The frozen north

Northern Greenland
September 11, 2007

I was going through my pictures from my China trip, and I had forgotten about the bunch I took on the plane ride - notably, a lot of pictures of Greenland, northern Canada, and the Arctic. I had thought that a lot of them might be unusable for display, due to haze, but I ran them through Photoshop Elements "Smart fix", and lo, it cleared up the haze. Makes me wish I took a lot more pictures on the flight over - but I was concerned about having enough memory cards to last for the month+ I was in China. (If you know me and photography, this is a valid concern. And I didn't know how easy it would/would not be to find more memory cards for my camera.)

Not everything was a barren frozen landscape devoid of colors, however. Northern Canada, with clean waters and clear skies, offered up a Caribbean-dazzling array of shallow blue waters against prehistoric rock landscapes:

Canadian wilderness, somewhere over Nunavut
September 2007

It was really amazing to fly over such a pristine landscape. The snow, everywhere, so white, so clean, untouched, untracked - blown by the wind into knife-sharp edges standing crisp over mountains; glaciers hidden under a fresh coat of snow; wisps of clouds drifting among the mountains. Most of these peaks probably have never been climbed - or even named. The air was so clean that the afternoon sun cast sharp shadows across the landscape, making the mountains pop into even more dramatic relief.

Frozen wilderness - Northern Greenland
September 2007

I can understand why other people spend flights wrapped up in paperwork or reading or watching a movie or snoozing. But for me, one of my true delights about flying has always been the landscape out the windows. There are many variants on the quote, "It's not the destination, but the journey", and when traveling for pleasure, that's still true. After all, a bad travel experience can put you in a bad mindframe for the rest of your trip.

I actually got sort of irritated when the flight attendant came over and told me to close my shade because others were sleeping. Wasn't that what the little eye masks in the "convenience" kit were for? I had saved my frequent flyer mileage for years to get this first-class ticket to China, and I didn't want to miss one bit of it - especially not flying over this magnificent mountain landscape. When would I get to fly this route again? It was doubtful that I'd ever journey to this area of the world otherwise; I wanted to drink in every second of the view. (I can tell you that my books and magazines were utterly forgotten.)

I wanted to her, "Are you so used to flying this route that you're bored by the amazing views out the window?" Now, granted, sure, it's not like the flight attendants get to look out the windows much. But still, I think they could show a little courtesy towards the customers in that aspect. Maybe one day, I too will grow so bored of the views out the window that I will happily slide down my little window shade and snooze away the journey.

But I don't think that will be any time soon.