When my father was young, his parents had a small dairy farm. In rural Finland, they were still keeping the milk cool by harvesting ice from ponds and storing it for the summer in large mounds insulated by sawdust in the late fifties.
I was half expecting this to be about Val Kilmer's self titled movie Val (about his life) that's coming out soon. I love Val Kilmer, especially in Heat, but this article was really interesting as well.
"At its peak at the end of the 19th century, the U.S. ice trade employed an estimated 90,000 people. By this time, Norway had become a major competitor, exporting a million tons (910 million kg) of ice a year. And during the California gold rush, ice began to be ordered from the then Russian-controlled Alaska to keep up with demand."
Its interesting to see how technology sometimes drives away old professions, reminds me of this documentary https://vimeo.com/66507747 about the last ice man in Ecuador.
