In 1926, the cannery built a cold storage in Petersburg. If manufactured ice ran out, harvested icebergs were ground up and blown into the holds of the boats. The compact ice melted much more slowly and provided an excellent means of preserving the fish on the long trips to Seattle. Today, there is some speculation about harvesting glacial ice to sell for cocktail ice in large metropolitan areas. Locally, icebergs blown on shore are often broken up and saved to serve later in cold drinks.
Some folks even use glacial ice to pack into coolers because it lasts so long.
Baird Glacier to the Stikine River With Baird Glacier draining into its north end and Patterson Glacier into its south end, Thomas Bay provides a unique opportunity to see outwash plains, buried forests, and timber management areas. Patterson Glacier has retreated about a mile and a half in the past 50 years. Like Baird, Patterson has a braided outwash plain, but unlike Baird, it reveals the remains of a buried forest once covered by the glacier. Meltwater and sub-glacial water move rock flour, pebbles and larger rocks beyond the terminus to form outwash plains like these seen at Baird Glacier. Near the south end of the Stikine Icefield, LeConte Glacier is the southernmost active tidewater glacier in the northern hemisphere.