Navigator: Listening to the Glaciers Fall

About a mile from the glacier, we stopped paddling our kayaks and listened for the rumble. “White Thunder” is the name some locals have for it—the sound ice makes as it’s melting, breaking into pieces, and retreating. We squinted and strained, bodies alert, waiting for something to happen.

When it comes to on-the-nose symbols of climate change (and an individual’s complicity in it), this scene is up there. My family and I had traveled to Alaska’s Kenai Fjords National Park for a summer vacation. Together, we had flown, driven, and boated more than 7,000 miles to get to a land that’s often described as “untouched.” And there we were, under the sun of one of Alaska’s hottest summers in recent memory, staring at something that looked so permanent, breathlessly waiting to see it change.