The Arctic Ocean is topped with a layer of frozen sea water – sea ice – that grows every winter and shrinks every summer. To study the ice in detail, researchers hop aboard an icebreaker ship that can plow through the sharp, cold ice floes without being damaged.

But two years ago, the Canadian icebreaker Amundsen was called off its scientific mission to assist the Canadian coast guard with search and rescue operations in the North Atlantic Ocean. In May and June of 2017, an unprecedented amount of sea ice was choking the normally open waters around Newfoundland. The thick ice trapped many unsuspecting ships and sunk some boats when the ice punctured their hulls.

In this episode, University of Manitoba sea ice expert David Babb recounts the 2017 rescue operations the Amundsen took part in. David discusses what it’s like to live and work on an icebreaker and describes the unusual conditions that allowed a record amount of Arctic sea ice to flow south and wreak havoc on ships in the North Atlantic that year.