"Icefields" by Thomas Wharton

Twenty-five years before, a doctor fell into a crevasse, and was trapped there, losing his backpack and all the objects in it. Currently, someone finds it, the doctor perhaps, on his return visit, and the orchids in the cans still survive after all these years.

I'm reviewing this book from memory. A principal incident in the book occurs when the doctor tumbles into a massive crack in the glacier, and becomes disoriented - is he rightside up, or upside down? - in the all-encompassing white of the ice. The book involves the strife of developers and nature as a main theme, but seems to hang its hat on the glacier-rules-everything peg.

This book will transport you. This book will set you to wondering.