Glacier Melt 2011-2021
I visited the Athabasca Glacier along the Icefields Parkway for the first time as a teenager. The family photos tell the story of a long road-trip (from Calgary) in our roomy station wagon, awkwardly posed moments in front of meters-thick ice, and a snow-coach tour to the glacier tongue. Memories of that first trip must have planted slow-growing seeds of wonder and respect. I found myself, as an adult, curious to see the ice again. And so, in 2011 I packed up my hatchback and together with my malamute took a road-trip to the ice. I have returned every couple of years since then.
This is a record of what I have been finding. It is a personal record made through the eyes of a repeat tourist; one who keeps coming back as if to check on an old friend. As I bear witness to the melting ice, will the photographs I take have any kind of positive impact, given my CO2 emissions to get them? I continue to wonder. Tips for viewing the images below, to see the changes:
On the left of each set is the “toe” as a general view. You can see the terminus recede over a small moraine.
On the right of each set is a view towards the left of the toe, where the meltwater river is growing.
The images start in 2011 at the top left, and finish in 2021 at the bottom right.
2011, Athabasca Glacier Toe
2013 Athabasca Glacier Toe, Meltwater River
2018, Athabasca Glacier Toe
2018, Athabasca Glacier Toe and Meltwater River
2021, Athabasca Glacier Toe
2021, Athabasca Glacier Toe and Meltwater River
“The mountains are what would be identified as the domain of the Mountain Spirit, and that’s within oral history…”
“[Indigenous] interpretive guide Tim Patterson shares… that the Shuswap, Kootenay (Ktunaxa), Kootenai from the United States, Cree (Nêhiyawak), Blackfoot (Niitsitapi), Stoney Nakoda and Métis have all moved through this area before and after contact with European settlers.”
Jennifer Bain, An Indigenous-Led Tour Of The Athabasca Glacier
National Parks Traveller
https://www.nationalparkstraveler.org/2022/09/indigenous-led-tour-athabasca-glacier
2021, Athabasca Glacier. Kristine Thoreson
2021, Athabasca Glacier Detail. Kristine Thoreson
“We’re past the tipping point for the glaciers in the Canadian Rockies…”
“Even if somehow, magically, we’re able to stop global warming tomorrow and return the atmosphere to more normal CO2 concentrations, we would lose most of the Rockies’ glaciers.”
Christy Climenhaga, Breaking The Ice. CBC
As part of my personal journey of reconciliation as a forth generation settler in Canada, I wish to acknowledge and respect the traditional territories of Calgary where I work, live and play; the peoples of the Treaty 7 region and the Métis Nation of Alberta (Districts 5 and 6.) I also acknowledge and respect the traditional territory, meeting ground, gathering place, travelling route and home for the Dane-zaa, Aseniwuche Winewak, As'in'î'wa'chî Ni'yaw, Nêhiyawak, Anishinaabe, Secwépemc, Stoney Nakoda, Mountain Métis and Métis wherein my long-term Athabasca glacier project takes place.