Wonderfully well written and interesting article about Tom Yeager's personal obsservations of an Alaskan glacier.
If he were 1,000 years old he could have reported that the glacier was once much smaller than it is now but grew dramatically during the Little Ice Age before beginning its current shrinking phase about 150 years ago. He then could have concluded that all of those changes were due to natural forces.
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Marking Time With a Glacier
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Now that Lenore and I are empty-nesters, the glacier face has, at least for the moment, come to rest on a recently exposed bedrock perch located up a side valley on the far side of Portage Lake. It has retreated more than a mile since we first made Alaska our home.
For the time being, the downhill flow of the glacier appears to have reached equilibrium with the amount of ice that continually calves off the glacier's face; the glacier's front edge, therefore, remains at the same place. The massive icebergs that had been spawned while the glacier retreated through the deep waters of Portage Lake have been replaced by much smaller ice shards that, unfortunately, make much less entertaining playground structures.
Today, when our grown children make their way back home, nostalgic ski trips to the remnants of Portage Glacier have taken on a new significance. Adam and Elyse, having experienced "outside" (that's what Alaskans call the rest of the world), can now accompany their dad across Portage Lake with an enlightened appreciation for their birthplace, and for the uniqueness of growing up as Portage Glacier was growing smaller.
Yeager lives in Girdwood, Alaska.
© 2008
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