In October 1977, a two-tonne block of ice arrived at Iowa State University's Memorial Union in a refrigerated truck. The ice had been taken from Portage Glacier near Anchorage, Alaska, just days earlier. US Navy scuba divers extracted it before a helicopter lifted it out.
It was then flown to Anchorage airport, placed on a commercial flight to Minneapolis, and transported roughly 300 miles by truck to Ames. The ice was approximately 4,000 years old. It was there because of a Saudi prince with an unusual idea: countries struggling with water shortages could potentially tow icebergs to their shores and turn the freshwater inside them into drinking water, as per a report.
