Little Ice Age?



After a great Alaskan cruise to Glacier Bay, I returned home to research a bit more of a strange regional cooling of the planet that took place between 1680 and 1750 approximately. In 1680, there was simply no Glacier Bay to speak of but by 1750, the cooling ice and snowpack overwhelmed the Tlingit homeland and extended into the Pacific Ocean (Icy Strait)!

Apparently, the famous naturalist John Muir found that by 1879, Glacier Bay ice (a place of like a thousand glaciers) retreated almost 50 miles inland from where they'd been in the 1700s! Today it has retreated 65 miles.

As I researched, I realized that there's been much chatter historically about how this mini-ice age impacted North American exploration and colonization and so much more (art, literature, etc).

I hope my grandchildren get to experience some of those Glaciers like I did and walk near the Mendenhall Glacier north of Juneau someday! 

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