Snow and Ice, North America

March 13, 2009

Like my transit trips to Detroit, this is my 6th time to see the “ice wilderness” of north America (north US mainland, north Canada, southern part of the North Pole, Alaska), sometimes Russia’s westernmost areas near Alaska. And in all those 6 flights, I was always amazed and fascinated, 100 percent, by the hugeness and vastness of the “ice wilderness” of this part of the planet. While our regions in the tropics, north and south of the equator, are the “heaters” of the globe, those wide ice areas are the “freezers” of the globe.

From east Asia to Detroit or the east coast US (and vice versa), the plane has to fly near the North Pole for a shorter distance. This allows interested passengers to enjoy watching super-wide ice deposits below the plane. Something like for 4 hours or more, you see nothing but ice below, assuming they are not covered by the clouds.

My thoughts are on the people who live there: how could they endure 5 months or more of all snow and ice around them every single year? Well, man is intelligent, he knows how to adapt. Those who cannot adopt would have died many years ago, whether they are living in super-cold states or countries in the north or south pole, or in super-warm countries near the equator or in the Middle East desert.

Ice and snow, huge expanse of them, they just make my day, just looking at the pictures!