What is the arctic like?ꡓAsk this question of almost anyone. You will get an answer something like this: ꡒThe Arctic is a land and water that is always covered with ice and snow. Itꡑs very cold there. It is also very quiet, since there are few or no living things, such as plants and animals.ꡓ How wrong are these ideas of great cold, loneliness and silence! There really is no such unpleasant place north of the Arctic Circle. Greenland, a big island in the Arctic, is covered with large masses of ice, called glaciers. On the high mountains that are part of Greenland, not even summer heat can melt the snow that falls in winter. It piles up and forms glacier ice. The ice flows slowly down to the sea, where it breaks off into great chunks. In the past hundred years, fisherman hunting whale and seal have brought home stories of Greenlandꡑs icebergs.   These stories have led most persons to believe that all northern lands are covered with ice.