Ice: Nature and Culture

This is not a typical academic volume from the keyboard of a glaciologist; it is a celebration of ice in its various manifestations, describing how ice and snow have affected people, politics, and commerce. The book forms one of a series (twenty-four volumes to date) that has the specific aim of eliding science of the natural world with culture and society (“bring(ing) together science, art, literature, mythology, religion, and popular culture exploring and explaining the planet we inhabit in new and exciting ways”). Klaus Dodds is professor of geopolitics at London University’s Royal Holloway College and is no stranger to the polar world and its glacial environment, having written widely on Antarctica and northern issues. He tackles the challenge admirably selecting examples and situations that will invariably be found to be engaging, informative, and often surprising. This book has an unnerving eclectic mix of aesthetics, folklore, and science.

The book is structured into seven chapters and their various titles provide an immediate flavor of the work: a world of ice; exploring and conquering ice; icy geopolitics; working with ice; sport, leisure, and pleasure on ice; and adapting to ice. It is well illustrated with photographs, diagrams, and reproductions of paintings, posters, advertisements, and historical artifacts.

A lengthy prologue sets the scene of human relations with ice (“Ice is integral to the human condition” asserts Dodds) but the first chapter is about ice per se. However, anyone seeking a serious and, admittedly, brief introduction to glaciology will be disappointed. But that is not the objective. Different forms of ice and snow crystals; ice on land, in mountains, and in the sea; a short explanation of albedo and energy balances; and ice ages and past climate from ice cores are all sketched in twenty-four pages. Earth scientists will raise an eyebrow at some statements, such as “the Pleistocene, a vast geological epoch stretching back some 2.5 million years.”

In chapter 2 Dodds investigates the drive to explore ice-bound regions—the poles and high mountain areas—combining a historical as well as experiential perspective and describing a selection of iconic expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic as well as recounting the conquering of celebrated peaks in the Alps and Himalayas. Here ice, high mountains, and cold become synonymous.

Chapter 3 moves away from science and exploration as Dodds muses on the encounter between humans and ice and snow—how icy worlds have been conceived, visualized, and communicated from the perceptions of first-world peoples through Europeans’ early romantic visions and artistic renditions of the sublime to more popular culture. In the last he includes contemporary media representations of ice-bound lands in Game of Thrones and the Disney film Frozen. It is difficult not to compare this section with the brilliantly scholastic insights into polar myth and imagination by Francis Spufford (1996); his work is regrettably not referenced.

In “Icy Geopolitics” Dodds is on home ground, a topic on which he has researched and written extensively. He investigates how exploration has been the handmaiden of territorial ambitions by many nations over time in polar as well as mountain regions. Ice-covered borders on land and in the ocean are discussed and skilfully woven around historical and military examples of confrontation and agreement in places such as the Andes, Kashmir, and the Arctic. He provides insightful vignettes about how science and resource exploration have driven and continue to propel national political ambitions. The Antarctic Treaty he perceives “as one of its [science’s]most powerful manifestations.” The rights, aspirations, and future role of indigenous peoples play a significant part in his views about the future of Arctic geopolitics.

Ice and snow as commercial and strategic commodities are elaborated in chapter 5, “Working with Ice.” A fascinating section gives a brief history of the ice trade and its beginnings in nineteenth-century New England and leads on to the development of freezing foodstuffs by Clarence Birdseye, whose Quick Freeze Machine appeared in the United States in 1926. Avalanche engineering is briefly mentioned as well as military investment in cold regions and cold-weather research, including Cold War confrontations in the Arctic Ocean with nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed submarines dodging sea ice keels but using their presence to provide acoustic hiding places. Now it is the Northern Sea route that Dodds assures us will be of increasing commercial interest.

The development of snow and ice sporting ventures and recreational activities are given a short chapter (chapter 6), which includes skiing, hockey, tobogganing, ice fishing, and ice carving.

The final chapter deals with adapting to ice by humans as well as plants and animals, although the emphasis is on coping with changes in the frigid environment. Extreme events such as winter ice storms and diminishing sea ice are discussed with much discussion of the experience of and challenges to indigenous peoples. Ice still poses a problem for even the most sophisticated societies, disrupting cities with blizzards and intense cold snaps; closing roads, rails, and airports; and shutting down power supplies.

In summary, this is an engaging read, almost a romp, through a world of ice and snow from a very different perspective to science-focussed essays. Slightly stilted prose at times and a handful of minor inaccuracies do not dampen the enjoyment of Dodds’s writing and his enthusiasm, delight, and insight into the world of ice.