Hey everybody, it is Dylan here and I'm walking through my kitchen and I'm going to do something

that I now pretty much take for granted every day.

I'm going to walk up to my fridge, I'm holding a glass here and I'm going to press a little

lever.

And that is ice, magically falling out of the fridge into my glass and then I can put

water in it.

I still think it's like one of the most luxurious things in the world.

But a hundred years ago, getting ice was a much more complicated endeavor.

Dozens of people out on a frozen pond wielding huge saws and pickaxes and cutting these

just massive walks of ice that would be stored and stacked and shipped across the globe.

That was the way that ice got into people's homes and into their cups.

It is just like a giant ice pick.

Something gets heavier.

I'm Dylan Thuras and this is Atlas Obscura, a celebration of the world's strange, incredible

and wondrous places.

This small town big story episode is produced in partnership with GoUSA TV.

And today we're headed to a small town in South Bristol, Maine for an old fashioned

ice harvest.

Thompson's Ice House is about 90 minutes north from Portland, Maine and it's one of the

only places on the planet where people still gather every winter to take part in this particular

antiquated process.

And I joined in on the fun and work, it's a lot of hard work.

...