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by Tod Maffin
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Imagine building an aircraft carrier not from steel or aluminum, but out of ice. Not metaphorical Canadian toughness, not “cool under pressure” ice, but actual frozen water mixed with sawdust. It sounds like the fever dream of someone who fell asleep watching the Weather Network and woke up with a blueprint in their head.
And yet, during the Second World War, that’s exactly what the Allies tried to do — in Canada, no less.
Project Habakkuk
I know. Not the most intuitive name, but fitting in its biblical oddity.
The idea was to build an aircraft carrier the size of several CFL stadiums stitched together out of pykrete, a new material made from ice reinforced with wood pulp. Stronger than ice, bulletproof, and slow to melt. So promising, it made Winston Churchill practically giddy.
T O D B I T
Pykrete was first demonstrated to Allied leaders when Mountbatten fired a handgun into a block of it during a meeting in Quebec City in 1943. The bullet ricocheted across the room and nearly hit an admiral.
But why build an ice ship in the middle of a global war?
Because the Atlantic Ocean had a problem.
German U-boats were sinking Allied convoys like it was a summer camp canoe race, and aircraft carriers couldn’t stretch far enough to cover the mid-ocean gap.
Enter the floating island idea — a ship made from frozen water, stationed in the middle of the ocean, launching planes and protecting convoys.
Enter Canada, Stage Left
The prototype was built at Patricia Lake in Jasper National Park, Alberta. Not exactly the first place you’d expect to find a secret Allied military experiment, but it had what they needed: cold, isolation, and lots of trees to turn into sawdust.
Canadian scientists fine-tuned the formula for pykrete, while conscientious objectors (Mennonites and other pacifists, mostly) did the backbreaking labour under RCMP guard, not knowing they were helping create a weaponized iceberg.
And it worked. Sort of. The 1,000-ton prototype floated. It held together. It didn’t melt until nearly a year later. With refrigeration pipes running through it, it could maintain its structure even as temperatures warmed. For something made of ice and lumber, it was more durable than half the bridges in Montreal.
T O D B I T
A full Habakkuk ship would have required as much wood pulp as Canada produced in a month.
A Ship No Longer Needed
But in the end, it never became more than a prototype. Not because it wasn’t brilliant — it was. But because the war moved on. Technology caught up. Long-range aircraft filled the air gap. U-boat losses mounted.
The urgency that gave birth to Habakkuk disappeared, and the sheer logistics of building a full-size version, requiring tens of thousands of tons of wood pulp and steel (not to mention the manpower) became unjustifiable.
The project was shelved, the prototype left to sink quietly into the lake, and for decades, nobody really talked about it.
A Wartime Muse
And yet, the story didn’t end there. Habakkuk influenced Arctic engineering, inspired oil companies to build artificial ice islands in the Beaufort Sea, and helped set the groundwork for serious study of frozen materials in construction.
Engineers learned things from that pykrete prototype that still show up in ice road design and cold-climate construction today.
Habakkuk is a reminder that ingenuity doesn’t always come wrapped in medals or headlines. Sometimes, it comes disguised as a floating wooden ice box on a frozen lake, built by people who never wanted to fight, but still found a way to serve.
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Trivia
Patricia Lake sits near which major geographical feature in Jasper National Park?
The Weekly Poll
If a modern version of Habakkuk were proposed today, how would you feel?
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What You Missed This Week
There’s Still Good News Out There 💗
Montreal’s Tri-Cycle bike shop is helping people experiencing homelessness or housing instability switch gears and find work.
A 69-year-old Ontarian has spent the past 11 months biking 30,000 km across 25 countries, raising more than $50,000 for the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in honour of his late wife
Don’t stop the music: A new study found that people who listen to music daily have a 40% lower risk of developing dementia compared with those who listen only occasionally or not at all.
From trash to splash: Toronto’s Peter Street Basin is now swimmable thanks to U of T students and volunteers who cleaned out garbage and decades of debris.
Moving North 🚚
Duck, duck, move: The world’s first Rubber Duck Museum has officially moved from the U.S. to Metro Vancouver, relocating due to rising rent, tariff uncertainty, and declining cross-border traffic.
Phillips Distilling Company is moving production of its Sour Puss liqueur from Minnesota to Montreal after several provinces pulled U.S.-made alcohol, a move that aligns with the drink’s overwhelmingly Canadian market.
Alberta’s Deep Sky is now home to a U.S. carbon-capture facility after CarbonCapture Inc. abandoned its planned Arizona site due to unstable U.S. incentives and politics.
Wild Things 🦫
Living her best life: A seven-month-old mini horse named Nugget has fully recovered and is already spreading joy, completing her first visit as a therapy animal with seniors, months after surviving a near-fatal dog attack and being rescued by the Help Alberta Wildies Society.
Barrie Police have welcomed a two-year-old search-and-rescue lab trained to locate missing people, named Poppy, in honour of Canadian veterans and purchased from the Canadian Veteran Service Dog Unit, which provides service dogs to veterans and first responders.
His friends are never going to believe him: A raccoon was found passed out in a liquor store bathroom after raiding the spirits section, but after sobering up, it was safely released back into the wild.
A new study suggests urban raccoons are slowly becoming domesticated, adapting to city life and human interaction, though experts remind us that they may not become house pets anytime soon as domestication can take about 15,000 to 30,000 years.
Third time’s the chirp: Calgary has been recertified as a “bird friendly city” for the third time, the first Canadian city to reach that milestone, recognizing its continued efforts to protect local and migratory birds and promote safe urban co-existence.
The Sorry Files 🤦
Clause and effect: Brantford police say being a Grinch isn’t a crime after anti-Santa signs like “Santa is fake” appeared along the city’s parade route, prompting 911 calls and a request to take them down.
Meanwhile in Canada: North Vancouver police say a “modified hockey stick” was used in an alleged spree of business window smashings, landing one man in custody.
Rare misunderstanding: An American passenger went viral for claiming Air Canada served her expired beef, but the airline clarified she misread the date.
Across Canada 📍
The 355-year-old Hudson’s Bay Company Royal Charter, one of Canada’s foundational documents, sold for $18 million to the Weston family and David Thomson, and will now be shared with museums and archives.
Declare a national emergency: Drug-resistant “super lice” that no longer respond to standard treatments are on the rise, creating challenges for families across Canada.
Federal politicians in Ottawa are beginning to weigh their response as the Parti Québécois’s polling strength raises the possibility of a Quebec sovereignty referendum.
Justin Trudeau and Katy Perry went Instagram-official, posting a pic by a Christmas tree with former Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida and his wife, Yuko Kishida.
A small gift that carries all year.
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Canada’s Market This Week
Royal Bank | |
TD Bank | |
Enbridge | |
ScotiaBank | |
Bank of Montreal | |
CP Rail | |
Shopify | |
Canadian Tire | |
Loblaws | |
Tim Hortons (RBI) | |
Dollarama | |
Rogers |
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