The North Pole

I'll post some photos in sets, chronologically, since I haven't found a way to publish more than 4 in a single post. It must be possible though, I think I've seen it in other Blogger blogs. If anyone knows how, let me know!
These are some shots taken out the window of the plane on the flight to Beijing. Even from around 40 thousand feet up you can see a lot of cracks in the ice (look at the third picture especially.) It's only been about 6 years since it was politically and technically possible for commercial airliners to fly routes over the North Pole (see http://www.cbc.ca/news/story/2000/06/19/polar000619.html as well as the other link mentioned in the next clause of this sentence), but even in that time pilots have have noticed a lot of widening of cracks (see http://www.eastbayri.com/story/304534092544220.php).
The strange pattern you see in the sky in the second picture (if you look closely) is my camera reflected in the window. I sort of like it when that happens in my pictures... sometimes I do it intentionally to subtly include myself in them. This time it was just because of the window constraint though. I took lots of pictures as we flew over these areas It was really bright because of all the sunlight reflecting off of snow and ice.