The Columbia Icefields on the boundary of Banff and Jasper National Parks in the Canadian Rockies really is a spectacle to behold. This 130-square mile complex of mint-green headwalls and moraines, up to nine football fields thick, contains the largest glaciers in all of the Canadian Rockies.
We were ferried directly on top of the Athabasca Glacier for a walk-about by a specially adapted, high-torque, “snow bus” and drove from the terminal to its edge. At a speed of 10 mph it took us 20 minutes to get there.
The temperature on the glacier was close to zero degrees—freezing! The valley between the bus terminal and the glacier’s edge was so stark and treeless because it used to be part of the glacier. Jamie Bosom, our 22-year-old driver and guide who grew up near the icefield said “but you can see for yourself what has happened. This glacier, one of the world’s largest, is melting fast.”
Very fast. Thirty years ago it took only several steps to walk to the glacier’s edge. Now we had to take a bus ride. Our guide went to say that “this is not just about the loss of a beautiful work of nature.” He explained that the glacier complex is part of a “triple continental divide,” with its melted waters flowing into three oceans—the Pacific, Atlantic and Arctic—providing a source of pure, natural water to hundreds of thousands along the way. Our road trip through the Canadian Rockies had taken a more sobering turn. Suddenly all other concerns seemed worldly and trite.
Our guide put the meltdown into proper context, saying that the glacier had been in a receding phase for centuries. But he made us draw our own conclusion about the connection between the 2 degrees Farenheit increase in temperature since 1907, the 40 percent increase in carbon dioxide emissions courtesy of the human population, and this majestic wonder disappearing before our eyes and on our watch.
We were ferried directly on top of the Athabasca Glacier for a walk-about by a specially adapted, high-torque, “snow bus” and drove from the terminal to its edge. At a speed of 10 mph it took us 20 minutes to get there.
The temperature on the glacier was close to zero degrees—freezing! The valley between the bus terminal and the glacier’s edge was so stark and treeless because it used to be part of the glacier. Jamie Bosom, our 22-year-old driver and guide who grew up near the icefield said “but you can see for yourself what has happened. This glacier, one of the world’s largest, is melting fast.”
Very fast. Thirty years ago it took only several steps to walk to the glacier’s edge. Now we had to take a bus ride. Our guide went to say that “this is not just about the loss of a beautiful work of nature.” He explained that the glacier complex is part of a “triple continental divide,” with its melted waters flowing into three oceans—the Pacific, Atlantic and Arctic—providing a source of pure, natural water to hundreds of thousands along the way. Our road trip through the Canadian Rockies had taken a more sobering turn. Suddenly all other concerns seemed worldly and trite.
Our guide put the meltdown into proper context, saying that the glacier had been in a receding phase for centuries. But he made us draw our own conclusion about the connection between the 2 degrees Farenheit increase in temperature since 1907, the 40 percent increase in carbon dioxide emissions courtesy of the human population, and this majestic wonder disappearing before our eyes and on our watch.
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