At subzero, the Knik Arm freezes several feet thick, while beneath its silty crust a violent tide surges and recedes. Tidal pressures split the crust along veins and faults, and irregular icy shards the size of trucks and buses breach the surface.

My wife and I stood on the banks of frozen Peters Creek as it gurgled a pitiful trickle into this icy chaos. The cold stole away our breath, and there! A few feet away from us, Knik’s ancient floes began a cold conversation.

They “snapped” like cap guns at each other. One grumbled and moaned as it collided with a crystalline wall. Further out, the merciless tide shoved glacial slabs against one another, grinding off icy scabs.

Relentless. Sluggish. Majestic. We witnessed a paradox of beauty and desolation.