Podcast: The Thompson Ice House

Hey everybody. It is Dylan here and I'm walking through my kitchen and I'm going to do something that I now pretty much take for granted every day. I'm going to walk up to my fridge — I'm holding a glass here — and I'm going to press a little lever and that is ice magically falling out of the fridge into my glass. and then I can put water in it. I still think it's like one of the most luxurious things in the world. But 100 years ago, getting ice was a much more complicated endeavor. Dozens of people out on a frozen pond, wielding huge saws and pickaxes and cutting these just massive blocks of ice that would be stored and stacked and shipped across the globe. That was the way that ice got into people's homes and into their cups. Sound of pickaxe swinging. Dylan Thuras: It is just like a giant ice pick. Ken Lincoln: Something gets heavier. Dylan: Yeah. More ice-cutting noises. Dylan: I'm Dylan Thuras, and this is Atlas Obscura: a celebration of the world's strange, incredible, and wondrous places. And today, we're headed to a small town in South Bristol, Maine, for an old fashioned ice harvest. Thompson's Ice House is about 90 minutes north from Portland, Maine, and it's one of the only places on the planet where people still gather every winter to take part in this particular antiquated process. And I joined in on the fun and work (it's a lot of hard work). So, Atlas Obscura on ice ... after this. Ken: What makes me feel like a kid when I'm out there? I mean actually just being on the ice, pushing the blocks and, you know, even watching the children there, you almost go back to that time. Dylan: This is Ken Lincoln. He has lived in Maine his whole life — he's maybe the most Mainery Mainer that I have ever met—and he actually was on this very ice as a kid. Ken: I've been connected to the ice house since I was probably eight or nine years old. Dylan: The ice house that Ken is talking about is called the Thompson Ice House. It was named after the family that originally owned it. Ken: I'd come up with my father and he'd work the ice. And then eventually, as I grew a little older, I moved up to the honor of working in the ice house, which is a pretty big step when you're a kid. Dylan: The ice house itself is right next to the pond, and it kind of looks like a small sort of classic barn. It's got wooden siding. It's got a little pointed roof.. And every winter, Ken Lincoln and, what appears to me to be the entire town of South Bristol, come open up the ice house, take the tools down off the walls, and celebrate this tradition that's been frozen in time since 1826. The whole town comes and just spends hours and hours cutting ice out of the pond and stacking it inside this ice house. Dylan (to Ken): Why go to the trouble of keeping something like this alive? Ken: If this went away, when anybody that had been here and done it is gone, it don't exist anymore — maybe in a video or in a book. I mean, so if you keep it going physically and keep young people coming to do it, then it will live on and live on. Dylan: The process of ice harvesting started back in the 1800s in South Bristol, Maine. But of course it goes back much, much farther, like back to 300 BC when Alexander the Great stored ice in pits so that it would be available year round. There are records on cuneiform tablets of an ice house in ancient Mesopotamia. In third century Rome, snow was sold in shops at the market. Ice and snow would be imported from the mountains of cooler climates and then stacked in pits or special buildings packed with layers of straw or sawdust, and it worked. It's a simple method, but kind of amazing. The ice will stay frozen really almost all year round. And fast forward to the 19th century in the United States, and ice had become a big business. Maine was a prime supplier. Ken: In the early 1900s, the ice industry was actually more lucrative than the lumber industry in the state of Maine. Dylan: In 1826, the first blocks of ice were cut from Thompson Pond in South Bristol, Maine. The harvest at a place like Thompson's Pond supplied ice for fishermen, grocery stores, and in people's home ice boxes. And for a time, New England ice houses supplied ice to Cuba, to the West Indies, to beyond. You know how there were sort of old-timey railroad barons like the Vanderbilts? Well, there were also ice barons. And there was one guy, Charles W. Morse, who made a fortune betting on the ice trade. He had a near monopoly on the New York City ice market, and he shipped ice from Boston all the way to Calcutta. They called him the Ice King, which is a pretty cool nickname. (Get it? Cool. It's a cool nickname.) Anyway, it was not to last. Ken: Actual refrigerators, yeah. That's what killed the ice industry right there. Dylan: This here? Ken: Yeah, we should burn it. Dylan: Ken was motioning to this tiny white mini-fridge in the corner of the Thompson Ice House Museum. Because back in the early 1900s, the ancient ancestors of that mini-fridge started moving into people's kitchens, and, bit by bit, the ice trade melted away. The Thompson Ice House stayed open a shockingly long time, but it officially closed in 1985. But back in 1987, folks in South Bristol — well, they knew they had something special. This was a piece of history in their town, and they took an interest in preserving that old ice harvesting process. So ever since then, every February, Ken has led a team out to the Thompson Pond to cut and stack ice. And, back in 2020, I went and joined them. About 900 people live in South Bristol, and it feels like near every one of them shows up. There are older folks, there's sort of people my age, there's little kids. Ken: My kids were on this pond as soon as they could walk. I mean, probably four and five years old. They enjoy it to this day. Dylan: Everyone is there to take a step back in time. Ken: What's going on right now? We're going to pull out the power saw we used to cut the bulk of the grid. Dylan: For this, we're cheating a little bit. We're not going all the way back in time. (They didn't have power saws in the 1800s.) But this thing is still essentially an antique. Ken: The original sled is early 1900s. The power on it's an old Wisconsin engine off a hay baler, so that's a little more modern. Dylan: This thing is ... kind of amazing looking. It's basically this sort of steampunk tractor, this ancient engine on it that's been run super hard. And then at the front is this gigantic four-foot-wide blade. Ken uses this to drive across the ice and score the whole pond in a kind of grid pattern. But after Ken does his thing with this gigantic saw, the rest of the job requires good old fashioned muscle power. Ken: So in here are the tools that have been around for 200 years. Dylan: I guess people aren't making new ice cutting tools anymore. Ken: No, no. We're going to need some hand saws, and then we're going to need a good pair of tongs.. The chunks that we cut out of the channel — we'll grab them, we'll actually pull them up onto the pond. Dylan: All of these tools are tools that you would recognize: it's a saw, it's a chisel. Except that they all look like they are made for giants. The saw is as tall as me;. the tongs are comically large. I look like a child when I hold them. We just cut a channel. What are we doing now? Ken: We just need to start busting ice. Dylan: In case it's not clear, cutting ice is hard. Once you break away the chunks of ice from the grid, you sort of guide them through the water using these jumbo pokers. And then, finally, they land on a ramp that will take them up and into the ice house. And that's when this whole thing gets quite interesting.... and by interesting, I mean pretty dangerous. Ken: It is dangerous in the ice house. because you have 300-pound blocks of ice coming down the ramp at you at a fairly fast speed. And so you've got to really know where you're standing, be ready to get out of the way. You're handling a very sharp tool. It takes some concentration. Dylan: You can't just let the ice blocks kind of crash into each other because they'll shatter, so what you have to do is stand at the base of the ramp with this sort of giant hook thing and grab the ice as it comes in and guide it safely to a stop. It is not a job for the faint of heart. I talked with another person from town, Donna Plummer. She works at the South Bristol Historical Society, and she says that she did not like it when her sons went and worked in the ice house. Donna Plummer: No, I didn't. Dylan: Why not? Because you were just worried about them? Donna: Yeah, it was dangerous. I mean Chuck, the son that was here, he got his leg caught between two of them when they come sliding in. Dylan: Yeah. This is what I have to look forward to. Donna: Right. Be fast. Dylan: Yeah, be fast. Donna: Be very fast. Dylan: So when I was standing there in the ice house waiting for a 300-pound chunk of ice to come shooting down this ramp, I couldn't help but think about poor Chuck's leg. Sound of ice cutting. Dylan (sawing): I don't know. I don't know how I'm going to do. I'm up. Yeah. Yeah. Oh! Holy s***! Holy . Okay. All right, yeah, I got a feel for it. Dylan (to listeners): I did eventually get a feel for it. I managed to catch a good few blocks of ice and I still had my legs intact. And so I decided to walk around the festival and meet some of the other South Bristolers who had come for the harvest. Why put in all the extra work? What's the value? Danny Dines: It's frickin' beautiful. Dylan: This is Danny Dines. He's at the festival every year. Danny: Yeah, I've been in the cities, I've been here, I've been there, you know, and no, it's beautiful. Why mess with perfect? Dylan: I heard that there's a Thompson relative here. Local Woman: Oh, Ramona! Dylan: Yeah, do you see her? Local Woman: I was just chatting with her. Yes, that's Herbert's daughter. You should go say hello. Yes, you should. Yeah. Ramona Thompson Gaudette: My dad is right up there looking down on us. Dylan: Watching Ken out there cutting the... Ramona: You know what he said to us? Dylan: What? Ramona: I could sell this property and divide it between you three, but I'd really like to have it as a museum so the kids will remember how life is harvested. Dylan: Your father made a real gift, I think. Ramona: You are a sweetheart. Dylan: Oh, you guys are sweet. It's so nice to talk to you. Ramona: You too. Dylan: Have a good rest of your day. Dylan (to listeners): Hello, hello, hello. So ... I am here with my family in Maine on the 4th of July. Hello, family. Dylan’s Wife: Hi. Dylan: And we are driving on Route 1 back to the Thompson Ice House.. And the thing is, is that every year in summer, they take all of that ice that they stacked and they turn it into ice cream. Of course, we weren't... What was that? Dylan’s Wife: Hand-cranked ice cream. Dylan: Hand-cranked ice cream. So we pull up to the Thompson Ice House, and it is a beautiful summer day. Out in front of the ice house, there's a little tent with a band playing. There are people milling about with their ice cream cones and root beer floats. And just like during the Winter Festival, it seems like pretty much the whole town is here. Male Festival Attendee: Hey! Dylan: I just wanted to say hey again. Female Festival Attendee: Hey, nice to see you. Dylan: Nice to be back for the other side of this, the summer side. Female Festival Attendee: I know, isn't this a hoot? Dylan: Do you mind if I ask what you're doing here? Ice Cream Maker: Oh, not at all. We are making some hand-cranked ice cream today. Dylan: And what are you making this ice cream out of? Ice Cream Maker: So we have a mixture that we flavor and then add into these hand-cranked containers with a little bit of the ice from the pond that we harvested this winter and some rock salt. Over the course of an hour, it'll freeze up. It's some homemade ice cream. Dylan: How long do you have to keep cranking this crank? Ice Cream Maker: With the temperatures today, about an hour. Okay. But we're already on to batch two or three. Dylan: I see. Are you going to make it the whole day through? Ice Cream Maker: Until we run out. Dylan: All right. All right. Thank you. Dylan cont. (to listeners): I want to give a special thanks to Ken Lincoln and Donald Plummer and all of the incredibly wonderful people I spent time with in South Bristol. It was such a joy to take part in the tradition. Both catching these 300-pound ice blocks that were flying at me like some kind of crazy stampeding bull and the part where I got to eat ice cream on the 4th of July. It's a really magical place Slurp noise. Dylan: That is the sound of the ice harvested in winter being turned into a root beer float in summer and pretty delicious. If you want to visit South Bristol for the annual ice harvest — which I very highly recommend, it is amazing — that usually takes place sometime in February of every year. And if you want to come back for the Ice Cream Social, that happens every July. This episode was produced by Johanna Mayer. Our podcast is a co-production of Atlas Obscura and Witness Docs. The production team includes Doug Baldinger, Kameel Stanley, Willis Ryder Arnold, Sarah Wyman, Manolo Morales, Baudelaire Ceus, Gianna Palmer, Tracy Samuleson, John DeLore. Our technical director is Casey Holford. This episode was sound designed and mixed by Chris Naka. If you want to learn more, be sure to visit atlasobscura.com. There's a link in our episode description. And our theme and end credit music is by Sam Tindall. I'm Dylan Thuris, wishing you all the wonder in the world. I will see you next time. Listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, and Amazon.

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