On the Rocks

James Tuohy, 2025 expedition member on his first visit to the Arctic recalls, "One of the moments I personally find myself coming back to most often from the Arctic was when we were moving back and forth through ice-strewn waters in the small aluminium boat, helping guide us safely through the shifting maze of ice bergs and floes. The priority was simple: don’t hole the boat. Even a seemingly small contact with the wrong piece of ice could have been dangerous for all on board, so every movement required focus, reading the water, anticipating drift, judging distances that constantly changed".

James continues "At some point during one of these runs, I broke off a piece of ice from a passing berg. Back on the shore, I chipped at it and started eating it and later used it with a drink that evening".

When James held the ice in his hand he noted "What struck me wasn’t just the novelty, but the realisation of what I was holding. This ice had likely formed hundreds of years ago, long before industrialisation, before pollution, before any of the modern world existed. The water released from it was probably the purest I’ve ever drunk, it was clean, crisp, and tasted divine".

"That evening, sitting by the fire", James describes "I enjoyed my energy drink 'on the rocks' made from that same ice. I remembered thinking this would cost a fortune in a bar in the developed world where someone would have gladly monetised the ice.  It sounds like a throwaway detail, but it wasn’t. There was something grounding about it, there was a contrast between a modern setting and something ancient and untouched".

James concludes "The Arctic does that. It strips things back. You realise how small you are, but also how lucky you are to experience something so raw and quite literally unfiltered."

Glacier ice from Tunabreen - Image ©Mike Haynes