'Huge chunks' of ice afloat in northern B.C. lake, as glacier retreats

Helicopter pilot Jamie Taithas seen some impressive sights in his years of flying, but this one was up there with some of the best.

Taitsays a large piece of ice recently brokeoff the toe of theLlewellynGlacier, at the south end ofAtlinLake, in B.C. He figures the piece was about a kilometre, orakilometre and a half,long.

"To have these huge chunks of ice floating in the lake it's pretty impressive," he said, from his home base in Atlin.

That large piece of ice has since broken up into smaller chunks, some of them the size of a city block or a school, he said.

'I was pretty excited'

Tait noticed the changeswhen he flew over the glacier with some German touristsa few days ago.

"It was probably two days before that when I'd been by, and the toe was still connected. So it's only happened in the last threeor fourdays," he said.

"I was explaining to [the tourists]what had gone on there, and I was pretty excited about it to see these changes first-hand is pretty fun."

Tait's been flying in the area for yearsand has been watching the LlewellynGlacier as it retreats southward.

"The story of the glacier is constantly changing, and I like to show clients the old glacier scar on the valley to show them where the ice was in the early 1900s, and to where it is today," said Tait. "It's a pretty significant difference."

He's not sure, though, why such a huge piece would now break away.

"I just fly the helicopter," he said. "I'm not a glaciologist."

Not unexpected, says glaciologist

Mauri Peltois a glaciologist.

He's based in Massachusetts, but he's been watching and studying the LlewellynGlacier for decades.

Peltohasn't seen any up-to-date satellite imagery of the area, so he can't be certain what Tait's observed.

But he suggestsit was a relatively narrow tongueof the glacier that finally broke away not unexpected, hesaid.

"The first time I was on the glacier, back in 1980, the lake at the front of the glacier was several different parts, and it was much smaller," Peltosaid. "So there's been a really large retreat along that glacier front."

Pelto said itwas only a matter of time before that narrow tongue of ice broke off in the water.

"That ice tongue is going to start to float more, and then finally that's what's going to lead to the disintegration is a combination of thinning, becoming more afloat, and then crevasses that already existed in the ice," he said.

If anything is unusual, it's the time of year, he said.

"Typically, it would happen later in the summer, after you've had a summer of melting."