Unruly Icebergs: Doing Business and Fighting Ice in the North Atlantic Ocean

FAIN: FEL-295209-24

Mark Carey
University of Oregon (Eugene, OR 97403-5219)

Research and writing leading to a book exploring the history of “Iceberg Alley,” an economically important area of the North Atlantic Ocean where the icebergs that drift south from the arctic have become central to several international industries. 

Every year, hundreds of Arctic icebergs drift down to the Grand Banks of Newfoundland and sail right into the profit margins of ExxonMobil and Chevron. This is Iceberg Alley, where governments and corporations have sought for centuries to tame what they see as unruly icebergs. The book that this NEH fellowship will support tells the history of doing business in Iceberg Alley. It traces efforts to control and predict icebergs, while illuminating the images, storylines, and narratives that turned ice into an enemy. Many businesses have worked at sea and with ice--from the first transatlantic telegraph that was crushed by an iceberg, to the oil companies that tow bergs away from their rigs, to the beverage companies that now tap icebergs to make beer and vodka. The arc of the narrative runs from iceberg avoidance, to surveillance, to intervention, to consumption. The book advances the concept of "unruly environments" by incorporating the blue humanities, cryopolitics, and ice humanities.