I've been asked what it is like when the ice breaker is breaking ice. I've never experienced anything like it and had to think for a while how to explain it. The best explanation I can give is this:

 Picture the spawn of a building, a roller coaster, and a bumper car, moving in extremely slow motion.

 Now picture living on this bumpy rolling building, every day, for two months. Eating, sleeping, giving lectures, taking showers, etc.

 The boat is about 6 or 7 stories tall and the length of a city block, so the size of this image is accurate. It goes from 10 knots to stopped when hitting a big ice floe in perhaps 30 seconds, backs up, rams once or twice then moves on. And it rolls around slowly, mostly side to side, up to 20 degrees from upright.