Sunday, May 29, 2011

Whiteout - 05/08/2011

Hudson Bay, it turns out, is frozen. All of the water for a while now has been icy. The progression north through Canada has shown the emergence of Cold as a salient presence. Where it was, at first, largely implied, it is now ineluctable fact. The world is whited out: heaven and earth are difficult to distinguish, as though G-d's second proclamation was not heard here. It's no surprise: there's no one up here to hear it.
We humans like to congratulate ourselves on our ability to adapt to any circumstance. Whereas the other creatures fill their ecological niches, we are unbound by the laws of survival. It's true, but in our case it's not survival that keeps us out of northern Canada. I surmise, from my warm perch at 40k, that the region has nothing to offer the human intellect. Even Thoreau would be bored with the monotony. It would take another Byrd, intrepid for the sake of primacy, to prove him, and me, wrong.

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