Writing on the Range
August 27, 2009
Posted by: Blair Braverman '11 on August 27, 2009
An essay of mine appears this week as part of “Writers on the Range,” an environmental column that’s published in some 75 newspapers across the western U.S., as well as the magazine High Country News... I'm quite excited, but also feeling a bit of "stage fright" about it! That's a lot of readers!
You can see part of it here: http://www.hcn.org/wotr/my-home-on-a-glacier,but they’re going to want to make you log in, so I’ll post the piece below in its original form, which is slightly different from how it appears in the papers.
Life on Ice
I spent the summers of ’07 and ‘08 on a glacier in southeast Alaska, with twelvepeople and two hundred huskies. I was working as a dogsled guide, and each
morning would pull myself from my sleeping bag, slip on my raincoat and
boots, and step from my tent into the pale light of the northern summer, the
glacier luminous beneath me in the rising sun. Eight times a day, a distant purr
would echo over the mountains, and a line of helicopters grew in the sky until
they were right above us, whipping our hair and filling our ears with the sound
of engines. I waited by my sled as the passengers disembarked, then led them
on a tour, skimming across the icefield in gentle silence before returning to the
waiting choppers and preparing for the next run. At night, when the last round
of helicopters had disappeared, my co-workers and I would feed the dogs and
return to our tents to sleep.
In its vast presence, stretching beneath us and curving around the bases of
neighboring mountains, the glacier was simple, and it was home.
Glaciers, it seems, are a hot subject these days, although their condition is often
debated. Some say the glaciers are melting: sea levels will rise, coastlines will
erode, drinking water will be salinated. Or, alternately, the glaciers are growing:
climate change is a hoax, mass hysteria, scientifically bogus. Like the polar
bear, their fragility has come to symbolize a world on the brink of disaster, a
dying fragment of a cooler past. “We’ve got to save the glaciers,” I’ve heard
people say, as if this were on their to-do list for the afternoon, somewhere
between Fight Poverty and End World Hunger. As if they and the glaciers were
old friends.
Here is the truth: yes, some glaciers are growing. Norris Glacier, the one I think
of, somewhat arrogantly, as “mine,” has grown for the past three years. In the
short term, however, a glacier’s growth has more to do with precipitation than
temperature. Winter snow builds up and insulates the underlying ice layers; if
any snow remains by autumn, it will have compacted enough to become part of
the glacier itself. Summer rain has the opposite effect, melting the snow as it
trickles through, widening crevasses and flowing beneath the ice in mineral-
rich streams.
Last July and August it rained virtually every day in Juneau, so much that some
of my fellow guides wore neoprene wetsuits to keep warm. In the mornings we
had to rearrange the doghouses, and in the evenings we would gather for tent-
moving parties, pushing the tents around on wooden skis so that the camp’s
overall arrangement was constantly fluctuating. If we forgot, the doghouses and
tents formed pedestals as the surrounding snow melted away with the rain.
Often, on particularly wet mornings, I would awake to discover my entire tent
tilted sideways; it had “risen” to such a degree during the night that it began to
slide on its own.
Despite this, a record layer of snow remained at the end of summer, and so the
glacier grew.
Here, then, is a second truth, puzzling in its seeming contradiction: some
glaciers grow, temporarily, because of global warming. Increased evaporation in
one part of the world can lead to greater snowfall elsewhere, which, in the short
term, thickens glaciers and icefields. Any argument that cites growing glaciers
as evidence against climate change is scientifically unsound; eventually, glacial
retreat due to higher temperatures will negate the effects of a few years’ heavier
snowpack.
From an ecological standpoint, I find melting glaciers to be one of the least
worrisome impacts of climate change—far more alarming are the shrinking
polar ice caps, the spread of invasive species, and the rise in severe weather
events. From a personal standpoint, however, I feel differently. I think of my
memories on the Norris, of clumsy poker nights in the community tent, the
cards sticky from humidity; of riding the sled on a smooth trail, my dogs
bounding joyfully just ahead; of sitting cross-legged in the snow at sunset, the
orange sky reflected in the gentle slope of the icefield. And I wonder, when the
glaciers are gone, will these things, too, melt away?
Comments:
Comment from: Annelise WIERSEMA [Member]
Blair, this is just beautiful - thanks for sharing it here, and CONGRATULATIONS on being published!
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08/27/09 @ 14:08
Comment from: Michelle [Visitor] 
Blair- I am very glad that so many people will get a chance to read your work- thank you for writing and caring about this!
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09/08/09 @ 16:17 Leave a comment:
