Do Glaciers Listen? Local Knowledge, Colonial Encounters, and Social Imagination

326 Pages·2005·6.467 MB·English

by  Julie Cruikshank

Do Glaciers Listen?
UBC Press is proud to publish the Brenda and David McLean
Canadian Studies Series. Each volume is written by a distinguished
Canadianist appointed as a McLean Fellow at the University of
British Columbia, and reflects on an issue or theme of profound
import to the study of Canada.
W.H. New, Borderlands: How We Talk about Canada
Alain C. Cairns, Citizens Plus:
Aboriginal Peoples and the Canadian State
Cole Harris, Making Native Space:
Colonialism, Resistance, and Reserves in British Columbia
John F. Helliwell, Globalization and Well-Being
JULIE CRUIKSHANK
Do Glaciers Listen?
Local Knowledge, Colonial Encounters,
and Social Imagination
© UBC Press 2005
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
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Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% post-consumer recycled, processed
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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Cruikshank, Julie
Do glaciers listen? : local knowledge, colonial encounters and social imagination /
Julie Cruikshank.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7748-1186-2
1. Glaciers – Social aspects – Saint Elias Mountians. 2. Tlingit Indians – Saint Elias
Mountains – Folklore. 3. Athapascan Indians – Saint Elias Mountains – Folklore.
4. Glaciers – Saint Elias Mountains – Folklore. 5. Human ecology – Saint Elias
Mountains. 6. Oral tradition – Saint Elias Mountains. 7. Climatic changes – Saint
Elias Mountains. 8. Glaciers in literature. 9. Saint Elias Mountains – Discovery and
exploration. 10. Saint Elias Mountains – Environmental conditions. 11. Saint Elias
Mountains – Folklore. I. Title.
GB2403.2.C78 2005 979.8’3 C2005-900193-3
UBC Press gratefully acknowledges the financial support for our publishing program
of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development
Program (BPIDP), and of the Canada Council for the Arts, and the British Columbia
Arts Council.
This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation
for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Aid to Scholarly Publications
Programme, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research
Council of Canada, and with the help of the K.D. Srivastava Fund.
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Dedicated to the memory of Annie Ned, Angela Sidney, and Kitty Smith
The glaciers creep
Like snakes that watch their prey, from their far fountains,
Slow rolling on.
– Percy Shelley, “Mont Blanc,” 1816
In one place Alsek River runs under a glacier. People can pass
beneath in their canoes, but, if anyone speaks while they are under
it, the glacier comes down on them. They say that in those times this
glacier was like an animal, and could hear what was said to it.
– Deikinaak’w, speaking to John Swanton
at Sitka, Alaska, 1904
The climate system is an angry beast and we are poking at it with
sticks!
– Wallace S. Broecker, 1998
We were always told that a giant worm, gyu shäw, lives under the
glaciers. Therefore we have always been counseled to avoid cooking
any grease or fat meat when in the mountains near glaciers. Glaciers
will surge and collapse on you if you cook any fat meat in the
vicinity.
– Daniel Tlen, 2004
Contents
List of Illustrations / viii
Acknowledgments / x
Introduction: The Stubborn Particulars of Voice / 3
Part 1: Matters of Locality
1 Memories of the Little Ice Age / 23
2 Constructing Life Stories: Glaciers as Social Spaces / 50
3 Listening for Different Stories / 76
Part 2: Practices of Exploration
4 Two Centuries of Stories from Lituya Bay: Nature, Culture,
and La Pérouse / 127
5 Bringing Icy Regions Home: John Muir in Alaska / 154
6 Edward James Glave, the Alsek, and the Congo / 179
Part 3: Scientific Research in Sentient Places
7 Mapping Boundaries: From Stories to Borders / 213
8 Melting Glaciers and Emerging Histories / 243
Notes / 260
Bibliography / 288
Index / 303
Illustrations
Maps
1 The northwest Canada-United States border / 13
2 The Gulf of Alaska and southwest Yukon /26
3 Neoglacial Lake Alsek / 44
4 Lituya Bay / 130
5 John Muir’s travels to Glacier Bay, 1879 and 1880 / 156
6 Edward Glave’s routes through Yukon and Alaska, 1890 and 1891 / 180
7 Glave in Africa / 197
8 Locating boundaries / 224
9 Alsek-Tatshenshini river drainage / 232
10 Kluane Game Sanctuary / 252
Figures
1 Trapridge Glacier / 6
2 A group of residents at Lituya Bay / 42
3 Lowell Glacier, Nàlùdi / 43
4 Mrs. Kitty Smith / 53
5 Mrs. Annie Ned / 56
6 Mrs. Angela Sidney / 58
7 Medallion from speaker’s staff / 70
8 A “glacier highway” / 97
9 View from Goatherd Mountain / 107
10 La Pérouse’s two ships entering Lituya Bay / 128
11 Kah Lituya guarding the mouth of Lituya Bay / 134
12 La Pérouse’s boats, lost at Lituya Bay, 1786 / 138
Illustrations ix
13 Walking the upper Tatshenshini River / 188
14 Glave’s sketches of people on the Tatshenshini River / 189
15 “Colliding icebergs” on the Alsek / 208
16 Glave’s sketch of icefields / 209
17 Kohklux’s original map / 216
18 Kohklux’s map, showing contemporary place names / 217
19 George Davidson’s revision of the Kohklux maps, 1901 / 219
20 Nunatak Glacier, former “highway” to the interior / 235
21 The Canyon of the Alseck River, sketched by Glave / 237
22 The Alsek Glacier extending to the Alsek River, 1906 / 238
23 Alsek Glacier, 2003 / 241