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The blue hue of Lamplugh Glacier stands out on a misty Sunday, August 13, 2017, in Glacier Bay National Park. (Erik Hill \/ ADN archive) <\/p>\nThe blue hue of Lamplugh Glacier stands out on a misty Sunday, August 13, 2017, in Glacier Bay National Park. (Erik Hill \/ ADN archive) <\/p>\n
In the course of her job as a journalist, Naomi Klouda stashed notes on Alaska glaciers in a big folder. Over time, they took on a life of their own. The Homer writer says it was a slow and persistent process. Then, much in the way that glaciers can suddenly surge and leap forward, \u201cThe Alaska Glacier Dictionary\u201d was born.<\/p>\n
\u201cGlaciers are alive. They\u2019re not static,\u201d Klouda said. \u201cIf they were, they wouldn\u2019t be a glacier.\u201d<\/p>\n
Klouda says her book, published this year by Cardamon Press, is for travelers and armchair adventurers alike, to give them quick access to a glacier\u2019s vital stats. But it\u2019s more than a reference book. \u201cEvery glacier has a story, and no two are alike,\u201d Klouda said. \u201cThey are very individual.\u201d<\/p>\n
While glaciers tantalize tourists with their beautiful blue ice, they tend to recede into the backdrop of everyday life for Alaskans. Klouda says people in Anchorage forget that when they turn on the tap, they\u2019re drinking glacial meltwater from Eklutna Lake. Or when they eat giant vegetables from the Matanuska-Susitna region, they get their flavor from the rich, glacial silt.<\/p>\n
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Naomi Klouda is a grandmother, a retired journalist and a writer based in Homer. She has published two books, “Anna’s Whale,” a novella about climate change set in a fictional village, and the recently released “The Alaska Glacier Dictionary.” (Rhonda McBride \/ KNBA) <\/p>\n
Despite glaciers\u2019 importance to Alaska, Klouda discovered while she was writing the book that she was breaking new trail.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no one compilation that gives you all of the information that this glacier dictionary does, and so it\u2019s sort of a baseline,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She says the research wasn\u2019t easy because the data was scattered across different maps, studies and agencies.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re finding information that is outdated by 10 years already,\u201d she said. \u201cMaybe that was the last time that that particular glacier was measured.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rick Thoman, one of Alaska\u2019s foremost experts on climate change, says the book will help identify glaciers that need more research, especially those that have changed a lot.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the kind of compilation that its value will grow in the coming decades, when some of this information will be even harder to acquire,\u201d Thoman said, \u201cand some of those glaciers will be no more.\u201d<\/p>\n
At least one glacier has disappeared since Klouda started work on her book, Antler Glacier, 32 miles from Juneau. It was named in 1960 and considered extinct in 2024.<\/p>\n
Glaciers\u2019 original names tell of Alaska\u2019s past<\/p>\n
Thoman, who is based at the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Preparedness in Fairbanks, says scientists must look to Indigenous peoples for clues to a glacier\u2019s past. He says it\u2019s important that Klouda has included the original names in her book.<\/p>\n
\u201cHere in the Interior, there are names that sure sound like they refer to times when the glaciers were much more advanced,\u201d Thoman said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was really important to me to get the Indigenous names, wherever I could find them,\u201d Klouda said. \u201cThere are some really beautiful designations on glaciers. Like, they\u2019ll be very descriptive.\u201d<\/p>\n
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One of Naomi Klouda’s favorites is the Dena\u2019ina name for a glacier on Mount Spurr. K\u2019idazq\u2019eni, pronounced key-dawz-kuh-nee, means \u201cone that is burning inside.\u201d Klouda is the author of “The Alaska Glacier Dictionary,” published in 2025. (Image from Naomi Klouda’s book presentation) <\/p>\n
One of her favorites is the Dena\u2019ina name for a glacier on Mount Spurr. K\u2019idazq\u2019eni, pronounced key-dawz-kuh-nee, means \u201cone that is burning inside.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the Kenai Peninsula there\u2019s a glacier called Nuka, a word with roots in both the Inupiaq and Supiaq languages.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe word Nuka is derived from nukaq,\u201d Klouda said, \u201cwhich refers to a young bull caribou.\u201d<\/p>\n
She says caribou are not found on the glacier itself but in the surrounding area, so the name might tell us the glacier was a landmark for hunters in search of a herd.<\/p>\n
Sometimes glaciers forced even people to migrate, like in Glacier Bay in Southeast Alaska.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s stories of glaciers, just all of a sudden breaking or lurching forward or advancing, and then covering up a salmon stream temporarily. So, there goes the salmon run,\u201d Klouda said. \u201cAll of these different interactions that were very important.\u201d<\/p>\n
The names also tell Alaska\u2019s story of colonialism<\/p>\n
Klouda says Alaska glaciers also tell the story of colonialism. Most were named after explorers, politicians or other well-known figures of the day \u2014 often people who had never set foot in Alaska.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Harriman expedition named a lot of glaciers, and they were totally colonial white guys coming north, naming glaciers,\u201d Klouda said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got Wesleyan, Yale, Smith, Brown, Harvard, Columbia.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Herron Glacier is in the Alaska Range, north of Mount Foraker. Photographed Aug. 26, 1969. (U.S. Geological Survey photo) <\/p>\n
When geologists from the U.S. Geological Survey mapped and named glaciers, they often supplanted Indigenous names. Other times, they failed to acknowledge the contributions of Alaska Natives \u2013 like the Athabascan hunting party led by Chief Sesui, who came to the rescue of some starving, half-frozen explorers after a bear raided their cache in 1899.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey found a bear, took it and then found bacon inside the bear,\u201d Klouda said. \u201cAnd thought, \u2018Well, that\u2019s weird. Why would there be bacon inside this bear?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Bacon is a food Alaska Natives associated with white people, which alerted the chief to their presence.<\/p>\n
The bear was killed in what is now Denali National Park.<\/p>\n
After taking it, Chief Sesui followed its tracks and found the men, who were lost and on the verge of starvation. He took them to his village, fed and clothed them for several months and, when the weather improved, guided them to the Yukon.<\/p>\n
But when it came to naming a glacier on the north side of Mount Foraker, it was the Army lieutenant who led the expedition, Joseph Herron, who was remembered with the name Herron Glacier, not Chief Sesui.<\/p>\n
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Lt. Joseph Herron and his expedition team, left, and Minchumina Ivan and Chief Sesui, right. (Image via KNBA) <\/p>\n
In the coming decades, Alaska Natives would get credit for their exploits. Harper Glacier was named for Walter Harper<\/a>, a Koyukon Athabascan mountaineer who was the first person to summit Denali, at the age of 21.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re thinking that you\u2019re writing about glaciers, but you\u2019re actually writing about people,\u201d Klouda said.<\/p>\n That\u2019s why Klouda says a glacier\u2019s name is literally the tip of the iceberg. She says Alaska has about 100,000 glaciers but only 700 made it into her dictionary, where they are listed in alphabetical order. Her book also includes essays from other writers and a compilation of scientific factoids and glacier terminology \u2014 and it\u2019s small enough to carry in a backpack.<\/p>\n