also cleared channels.

Local historian Bert Snow, who comes from a shipbuilding family, said he could remember Penobscot Bay freezing all the way to Vinalhaven in the winter of 1933-34. He has a photo of his family posing by a buoy after they hiked to Spear's Ledge beyond the breakwater. A couple of motorcycles are visible in the photo as well.

"During World War II, in the winter of '42-'43, it was terrifically cold, 20 degrees below zero for two to three weeks," Snow said. "All the shipyards had to shut down, it was too cold to work."

Snow cited an early account reporting that in 1833, the St. George River froze hard all the way out to the islands off Port Clyde. And one old leather-bound notebook from Waldoboro says that during "the coldest winter ever known here, 1903-1904, [the bay] froze out to Monhegan."