The Mer de Glace was visited by Mary Shelley. In 1816, the so-called "Year Without Summer", she travelled up to the glacier with her stepsister Claire Clairemont and soon-to-be husband Percy Shelley, the poet.
In 1823, the sea of ice reached down into the Chamonix valley.
Since then the sea of ice has retreated rapidly.
I have visited twice, several years apart. The change between my first and second visit was remarkable and completely noticeable... I headed on the Montenvers railway from Chamonix to the Mer de Glace station. This is a really stunning little journey.
We went from the cafe down via the museum and in the cable car to the top of the staircase, which gets longer and longer each time.... and finally onto the ice, where there was an ice tunnel which had been created.
There were also signs showing the height of the ice in different years so that you could see how rapidly it has retreated and lost height.
Mary Shelley used her experience when writing her book: 'Frankenstein'. This inspired some of the passages in the book, which were also adapted for scenes in the new movie adaptation by Guillermo del Toro. I went to an exhibition of props and costumes from the movie recently, and an album of pictures is shared here on Flickr.
In Chapter 10 of the 1818 edition, Victor Frankenstein visits Chamonix in search of solace. Struck by guilt following the creature's murder of his brother – as well as the unjust execution of the girl blamed – the scientist climbs to the Mer de Glace in the hope that "the awful and majestic in nature" might salve his woes. Hiking across it, he describes the glacier as "rising like the waves of a troubled sea, descending low, and interspersed by rifts that sink deep".
Comments