Alerted a crab boat was sinking quick in a Newfoundland icefield Sunday night, rescuers scrambled to the scene to find a group of five men calmly gathered on an ice pan, tending a fire.

“Only Newfoundlanders would take a bad situation and find a way to get comfortable,” said Maj. Martell Thompson, a spokesman for Halifax’s Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre.

On Sunday afternoon, the VLL Venture, a crab-fishing boat, sprung a leak after striking ice on the way back to its home port of La Scie, N.L., a town of 900 on the island’s northeastern coast.

The spring melt not only famously brings Arctic icebergs cruising into Newfoundland waters, it also leaves coastal areas clogged with ice floes. Dramatic photos from the rescue show the crew of the stricken vessel surrounded by ice cover stretching to the horizon.

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