Greenland at 39,000 Feet

I wrote this a little over a year ago, but I think of Greenland quite often....

March 18, 2005

Happy Birthday to me! Fifty-one years old. Happy birthday to me!

I was thinking today of all the things I’ve seen and done in my 51 years. Of course I can’t remember them all. In fact I can only remember the highlights most of the time until someone mentions something specific. I hope that’s normal and not a sign of old age getting to me!

Alaska is beautiful and amazing and I love Alaska. I love to go there, I love the smell of muskeg and water and evergreens and the highbush cranberry musky smell of the summer forests. I love the taste of wild berries picked fresh off the stem. However I do not love the sound of millions of mosquitoes whining in the air around me, taking bites of blood wherever flesh is exposed or even through cloth. But I do love to stand in sub-zero temperatures, my nose prickling, billows of white fog escaping at each breath, gazing up into the night sky. Aurora borealis. Always reminds me of the old C W McCall song, “Aurora Borealis” when I say that. I delight with all my being in the sight of the aurora, transparent curtains of pale blue and green light waving gently across the stars or wild dancing colors of brilliant yellow, pink and green in huge horseshoe shapes spreading across the midnight blue sky. Mountains and valleys, rivers and lakes, moose and caribou and bears. Alaska. I miss you. I’ve missed you from the day we left.

Yet, one of the most incredible things I’ve ever seen in my life is Greenland from 39,000 feet.

I flew alone from Frankfort to Denver a couple of years ago. Mel had taken an earlier flight from Frankfort to Atlanta for meetings. It was the first, and so far the only, time I’ve flown internationally alone. I was seated in a window seat on the right side of the plane, with a young German man seated beside me. We talked quite a bit during the flight, but the longer we flew the more he drank and the less I really wanted to converse with him. I dozed for a bit while he started reading through some of the paperwork he’d brought with him. Suddenly I awoke and thought to myself, “I can’t sleep! It will make the jet lag worse.” And I turned and looked out the window.

There in the far distance was a cap of ice coming into view. It was November and the sun was low in the south and the sky was still pink and turquoise blue – a far northern early winter day. I could see tiny dots of white far below us on the almost black Atlantic Ocean and realized they were icebergs. It took just an instant of realization and I knew that the ice cap drawing ever nearer was Greenland. Words fail me. Describing what I saw is almost impossible. I was in awe. A feeling of intense pleasure swept over me as I realized what a privilege I had at that moment.

I’ve known since childhood that Greenland is a huge glacier field, that thousands of icebergs are produced there each year where the glaciers meet the ocean. But I had never really thought about what this all would look like from 39,000 feet.

As we flew over, I could see deep cracks in the glaciers, beginning miles inland from the sea. The enormous weight of the glaciers had pushed the land down and caused these crevasses to form in dozens of places as the glaciers slowly crawled toward the sea. Cold blue cracks in ice tinted pale pink by the southern sun. Miles and miles and miles of ice and beauty, lying frozen near the top of the world.

Tall spiky mountains thrust hundreds of feet up into the sky along the western shores of the island. As we flew over, I could see coves and bays, the shoreline winding here and there, partially around this mountain and then that one. Mountain islands, dark blue and white, set like jewels in a black sea. I wondered, are people living down there? Then I remembered that Greenland is home to a group of Inuit (Eskimo) people who have lived there for many generations.

I have wanted to go back many times. I’ve wanted to go back and set foot on Greenland, to take a ship and explore some of those bays and hidden coves. I have wanted to experience Greenland with my whole body, to stand silently and listen to the sound of the waves against the shore, to hear the sound of ice cracking and grinding, then thunderously crashing into the sea. To see the icebergs as they are calved, to feel the swell of the waves they create under my feet on the deck of a boat. To touch the land with my own hands and feet, to feel the crunch of ice under my boots. I have wanted to feel once again the tingle of frigid air freezing the moisture in my nose to crystals, to need to melt the ice from my frozen lashes so I can open my eyes again after I blink.

All too soon we had flown completely over the island. I sat back in my seat, closed my eyes and thanked my Father in heaven for waking me up and giving me the rare privilege of seeing one of the often unnoticed or ignored wonders He created. I dream that one day I will be able to visit Greenland. It’s a far off dream, but nothing is impossible with God.