An ice bridge is a frozen natural structure formed over seas, bays, rivers or lake surfaces. They facilitate migration of animals or people over a water body that was previously uncrossable by terrestrial animals, including humans. The most significant ice bridges are formed by glaciation, spanning distances of many miles over sometimes relatively deep water bodies.
An example of such a major ice bridge was that connecting the island of Öland with mainland Sweden approximately 9000 BC. This bridge reached its maximum utility when the glacier was in retreat forming a low lying frozen bridge. The Öland ice bridge allowed the first human migration to the island of Öland, which is most readily documented by archaeological studies of the Alby People.
In Jules Verne's 1873 novel The Fur Country, a group of fur trappers establishes a fort on what they think is stable ground, only to find later on that is merely an iceberg temporarily attached by an ice bridge to the mainland.
Famous quotes containing the words ice and/or bridge:
“Every incident connected with the breaking up of the rivers and ponds and the settling of the weather is particularly interesting to us who live in a climate of so great extremes. When the warmer days come, they who dwell near the river hear the ice crack at night with a startling whoop as loud as artillery, as if its icy fetters were rent from end to end, and within a few days see it rapidly going out. So the alligator comes out of the mud with quakings of the earth.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Home! Yes! she would see Trafalgar Square, again; and Nelson on his plinth; and Chelsea Bridge as it dissolved into the Thames at twilight ... and St. Paul’s, the single Amazon breast of her beloved native city.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)