King-5 TV News has posted a video of ice on Hood Canal near Brinnon, so I made a few calls to see how common it is to see ice on the canal.
“I’ve been here 10 years, and it happened one other time during that period,” said Doug Hinton, the ranger at nearby Dosewallips State Park. “I’m not really surprised given the long run of cold weather we’ve had.”
What we’re probably seeing is a layer of fresh water coming down from the Dosewallips River. Fresh water dominates the gradually sloping shoreline, and we know that fresh water freezes more readily that saltwater. A little farther out in Hood Canal, the fresh water tends to float on top of the heavier saltwater, forming a thin layer of ice.
Residents of other areas where quantities of fresh water flow into Hood Canal, such as Quilcene, also have seen thin layers of ice on the water.
As kids on Hood Canal I remember walking out a ways from shore on the broken sheets of ice that formed over the water on the few occasions it got cold enough to freeze the canal shorelines.
Sharon O’Hara