Carolyn Walker

Elemental Thinking - Elements & the Inter-Disciplines

When I think of “truth,” I think of the one and only way of seeing, hearing, experiencing, knowing. But through the various readings presented on Ice and Ice Geographies, what I assumed was the “truth” I wore as a cozy sweater around my WASPy self has been shattered. Much of my thinking has been informed by the Western European Experience, or what is now recognized as the colonial or settler mindset: viewing non-temperate regions as “otherworldly” and “inhospitable” “wastelands" with special attention given here to the cryosphere, or cold northern and high altitude locations as proving grounds for the white male heroic figure (Smith 12) of Jack London novels. Much of the art, be it poetry, prose, song, or visual, created by colonialist cultures (Purcell’s “The Cold Song” as just one example) depicts cold, ice, and winter as deadly, life-stealing. In Duckert’s book, Arcticologies, in his chapter Hamlet on Ice, the author posits that the location of Denmark and its coldness act as an entity, a bitter, malevolent animalistic “shrewish” one nipping and biting like an ill-tempered woman. ( Duckert 245) The cold, therefore, is something to fight against. Having grown up in New England, we complain about the cold, and look forward to surviving another winter. Additionally, I have also viewed the cold, ice, and ice geographies like Antartica from a Western lens as a symbol of global anxiety/climate crisis due to ice melt, as discussed in the readings. (Smith 24) So much negativity for such a vast amount of space. But there is more to be discovered.

The element of ice calls out to be heard through interdisciplinary conversations, as chronicled in Smith’s Careful Guessing, including indigenous voices, from those who have populated what was seen by Europeans as unpeopled empty spaces; and from climate justice seekers that recognize the non-truth of the “whiteness” of Arctic regions where Indigenous communities bear the brunt of ice melt due to climate crisis while having their sovereignty stripped from their lands in favor of corporate resource extraction. Just to speak of ice “calling out” brings to mind the belief of Tlingit elders that ice is sentient (Von Glahn 182), something in need not only of protecting, but something to be in conversation with, communion with; something that demands respect. We are all connected to the Arctic zones, intimately affected by ice melt and rising global temperatures. The task at hand is to listen, learn, and respond as a global community to other approaches from the non-white worldview, without thrusting upon Indigenous communities an expectation of and responsibility towards saving our world for us. (Duckert 24) We must learn to listen to the ice, and to those living closely in ice geographies, if we want to survive as a species on this blue planet. With only a solo view of ice geographies, our planet is, as new know it, is doomed. It is only through bringing other disciplines, like climate justice and indigenous knowledges, will we have a fighting chance.

Through Indigenous knowledge and the lens of climate justice, it makes possible the European mindset to view north lands as more than uninhabited, empty and brutal spaces to be exploited. Duckert explains that “glaciers shelter organisms like microbes and moss…and are respected sentient beings intrinsic to Indigenous oral histories. (41) And as Robert Mcfarlane puts it “[i]ce has a memory, poetically recalling all it keeps as a record of the environment. (Von Glahn 181) To not tap into this memory is Anthropogenic folly, and to not treat ice as a non-human human makes way for more drilling, more carbon immersions, and more exploitation. Through the disciplines of Indigenous knowledge and climate justice, we can think about how Duckert says a “shift from the north as enemy of humans, to human as enemy of the northern regions. (Duckert 28) Our task is to live as good neighbors, and to change our thinking away from heroic man against the bitter north, towards ice and ice geologies as rich in life, worth, stories, and beauty in its own right, not to be bought or sold, but to be lived in a new truth, one that incorporates new lenses.

Two key narratives shape the political existence of ice. The first is the story told by Indigenous Arctic communities, such as the Inuit, who see ice as a living entity with agency and memory. The second is told by colonial and corporate actors, who view ice either as an obstacle to commerce or a resource to be exploited. These opposing narratives clash, transforming ice into a space of struggle and resistance. In addition, art and music contribute new narratives: sound allows people to hear ice’s voice and experience climate change through sensory perception rather than solely through scientific data. Even literature, such as Shakespeare’s Hamlet, uses ice metaphorically as a planetary stage for tragedy. Its stillness and breaking reflect the collapse of political orders and the uncertainty of what follows.

Yet these politics are not without shortcomings. One major issue is the ongoing erasure of Indigenous knowledge from political and scientific decision-making. Colonial frameworks strip ice of its identity and memory, perpetuating historical patterns of domination. Even artistic representations, while powerful, sometimes risk romanticizing ice and music, turning pressing ecological crises into aesthetic spectacles that leave audiences passive rather than engaged. Similarly, works like Hamlet, when over-relying on metaphor, can obscure the material realities of ecological change and the lived experiences of Arctic peoples.

Because of these gaps, ice requires new forms of storytelling. Narratives must move beyond metaphor and extraction, centering Indigenous voices and portraying ice as both an ecological reality and a political being. Music, too, can act as a voice for ice, bridging human and non-human experiences, but only when created through genuine collaboration with local communities instead of replicating colonial dynamics. Such narratives would not only reflect the daily lives of Arctic peoples but also challenge audiences to recognize ice as alive, relational, and deeply tied to justice and survival.