Long-time Alaska resident Naomi Klouda has been interested in Alaska glaciers since she was a student at Diamond High School in Anchorage. Now living in Homer, her book, The Alaska Glacier Dictionary, was published by Cardamom Press earlier this year. She is a retired journalist contributing to papers around the state: the Anchorage Daily News, the Anchorage Times, the Tundra Drums in Bethel, the Kodiak Daily Mirror, the Valley Frontiersman in Palmer and the Homer Tribune. This is her second book publication.
Klouda said her goal was to write the book in a context that is accessible for general readers. She noted that much of the information came from scattered sources: the Journal of Glaciology, the Annals of Glaciology, the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute, government agencies such as the United States Geological Institute and the National Park Service. Depending on where the information came from influenced how easy it w Aug 7, 2025 as to track down details and history on the 700 glaciers featured in the book. She also said that this is by no means all of the glaciers in the state of Alaska, there are probably 100,000 more. The key focus of the glaciers in the book is where their names are derived from.
The other key feature is how humans have interacted with glaciers over time and this led to the choice of the book’s cover photo, taken by Jim Lavrakas. Klouda explained in more detail:
“The cover photo is of Carly Dixon over at Tutka Bay. We did debate and try different kinds of photographs out for the cover. Jim had some photos that were, you know, much more, you know, conservative. We chose this one because of the sort of the shock of climate change is such that people can wade in and and, you know, we're having global warming to such an extent that it's changing the interaction between us and our glaciers.”
Klouda interned at the Anchorage Daily News where she wrote about Portage Glacier, and she reflected about how it has changed over time:
“The ice was just right there. I mean, you know it was, in fact, one of the first articles I did as an intern at the Anchorage Daily News was about Portage Glacier, so I still have that clip with that photo, and that would have been in 1982 or something.”
Author Naomi Klouda finished our discussion by providing a reading from the introduction to the book:
“The future remains inscrutable and largely unwritten, but if love is paying attention, then our job is to keep watch even when it breaks our hearts. I first fell in love with glaciers in the ninth grade sitting in Mr. Simon's science class at Diamond High School in Anchorage, he was more than just our coach and an avid outdoorsman, Mr. Simon opened my eyes to the poetry of ice. He showed us photographs of shelf glaciers and Cliff hanging glaciers, teaching us their secret language of tarns, drumlins, growlers and ablation zones. The tidewater glaciers were mere pictures in our textbooks, then those calving superstars that now draw 1000s of cruise visitors each year, but they sparked an imagination that would shape my future as a journalist. Later, I found myself returning to these frozen giants again and again. When my stories led me to ask about a glacier state status or its rate of melting, I was stymied by unanswered questions. It wasn't that the information didn't exist. A great deal of money and scientific effort goes into studying glaciers, but too often, glaciologists findings remain locked in a technical dialog between colleagues, inaccessible to those of us who live in their shadows, these nearly 700 named glaciers in the Alaska glacier dictionary are more than just ice and rock. They are our neighbors, living and breathing and yes, dying among us. Their furrowed plow marks extend across lands that shaped millennia ago, remnants of the last ice age that aren't fossils and aren't yet extinct. We drink their fresh water, their sediment carries on winds to fertilize our fields. Every magnificent Alaska landscape, from Turnagain Arm to Kachemak Bay to Prince William Sound bears the signature of the glaciers that carved them. “
Klouda presented a talk at the Homer Public Library on August 14th at 6 p.m.
Reporting from Homer, this is Emilie Springer
