Cottage owners on Lake Ontario’s southern shore say they have never seen anything like it.
“It’s awful,” Maureen Whelan told a NBC News crew as she surveyed her summer home now completely covered with a thick layer of ice.
The Ramona Beach area is located between Kingston, Ont., and Syracuse, N.Y. Whelan claims that over the years, the weather has never affected the area this dramatically.
But while it may be a bit difficult to get in the cottage, she says she is much more worried about the inevitable warmer weather.
“When that starts melting, we’re just very fearful that it’s going to come and ruin the house,” Whelan said.
“When I got here, I just couldn’t believe that pretty much all the ice is now up in the front of the camp and along the sides of the camp,” said neighbour Jason Perry.
Perry says he believes high water levels are to blame.
However, a report from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers indicates that Lake Ontario’s average water level in February was consistent with the previous year and only slightly higher than it was three months ago.
The Trent-Severn Waterway, a 386 km heritage canal that winds through the province of Ontario and connects Lake Ontario with Lake Huron, is used to manage the quadrillions of gallons of fresh water in the St. Lawrence Seaway – Great Lakes region.