The two women cross-country skiing in front of me look like they’re floating in a white abyss. My brain knows their skis are technically touching the ground, but we’re engrossed in a whiteout so thick and endless, all depth perception has melted away with the horizon, and I only see the optical illusion of them suspended in midair.
I’m in the Yukon in Canada’s Kluane National Park, skiing across the largest nonpolar ice field in the world (both a UNESCO site and Guinness World Record holder). This frozen expanse is the center of three glaciers. It’s June and the snow is thick under my boots, with 3,000 feet of ice beneath that. We’ve come to the end of a guided camping stay on the Kluane ice fields, and we are skiing while we wait for our flight. We were supposed to get picked up by a tiny propeller plane and taken back to civilization that morning, but this fog storm that rolled in has prevented the pilot from flying. So we linger here for another day.
To kill time, we grabbed our skis, poles, and a clunky satellite GPS device. Unable to see where we’re going, my companions follow the little red dot tracking our location, and I follow them, trusting our tracks to take us back to camp. I wonder if I also appear to be hovering in the air, but it’s hard to picture. Lately I’ve felt heavier than usual, weighed down with restless thoughts.
I’d been holding some pent-up energy on this trip, an adventure that took me to remote Yukon towns, through Gold Rush sites, and onto this giant glacier. The experience tested me—not just physically, though that was rewarding too—and challenged a different part of me: my patience.
Starting with shops, mountain trails, and Gold Rush stories
Carcross is a town full of legendary lore and otherworldly beauty, like Emerald Lake.
Photo by Peter O’Hara & Jenna Dixon
My anticipation started building way back in 2023 when I first heard about the Glacier Flow tour, a three-night camping trip in the snow offered by Northern Nomad Outdoors, an Indigenous-owned adventure company, and Icefield Discovery, the only camp authorized on the ice field. I’d recently fallen in love with cross-country skiing, and the description said it was beginner-friendly—plus, in my more than 20 years as an outdoor adventure enthusiast, I’d never heard of sleeping directly on a glacier.
I was eager to get there—but it was a long journey. First, I would fly from New York to Whitehorse (via a connection in Vancouver), spend a day in the neighboring town of Carcross, then drive the next morning for two and a half hours west on a lonely road to Kluane Lake, where the bush plane could pick me up and take me to the ice field. I had several hours of spare time to fill.
Luckily, the region is full of activities. Klondike Gold Rush history here used to overshadow First Nations experiences in this region, but that’s been changing, especially in places like Carcross. The tiny community (along a train line between Whitehorse and Skagway, Alaska) is full of murals, totem poles, ghost lore, and colorful log cabins adorned with moose horns over doorways, all on the edge of a glacial lake.
After perusing the various shops in Carcross Commons—the town center with shacks selling syrup, maple butter, coffee, handmade soaps, jewelry, and moccasins—I bought praline-cookie ice cream from the Matthew Watson General Store, the oldest operating store in the Yukon. Crunching the last bits of my waffle cone at the sunny outdoor tables, I struck up a conversation with local Shane “Wallyman” Wally, a member of the Tlingit Nation and the trail crew leader. He pointed to Montana Mountain, butting up against the edge of town. “We want urbanites to come check out the land and see the beauty of it,” he told me.
Wallyman helped with a project to clean up some old trails once used as mine access roads during the Gold Rush and to turn them into 37 miles of hiking and mountain biking trails. “We want to build this in a sustainable way, so generations can come here,” he said. “You gotta take care of the land; that’s the number one thing in my view.”
I thought about protecting nature as I walked to the striking scenery around town: Bennett Beach, punctuated by boats, a dock, and sunbathers on towels; the seemingly out-of-place Carcross Desert, a small sand-dune area that was once the bottom of a lake; and the glacial Emerald Lake, which shimmers with swirls of green within blue. I found myself wishing I’d made time to hike Montana Mountain and visit more Indigenous Klondike Gold Rush history sites (including the allegedly haunted Caribou Hotel), but it was time to make my way to the ice field.
The flight to the glacier
The small bush plane flies so low through the mountains, the peaks look shoulder-level outside the window.
Photo by Marty Samis Photography
In the morning, I drove 2.5 hours to Kluane Lake, surrounded by green mountains, trickling streams, and birdsong. There, I met the others who had signed up for this trip: seven women, mostly Canadian, solo, and brazen. We gathered at a small airstrip on the edge of the lake. Then we waited. And I got my first inkling that nature was in charge here.
Candace Dow, our guide and co-owner of Northern Nomad Outdoors, had warned us that we might not be able to reach the glacier on the day we expected. It all depends on the weather, which often looks clear down here in the valley but is a shifting, unpredictable force in the distance. So we walked through the woods, waded shoeless into the lake, and stretched in the sun.
We didn’t get clearance before dark, so we slept in humble bunk beds used by researchers coming to study the ice field. Comanaged by First Nations and Parks Canada, Kluane shows the greatest evidence of climate change in North America. The receding ice has an enormous impact on the way of life for many surrounding First Nations, including the Coastal Tlingit and Carcross/Tagish, who consider glaciers sentient beings and whose reliance on glacial water and animal hunting has been changing due to rapid melt. In response, locals like Wallyman and Dow are slowly designing careful, conscious tourism that can support the protection of the land.
The next day, we’re told the pilot has tried a few attempts to check for visibility but had to turn back. I’m getting antsy to get to the mother of glaciers. We walk around some more, and my restless legs are grateful for movement. We go for a six-mile hike up Sheep Creek Trail and eat earthy, slightly bitter spruce tips freshly picked along the path.
Finally, after two nights of slowness, strolling and gazing at the enormous wilderness around us, we get the signal from Dow: It’s time. The bush plane can only drop off three people at a time, so I practice patiently waiting for my turn—and then we’re off. We rise into the air in a rush of wind, dust, and excitement.
She hands me a shovel, points to a spot in the snow, and tells me to start digging a hole to set up my tent.
As we fly about 30 minutes west, I watch the rippling mountains out the window quickly transition from green to brown to white, until all the peaks around us are blanketed in snow. “I never get tired of the views,” says Sherpal Singh, the chief pilot for Icefield Discovery, sitting next to me, his voice buzzing into our headsets. “The light’s always changing.”
A flat area appears ahead, and the small plane lands there on enormous skis attached to the bottom. I jump out and then watch it fly away, turning into a dot on the horizon, then disappearing. We’ve also been warned that we might not be able to get picked up when planned, so I looked around at my home for the foreseeable future.
There are no animals on the ice field, because there are no plants or anything to eat, so it’s completely devoid of life. We are alone. Miles of flat snow are ringed by white mountains in the distance. To the southwest sits the hulking whipped cream peaks of Mount Logan, the tallest mountain in Canada and second tallest in North America, after Denali. And in front of us is a long half-cylinder tent, from which a woman emerges and strides toward us. She hands me a shovel, points to a spot in the snow, and tells me to start digging a hole to set up my tent.
This is Sian Williams, former research assistant and guide, and current president and operations manager of Icefield Discovery. “And cook,” she says with a laugh. Inside the large, communal Weather Haven tent, she whips up steaming cranberry rice pudding, broccoli quinoa wraps with cashew cream, and gooey brie that’s been warmed in the propane oven dropped off by helicopter.
“If we packed everything up and left, you’d never know this place was here,” says Williams as she explains to us the importance of no-impact camping. “The glaciers are vital to us. This is where our fresh-water supplies come from.” Their sustainable initiatives include packing out all waste, but Williams makes everything carefree for guests. She’s been running the camp for about 25 years and has enough supplies to stay here for weeks at a time—once as long as five weeks. “I feel super lucky, because I love being up here,” she says.
Sleeping, skiing, and self-awareness on the ice field
It’s surprisingly not too cold on the glacier in summer. For nighttime, travelers are advised to bring a winter sleeping bag, which will be inserted into a larger sleeping bag provided by the camp.
Photo by Marty Samis Photography
Staying overnight is possible from April through August. August is also the month when the northern lights first become visible, and there’s some short-lived fall foliage on the lower mountains. However, Icefield Discovery also offers options for day-trip flightseeing tours through September, to admire the incredible landscapes and even walk around, then head back. “The first flight and last flight of the day is always pretty amazing,” says the pilot Singh. Still, Williams recommends a multiday trip. “It’s a more real experience, to get a feel for the ice field,” she says.
Even though temperatures reach minus 18 degrees Fahrenheit one morning, I feel magically toasty in my sleeping bag. The day warms to 40 degrees with the sun, and we ski or snowshoe across the expanse, each time heading in different directions from camp, till we reach the mountains and some rock formations on the edges of the ice field and turn back. The eternally white landscapes are like nothing I’ve seen before or since. Back at camp, Dow leads yoga sessions for muscle recovery and meditation.
The clouds—including the ethereal whiteout—delay our departure by one day, then two. I’m not concerned about the travel logistics, because we were told to budget several buffer days before our flights from Whitehorse back home to New York. Flexible airline tickets are a necessity for this trip.
I’m normally someone who overpacks a schedule, always moving to the next activity. But here I have to give in—Mother Nature does not care about my itinerary.
During the downtime, Williams teaches us knot-tying techniques. We drink warm tea, some read books, and some journal.
This, I have to admit, is the hardest part for me. My leg starts jiggling with fidgety energy. Can we go skiing or snowshoeing again? How do we fill the quiet time? I’m normally someone who overpacks a schedule, always moving to the next activity. But here I have to give in—Mother Nature does not care about my itinerary.
On our last afternoon together, the sun breaks out with such intensity that we all clamber outside to see the whiteness transform into a sea of sparkling gold. We put our yoga practice to use and make human pyramids and balancing acts, trying not to laugh too hard so as not to fall on top of each other. The playing snaps me out of my antsiness. I don’t even feel any cold. We strip off layers and run around, like a cold plunge into refreshing air.
This may be the slowest of slow travel, in which we’re forced to be still in one place for as long as the weather decides, admiring the beauty and silence. I think to myself that I probably could use a little more downtime. I loved the final fog storm that held us there in limbo for another day. Looking back, I realize how much I was fully present in that moment—no distractions. Toward the end of that final trek, I looked down, and I realized that, yes, my skis did also appear to be floating in the empty whiteness. I gave in and felt weightless.
