Icefields Parkway, the Athabasca Glacier and Global Warming

They say that the Icefields Parkway, connecting Canada’s Banff and Jasper National Parks, is one of the most spectacular drives in the world.  We agree!  The views were stunning in all directions, and there were great stops along the way.

We drove up and down the entire length of the parkway, along with various short trips within the parkway, so we got plenty of time to enjoy it.  This was one of my favorite parts of our 17-day trip to Canada.

The Icefields Parkway runs for 144 miles from the Lake Louise area of Banff National Park to Jasper National Park, two stunning Canadian Rocky Mountain national parks.  The road was built in 1931, as a part of a back-to-work project by the Canadian government, with a crew starting at Lake Louise and another in Jasper, until they met in the middle.

The highlight of the road is the huge and vitally important Columbia Icefield, but the entire length of the road is dotted with sights, stops and scenery.  The Columbia Icefield is the largest icefield in the Rockies and sits on the continental divide, with water runoff flowing into the Arctic, Atlanta and Pacific oceans.  The icefield feeds six separate glaciers, many of which we got a glimpse of on the Icefields Parkway.

Due to my lack of note-keeping, I’m only about 80% sure that is Stuttfield Glacier behind L.

Athabasca Glacier and Columbia Icefields Discovery Centre

A must see on the parkway is the most accessible of the six glaciers fed by the Columbia Icefield, the Athabasca glacier.  The Discovery Centre was built directly across from the glacier.

View from the front porch of the Discovery Centre

After a day of hiking and driving, we arrived in the afternoon at the Athabasca Glacier.  There was a longer walk across the forefield of the glacier (a barren area exposed by the receding glacier in the 1840s), or a shorter walk at the toe of the glacier.  I opted for the longer walk, having the boys drop me off, then drive to the parking lot at the toe of the glacier.  (In my old age, I have become a total sucker for informational signs, and I thought I might miss some information signs if I didn’t take the longer hike!)  I walked down the Forefield Trail, got a good view of the glacier, but didn’t get any information signs to read 🙁 .  I eventually met up with the boys, and we started the short but steep, and kind of sad, walk through the bare rocks that were, in my lifetime, covered by the glacier.

In 1982, the glacier reached this sign. Today, the toe of the glacier is out of view, above the hill and beyond.

The glacier is said to recede about 5 meters/16 feet PER YEAR.  I don’t even know what to say about this that will encourage everyone (all of my faithful readers!) to try to do something, anything, to help our planet, so that someday the boys can go back to the glacier and show it to their kids.

Standing where the toe of the glacier was only 13 years ago (practically during A’s lifetime!). You can see the water behind the boys that is actually glacier melt flowing into the lake to the right, and the actual toe is behind that little ridge after the water.

In a related aside: after watching the teenager Greta Thunberg’s Ted talk on global warming, A and I did some research and discovered how extremely resource intensive beef is (see this chart for an example – not the exact article we originally read, but just a quick google brought me to something similar), and we have decided to avoid eating red meat where possible (in fact, I am trying not to make it too big of a deal since he is just a kid, but A is pretty dead set on not eating beef).  May I suggest you do what you can: you don’t have to do anything extreme, just opt for chicken instead of beef once in a while, or even something without meat one extra day.  This is the end of my soap-box speech.

Here is a quick video (low quality, even according to my barely basic photo taking skills) that shows a cool/sad display at the Icefields Parkway Centre of how the glacier has changed over the last 100 years.

Now, I encourage you to all go off and do something good for the planet, and we will be back soon with our next (non-global warming related) post of the amazing Icefields Parkway!