What is it about the unknown? Why are we drawn to it? Why the fascination? Is it the rustling of the chimeras at the misty edge of perception? Perhaps it is the apprehension, that strange mixture of hope and fear that draws us onward, one eye cast back to keep the shadows at bay, the other trained forward searching out possibilities. Will the tiger be crouched in the shadows when I open the door? Or will sunlight flood a field of wonder, sights unseen by eyes of Man before?
The distribution of our species attests to great migrations and voyages before recorded history, populating the distal reaches of the planet beyond memory of homeland and time. Quests run deep in our collective core, the myth of the Hero venturing into miraculous lands, vying with monsters, the plaything of Gods. Humans have always pushed toward the retreating horizon, or at least the Hero’s among us have.
Snowmobiling toward an unnamed peak on the west side of Scott Glacier, December, 1987.
In contrast to geographical boundaries which are ever diminishing, in science the boundaries to the unknown appear only to extend with each new discovery. Each deeper revelation opens new worlds. But as we come to contemplate a deep-field landscape of cold, dark matter and flat space/time, as we map the codes of life drawing ever closer to being one with the Creator, the mystery becomes no more explicable. Nature transcends in detail and in scale. What is the purpose, the cause, what is the nature of the Spirit? Why are we drawn to these questions at all?
Perhaps we are drawn to the unknown for an understanding of ourselves. What does the seeker seek after all, but insight?
Ice-cored moraine swirls in the interior valley of the La Gorce Mountains, December, 1980.
The week’s gallery features a set of random shots from the 1986-87 field season in the Scott Glacier area.
