This camp can stay cool even if the power goes out

ABOVE: Nate Lord chops out a block of ice at Rockywold Deephaven Camps on Thursday. Robert F. Bukaty / AP

Ice chips fly as Nate Lord chops out a block at Rockywold Deephaven Camps, Thursday, June 20, 2024, in Holderness, N.H. Ice harvested from Squam Lake during the winter is insulated with sawdust in an ice house. It is used for refrigeration in ice boxes at each guest cabin throughout the summer. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty) Robert F. Bukaty

On the hottest day of the young summer season, Nate Lord uses an ice pick to break a block of ice before delivering it to a guest cabin at Rockywold Deephaven Camps, Thursday, June 20, 2024, in Holderness, N.H. Ice harvested from Squam Lake during the winter is used for refrigeration at each cabin throughout the summer. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty) Robert F. Bukaty

LEFT: Blocks of winter ice keep beverages cold in an old ice box.

Will McLane loads a block of ice onto a wheelbarrow at Rockywold Deephaven Camps, Thursday, June 20, 2024, in Holderness, N.H. Ice harvested from the lake in winter is used to refrigerate guest's ice boxes throughout the summer season. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty) Robert F. Bukaty

Travis Miller drops a block of ice from one of two ice houses at Rockywold Deephaven Camps, Thursday, June 20, 2024, in Holderness, N.H. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty) Robert F. Bukaty

FAR LEFT: Javier Rodriguez rushes to deliver ice to guest cabins on the hottest day of the season.

Nate Lord hauls out a block of ice at Rockywold Deephaven Camps, Thursday, June 20, 2024, in Holderness, N.H. Ice harvested from Squam Lake during the winter is insulated with sawdust in an ice house. It is used for refrigeration in ice boxes at each guest cabin throughout the summer. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty) Robert F. Bukaty

A block of ice is hauled up a the loading ramp at Rockywold Deephaven Camps, Thursday, June 20, 2024, in Holderness, N.H. Sawdust used to insulated the ice will be washed off before it is delivered to guest cabins. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty) Robert F. Bukaty

By DAVID BROOKS

Monitor staff

Published: 06-21-2024 1:36 PM

Modified: 06-21-2024 3:35 PM

Amid all the ways people in New Hampshire have been coping with this week’s heat dome, only one would be familiar to our distant ancestors.

“This tradition hasn’t changed much in 125 years!” wrote Natalie Ward, general manager for Rockywold-Deephaven Camps in Holderness, which has been operating since 1897.

In the middle of every winter the camp sponsors an ice-harvesting event that draws “ice wranglers” from all over. Blocks of ice, roughly 12 inches by 15 inches by 19 inches and weighing around 120 pounds, are cut out of Eastman Cove on Squam Lake. The harvest of around 3,500 blocks of frozen water are taken to the camps’ two ice houses, where they’re packed in sawdust as insulation.

Every morning once the camp opens blocks are taken out, cleaned of sawdust and carted by wheelbarrow to occupied cabins and rooms. There, each block is lifted with tongs and placed in the upper compartment of an “ice box,” which is still the name for refrigerators in parts of the country. During the day, the cold sinks down into the insulated food compartment below while water from the melting ice is collected in a pan. The next day the ice is replaced.

Not efficient, but a big hit with customers.

Before refrigeration, this was the only way to cool things. Harvesting ice from New England ponds and shipping it around the world was big business for decades until electricity and refrigerators became widespread.

The tradition faces a big problem: Climate change.

Warming, erratic winters are making it harder to depend on enough ice forming, even in sheltered bays. Muster Field Farm Museum in North Sutton has long had an annual ice harvest (they use the blocks to make ice cream) but it was canceled this year because their ice never got thick enough to be safely cut.

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