At a time when both the physical state and meaning of the natural world are in flux, this anniversary edition of Julie Cruikshank's multi-award winning and widely acclaimed work is as rigorous, exciting, and important as ever. Do Glaciers Listen? sheds unique light on the ways in which natural and cultural histories can become entangled. Cruikshank examines conflicting perceptions of glaciers in the Saint Elias Mountains a rugged area where Alaska, British Columbia, and the Yukon Territory meet. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the area underwent significant geophysical change, which coincided with social upheaval from a growing European colonial presence and increased trade among Indigenous Peoples. European visitors brought conceptions of nature as sublime, spiritual, or a resource for human progress. They saw glaciers as inanimate, subject to empirical investigation and measurement. Conversely, Indigenous oral histories describe glaciers as sentient, responding to human behaviour and shaping the physical and cultural environments through which they move. Focusing on these contrasts, Cruikshank demonstrates how local knowledge is produced, rather than discovered, through colonial encounters, and how it often conjoins social and biophysical processes.

She then traces how the divergent views continue to weave through contemporary debates about cultural meanings. The result is an interdisciplinary tour de force that continues to provide nuanced insight about our most profound relationships with the world around us.