The unique ice shelves on the north coast of Ellesmere Island, such as the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf shown in this photo, have distinctive white ridges of ice and snow that are cut every few hundred metres with ribbons of turquoise melt water that collects in troughs on the ice’s surface. John England, HANDOUT PHOTO / University of Alberta

By Margaret Munro, Postmedia News
August 28, 2010 Canada is home to plenty of ice, but the ancient, undulating ice shelves on the north coast of Ellesmere Island are something special. For starters, the shelves are “beautiful landscapes,” says earth scientist John England, at the University of Alberta, who considers the “majestic” shelves in Canada’s Arctic a national treasure. They are also unique in the Northern Hemisphere and home to the oldest sea ice in the northern half of the planet, says England, noting the shelves are 3,000 to 5,500 years old. And they are disintegrating. A century ago, they covered almost 10,000 square kilometres, an area one and half times the size of Prince Edward Island. Today the shelves are a tenth that size and could soon be erased completely from Canadian maps and relegated to a footnote in the history books. “They’re really unique, intriguing aspects of our Canadian landscape,” says England. “And they are disappearing.” …

After thousands of years, Canada’s ‘majestic’ ice shelves disintegrating