WATCH: Ice breaker clears a path to Toronto Island

WATCH: Sean Mallen takes a ride aboard the William Lyon Mackenzie icebreaker to get a sense of the effect of the extreme cold on the harbour.

TORONTO – A ride aboard Toronto’s urban icebreaker is noisy, bumpy and cold—the harbour frozen more solidly than anyone has seen in years.  The Toronto Fire Department’s William Lyon Mackenzie is the only ship plying the waters these days, with the island ferry having been confined to dock last week due to heavy ice conditions.

“Three or four years ago the harbour was ice free, but the last two winters have been incredible,” said Capt. David Nickerson as he guided the ship through ice that loudly pounded against the reinforced steel hull.

He said they started breaking ice earlier last year but this year’s deep freeze has made the job tougher.  This season the work did not start until January, but the bone chilling temperatures of February have made conditions more extreme.

WATCH: Lake Ontario is so frozen that the Toronto Island ferry is stuck in port Thursday morning – and Global’s Sean Mallen is on the icebreaker that’s cracking a path.

“The month of February has been monumental. We have seen 18 inches to two feet of ice and the routes are really packed in,” said Nickerson.  He has been piloting the icebreaker for 11 years and has never seen the ice so thick.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "The month of February has been monumental. We have seen 18 inches to two feet of ice and the routes are really packed in," said Nickerson.  He has been piloting the icebreaker for 11 years and has never seen the ice so thick.

The Mackenzie typically goes out a minimum of twice a day.  Now that the ferry is not operating, the goal is principally to keep open passages to the Toronto Islands for emergency calls.  Global News rode along on the second run of the day and the routes that had been cleared only a couple of hours earlier were already getting clogged again.

WATCH:  The Toronto Fire Department’s William Lyon Mackenzie heads to Toronto Island Thursday morning amidst the heavily ice-clogged waters of Lake Ontario.

The ice is, in theory, thick enough to walk across, and people do.  But the fire department does not recommend the practice, especially given that they are continually smashing passages through the harbour.

“The biggest problem we see is people on the island take their dogs for a walk on Cherry Beach,” said Toronto Fire Services Captain Peter McFarlane. “There have been times when we’ve gone out there and once we go through the gap they can’t get back.”

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "The biggest problem we see is people on the island take their dogs for a walk on Cherry Beach," said Toronto Fire Services Captain Peter McFarlane. "There have been times when we've gone out there and once we go through the gap they can't get back."

The dog walkers are then forced to take a taxi over to either the ferry terminal (when it was running) or to Billy Bishop airport to get back home.

The fire fighters have not had to respond to any serious emergencies this winter.  No one has fallen through the ice, at least not yet.

“Usually rescues come either in spring or fall when it’s just forming or breaking up. And then it’s unsafe,” said Fire Captain Fred Lauzis.

But there was a memorable medical call in January:  a woman living on the island went into labour early and the Mackenzie was called upon to transport her to the mainland for delivery.

“We managed to get her ashore and to the hospital, so everything is fine. We did not deliver on board,” said Captain Nickerson.