It's probably the coolest thing — literally — to ever happen after a nap.

Philip Metcalfe of Cape Traverse, P.E.I., fell asleep during Thursday's snowstorm and when he woke up there was a wall of ice peering over his property.

"It was a surprise for us because it happened so quickly," Metcalfe said.

"The ice started to pile up on our property, because we're out on a point of land, and the ice had nowhere else to go so it piled up."

Philip Metcalfe estimates the ice wall is roughly 10 or 12 metres high; about the height of a telephone pole. (Philip Metcalfe)

Hundreds of ice chunks, ranging from the size of pebbles to pool tables, were piled high on the edge of his property, and thousands more decorated P.E.I.'s frosty coast, pushed ashore by stormy waves.

Metcalfe said his property is roughly five metres above sea level and estimates that would put the ice wall roughly 10 or 12 metres high; about as tall as a telephone pole.

Where the waves would usually meet the shore, Metcalfe now had his very own wall of ice "in its grandeur all at once."

Metcalfe says he he woke up from a nap and found a wall of ice towering along his property. (Natalia Goodwin/CBC)

He lives out on a peninsula of sorts, at the end of a point on P.E.I.'s southern coast, and said he's never seen anything like this before.

"This is totally irregular and unusual, I think it's like the winter we had a couple of years ago, a once-in-a-lifetime thing perhaps," he said.

"I don't think this is a normal thing to happen anywhere."