This little guy was chugging along the canal today and, so far as I could tell, its only purpose was to break the ice (and advertise coal for sale). Then a few minutes later, I saw a parade of river boats working their way in its wake. I never thought about this before, but I doubt those little canal boats are capable of cutting their way through the ice.

Always wanted to hire one of these and spend some weeks tooling through Europe's canal systems.