"My dad always told me you couldn't push a river, and I found the analogy worked just as well with people."—M Jackson
Dr. M Jackson is a geographer and glaciologist, National Geographic Society Explorer, TED Fellow, veteran three-time U.S. Fulbright Scholar-National Science Foundation Arctic research grants, and the author of numerous titles, including The Secret Lives of Glaciers.
There are five dominant glaciers surrounding Höfn, Iceland, where M lived. Höfn is reached across the farthest tip of a narrow stretch of land, placing glaciers right up front and in your face. Just the way the locals like it. When the aurora borealis lights up a glacier in the blue-black Icelandic night, Jackson tells us that it's a sight to see, "like a candle-lit chandelier."
"The glaciers they are just a part of who I am."
—Sveiin—Höfn resident
"I want to bring meaning to why a quiet Icelandic man would knock on my door and take me several hours to his favorite place on the south coast in freezing temperatures to explain to me what he was fighting for—what to him was at stake as we hurdle forward into an unknown warming future."
—M Jackson
Red-headed Icelanders dressed in red, ice caves, glaciers turn blue when it rains, sometimes gray, almost black, more purple-black, more blue paint and less white on a canvas, late evening coffee, oceanic moisture, pervasive fog, milky light, ice-water slurry, things change, grow and shrink, naked-ice, denial, F-road, glacier guides, glacier jeeps, chattering glacier, happy glacier, flirtatious glacier, musing glacier, angry glacier, hungry glacier, listening glacier, seeing glacier, leave-me-alone glacier., one earth, everything is connected... Personally, I have no trouble believing that a glacier is a sentient being. I name my favorite pieces of furniture, along with my oak and apple trees.
"but glaciers dear friend—ice is only another form of terrestial love."—John Muir
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