This
may sound like a strange genealogical topic as most of us do not live anywhere
near glaciers, nor have we ever felt threatened by them. But the subject has
come up in the news often in recent years as many sources point to the retreat
of ice in mountain valley as signaling doom for the planet from global warming.
The
retreat of glaciers is not unique to the modern period, though. It has happened
during every warm period for tens of thousands of years, just as the formation
of these great ice rivers took place during the many intervening cold epochs.
Think,
for a moment about what it might have been like for one of your ancestors to
have watched as a mountain of ice slowly advanced on their farms and houses,
crushing and grinding up everything in its path. Or how they may have felt the
cold winds as the glacier fronts crept closer. Ice-cold rivers, filled with
debris, may have overrun their fields, destroying any potential for harvests.
During
the Little Ice Age, beginning about 1300 AD, glaciers formed in almost every
mountain range in the world. The greatest advances of glaciers since the last
major ice age – 25,000 years ago – occurred in the last 400 years, culminating
in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. That cold age, of which glaciers were a
part of, brought misery and distress to most of the old world, so the idea of
their existence is also an indication of a climate that was, at best,
unfavourable for habitation.
By
1600, in the Alps at least, glaciers on all sides had reached their maximum
position. Many church and other records from communities in that part of the
continent contain information about the devastation caused by advancing
glaciers: overrunning farms and villages; and destroying infrastructure that
had been in use for hundreds of years. Pastures in the upper reaches of valleys
became inaccessible and mountain passes were blocked. Animals and people were
injured and even killed by rock and ice falls, and floods.
In
1616, an official arrived at the Argentière glacier tongue (near Chamonix,
France) and reported: “. . . The great
glacier of La Rosière every now and then goes bounding and thrashing or
descending; for the last five or six years . . . it has been impossible to get
any crops from the places it has covered . . . Behind the village of Les
Rousier, by the impetuosity of a great and horrible glacier which is above and
just adjoining the few houses that remain, there have been destroyed
forty-three journaux (of land) with nothing but stones and little woods of
small value, and also eight houses, seven barns, and five little granges have
been entirely ruined and destroyed.” (Le Roy Ladurie, 1971, p148).
On
more than one occasion, priests were summoned to perform blessings and offer
prayers to God to halt the progress of glaciers that threatened communities
with total destruction. They did not always work.
In
Scandinavia, tax records show that relief was being granted farmers from the
payment of taxes as a result of their fields being destroyed by landslides
caused by ice movement and outwash of debris loosened by the glaciers and sent
downstream by raging streams. Here, too, the lives of people and livestock were
put in jeopardy, and even taken from time to time. Property damage was often
severe, to the point that people had to abandon their homes and livelihoods.
One
petition for tax relief from Olden Skipreide (Norway) in 1755 stated: “. . . when the freeholder was out fishing in the
fjord, a great avalanche broke out from the mountain and not only swept all the
farm buildings and carrel into the lake but also his wife, children and servants,
eleven people in all and all of them being killed. . .” (Grove, 1988,
p.81).
During
the same time period, the ice pack of the North Atlantic shifted south, almost
engulfing Iceland, Greenland and parts of Scandinavia. The ice restricted
passage through the northern part of the ocean and limited access to ports,
cutting off supplies of colonies. The fishing industry was decimated as fish
stock, particularly cod, moved out of the increasingly cold waters, forcing
fishermen to travel farther as well as change their target catches.
I
recommend that genealogists investigate natural phenomena in any region in
which their ancestors lived in order to determine whether such factors were
important in day-to-day living or survival. For genealogists, the
importance of glaciers is not where they are today, for example, things that
interest tourists, but where they were during the Little Ice Age when your
ancestors lived, as they are direct indicators of climatic conditions. For some
they were part of everyday living and survival.
References:
Grove,
Jean M. (1988). The Little Ice Age.
London & New York: Routledge.
Le
Roy Ladurie, Emmanuel. (1967). Histoire
du Climat depuis l'an mil. Flammarion, Paris. (translated by Barbara Bray
as Times of Feast, Times of Famine: A
History of Climate Since the Year 1000, Doubleday and Co., 1971).
