The Milky Way An Icefall

Poul Anderson describes a night sky on the human-colonized planet, Aeneas. Both moons are aloft. The lower moon moves visibly and:

"Stars crowded velvet blackness. The Milky Way was an icefall."
-Poul Anderson, The Day Of Their Return IN Anderson, Captain Flandry: Defender Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 74-238 AT 9, p. 148.

In Anderson's works, the Milky Way is often described as seen at night or from space. Each time, I think, the description is different.