The Little Ice Pan could be considered an allegory or just a way of celebrating being from NL; best published when there is ice in the Straits & close to March 31...our anniversary of becoming a province.

The Little Ice Pan

I’m lying here on a small ice pan,
Just me floating far out at sea,
It is cold and it is so foggy
And there’s no one here but me.

I’m not too keen on swimming;
Cold ice water is not my first choice.
Somehow I got just flang down
So there’s no sense in making a fuss.

My ice pan is not of the best kind
If you compare it with the others
But it’s the only one that I’ve got now
Won’t complain. Won’t even bother.

Now I’m sitting here on my small ice pan
As pieces keep breaking off.
It is slowing melting away from me.
Should I cry or should I laugh?


When I look all around at the ocean,
I see ice pans and bigger icebergs.
Why there’s people floating right past me,
So I yell out but am only ignored.

So I sing a little song, just a ditty
And I dance around in a jig
My ice pan she is still a-floating
Although it is not so very big.

Then another ice pan comes close by
Not so small but not too very big
The fella he had some rope aboard her.
Said, “Now what can we jerry-rig?”

So we lash them both up together
We make up a sizable clump
Of ice pans out in the Atlantic
We float and we toss and we bump.

And soon we have more Newfoundlanders
We are kicking up quite a big row,
That the Canadian Coast Guard vessel
Attempt to take us all under their tow.

But we tell them that they can just keep it.
We are happier all out here at sea
If we only have no one but each other,
Glad Newfie Labradorians we’ll be.



Verse by Jeannie Guy
Cartoon by Mike Rapsey
Aug. 1, 2010   Submitted By: NULL