THE WRECK OF THE PRE-GLACIAL LANDSCAPE

to the tune of "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald"

by Lisa Bona and Kent Syverson, 1989

with inspiration from Erik Silvola and Erik Webb

PRELUDE

The legend lives on from the Pleistocene on down,

of the Laurentide ice sheet from Hudson.

The ice it is said, to the south it did spread;

the Ice Age had come to Wisconsin.

It had to split up as it flowed down the trough,

but the ice coalesced at the junction.

And much that remains are the eskers and kames;

now nothing is seen of the glacier.

Kettles and drumlins, striations, and more,

leave us a trace of the glaciers.

Basal till as we know, its strong fabric does show,

the orientation of ice flow.

We look at the conical hills we call kames,

and speculate on their creation.

The ice had its secrets but gave us some clues,

to interpret the glacier's ablation.

We send off our boys to the 49th state,

to decipher the deposits of Burroughs.

But the rest remain in this Cheesehead state,

to decide if flutes are farmers' furroughs.

We cough up our dough, to the Alps we go,

to follow the words of James Hutton.

We study the land and surmise what we can,

so the legend of the ice sheet will live on.

INTERLUDE

Does anyone know where the ice sheet did go,

or why it advanced in the first place?

The mystery lives on in the Night of the Sun;

can we predict a future ice age?

POSTLUDE