Last September (this is how far behind I am in writing blog posts) - last September, I was in Banff National Park in the Canadian Rockies. I’ve said it before: I am a child of the West. I feel most at peace among the mountains, the forests, the vast empty spaces that make you feel tiny and expansive at the same time.
Ready for adventure, we set forth one day to see the Columbia Icefield, a massive expanse of cold that straddles a triple continental divide. When we got there, I was reminded of the fact that I don’t actually like the cold. Plus stark white expanses are not exactly photographable, at least not by amateurs. So this story turns out not to about the icefield, but about what we learned of glaciers along the way.
(If it sounds like an icefield would be the same thing as a glacier, you’re not far off: an icefield is basically a bigger and more permanent glacier.)
The jewels of Banff are not so much the mountains - remarkable though they are - but the brilliant lakes that stretch between them. (Don’t worry, I’m getting to the glaciers). The lakes are a stunning, surreal aquamarine color:
But such snapshots don't do these lakes justice. They are beautiful.
Turns out these are all glacier-fed lakes, and it is the minerals and debris deposited by the glaciers that cause the lakes to reflect sunlight in such a way that all we see is this narrow but spectacular sliver of the color spectrum. (In other words, it’s science.)
So why are glaciers depositing minerals and debris into innocent mountain lakes? Because glaciers, contrary to my preconceived notions (I won’t assume anything about yours), are always moving. In fact, the very definition of a glacier requires constant movement. I guess I assumed that the cliche “glacial change” meant, well, that things weren’t really changing. But glaciers can change rapidly. I mean, relatively speaking.
So that got me thinking about what kinds of change could be considered “glacial.” Like slow, constant evolution or progress towards an outcome, the intermediate steps of which aren’t really visible, but then one day you wake up and - holy cow! That lake is BLUE!
Not quite the same, but it made me think of how we woke up one morning in Banff (and mind you, this was in late September), and the season had changed from fall:
to winter:
Just like that. Except not really because the seasons are a continuum, and we build up to the next one even if we aren’t noticing the subtle signs.
Ready for adventure, we set forth one day to see the Columbia Icefield, a massive expanse of cold that straddles a triple continental divide. When we got there, I was reminded of the fact that I don’t actually like the cold. Plus stark white expanses are not exactly photographable, at least not by amateurs. So this story turns out not to about the icefield, but about what we learned of glaciers along the way.
(If it sounds like an icefield would be the same thing as a glacier, you’re not far off: an icefield is basically a bigger and more permanent glacier.)
The jewels of Banff are not so much the mountains - remarkable though they are - but the brilliant lakes that stretch between them. (Don’t worry, I’m getting to the glaciers). The lakes are a stunning, surreal aquamarine color:
But such snapshots don't do these lakes justice. They are beautiful.
Turns out these are all glacier-fed lakes, and it is the minerals and debris deposited by the glaciers that cause the lakes to reflect sunlight in such a way that all we see is this narrow but spectacular sliver of the color spectrum. (In other words, it’s science.)
So why are glaciers depositing minerals and debris into innocent mountain lakes? Because glaciers, contrary to my preconceived notions (I won’t assume anything about yours), are always moving. In fact, the very definition of a glacier requires constant movement. I guess I assumed that the cliche “glacial change” meant, well, that things weren’t really changing. But glaciers can change rapidly. I mean, relatively speaking.
So that got me thinking about what kinds of change could be considered “glacial.” Like slow, constant evolution or progress towards an outcome, the intermediate steps of which aren’t really visible, but then one day you wake up and - holy cow! That lake is BLUE!
Not quite the same, but it made me think of how we woke up one morning in Banff (and mind you, this was in late September), and the season had changed from fall:
to winter:
Just like that. Except not really because the seasons are a continuum, and we build up to the next one even if we aren’t noticing the subtle signs.
New Year's is kind of like that, too: an arbitrary holiday we use to demarcate and distinguish the slow buildup of days from the past to the future, when we will be surprised by how things have changed when we weren't looking. Happy new year, by the way.
So I’m going through my own sort of glacial change right now. I’m about half way through my first pregnancy, and after months of feeling almost nothing and worrying that I’d forget I’m pregnant and start downing stiff drinks like I’m an ad exec in 1962, I can now feel the baby kick (often too much so) at all hours of the day and night. That is, over the course of five months, I’ve grown a frickin' human being in my belly - albeit in severely miniature form - without any daily awareness of what’s going on in there.
Nine months is a long time. I can imagine myself, come late April, being ripped from my complacent, work-focused daily existence to the sudden realization: O. M. G. It’s a BABY! And just like that, the world will look completely different.
So I’m going through my own sort of glacial change right now. I’m about half way through my first pregnancy, and after months of feeling almost nothing and worrying that I’d forget I’m pregnant and start downing stiff drinks like I’m an ad exec in 1962, I can now feel the baby kick (often too much so) at all hours of the day and night. That is, over the course of five months, I’ve grown a frickin' human being in my belly - albeit in severely miniature form - without any daily awareness of what’s going on in there.
Nine months is a long time. I can imagine myself, come late April, being ripped from my complacent, work-focused daily existence to the sudden realization: O. M. G. It’s a BABY! And just like that, the world will look completely different.
