A terrible, stark beauty

Sometimes I let my mouse do the walking. On Google maps.

A few days ago, I went north. To the far Canadian north, at the very edge of the satelite views.

These are not trees; they are rivers. With no vegetation to slow them, shield them from view, they become sharp-edged trunks and branches.

More "trees":
Flat mud plains. What looks, to my eyes, like ridges, are really indentations, small valleys. I can't seem to convince my brain of that, though, and I still see concave plains with upturned edges.
Jagged chunks of ice, at the mouth of a river. This one still has the scale at the bottom; it measures off 1 mile.
More ice, rugged valleys, sharp peaks. Impossible country. Imagine hiking over that!
The glaciers flow just like wet water, only more slowly.
I don't know what to say about this country. It fills me with a wordless awe, it humbles me more, even, than gazing into a starry sky does; it's closer to home, but somehow feels more terrible, colder, more alien. And yet I have rarely seen anything so beautiful.

It's not just these representative views; it was also the effect of wandering, mouse-walking, step by step over endless brown terrain, lifeless and silent. Except, of course, for the roar of waters, the crashing of rock, the ping! of splitting ice. And probably the howl of wind. But no birdsong, no whisper of pines. Screen after screen of ever-different sameness. It gives me the shivers, and not from the imagined cold.

Where are these sites? Here, at the markers.
(And don't forget to click on these for a full-size view.)