Greenland from Way Up

    From the window of a plane flying 30,000 thousand feet high in the daytime sky, the coast and interior landmass of Greenland is a fantastic sight to behold.  Upon the deep blue water, giant shelves of ice drift away into the sea and break apart like shattered glass.  The shallow bases of many icebergs are visible beneath the surface of the clear water, and the white ice contrasted against the blue water produces a brilliant turquoise hue.  On the coast, immense mountain-valley glaciers lay sculpted and carved by snowmelt rivers that slowly run across the frozen juggernauts and spill out into an ivory sea.  Lagoons of crystal blue water glisten upon the ice fields like gems, glowing like fluorescent coolant.  To the southwest, the land is stark and exposed – towering mountain islands rise up from jade seas, and the sediment from the summer rivers flows into clear water like dust.   

      Seeing Greenland by plane is quite a trip – right up there with lightning storms and forest fires.   If you want to read a beautiful and informative book about the arctic, check out the book Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez.  Also, Cormac McCarthy offers an incredible fictional passage about a polar hinterland in his monumental novel, Suttree. 

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