Artist Talk

Jan Kabatoff

August 3, 2024

Tett Gallery, Kingston, ON

My dialogue with the glaciers began in 2001, when I stepped onto the Athabasca Glacier for the first time and looked into the deep turquoise pool. It felt as though I was looking into the heart of a living entity.

Back then it was easy to step onto the glacier right from the ground.

As I became more aware of global warming and its effect on glaciers, which scientists likened to the “canary in the coal mine”, I felt compelled to address the issue through my art. I read books about glaciologists who risked their lives obtaining ice cores, attended conferences about climate change and visited scientists working in Ottawa who showed me ice core samples from the Arctic. I learned that ice core samples, sometimes taken from several kilometers below the surface, can show evidence of atmospheric composition, volcanic eruptions, dust storms, even wind patterns from thousands of years ago. Ice cores help scientists compare atmospheric conditions before and after the Industrial Revolution, when humans began burning large quantities of fossil fuels, showing how human activity has boosted global temperatures in a very short span of geologic time.

2005 Bugaboo Glacier – Purcell Mountains, B.C. Ipsum

In 2005, just before Al Gore’s movie Inconvenient Truth came out, I decided to do some documentation of my own. My intention was to travel to all seven continents that had glaciers at the time and record their melting sounds as a global chorus of glacier voices. Of course, that was rather ambitious and would have required a huge investment in time and money, however, I did manage to travel to seven glaciers on three continents over the next four years, with the help of the Alberta Foundation of the Arts and Canada Council for the Arts. The first glacier I trekked to was the Bugaboo glacier in the Purcell Mountains of Eastern British Columbia, with renowned mountain guide and climber, Sharon Wood of Canmore. At the time, I had a studio at the Banff Centre for the Arts as a self-directed artist, so I was able to rent professional recording equipment.


I was deeply moved when I first saw the glacier. It looked like the womb of the earth, with life-giving waters flowing from it into the valley below, nurturing ecosystems and species along the way. The Bugaboos are a popular climbing destination known for their spires, however, what captivated my imagination were the patterns, textures and deep pools of turquoise meltwater.

Since 2000, studies are showing a steady increase in temperature and a steady decrease in precipitation on the Bugaboo Glacier. Even in 2005, climbing was becoming hazardous as frozen water in the cracks of rock was melting, releasing falling rocks.

2007 Potanina Glacier – Altai Mountains, Mongolia

Two years later, Helen Sovdat of Canmore, certified mountain guide and climber, took me with a group to the Potanin Glacier in the Altai Mountains, in the northwest corner of Mongolia. 

This time I came equipped not only with a recording device but with hand-painted silk to do frottage (a rubbing), and mould making material to take impressions. I wanted to come away with as much information as possible about the glacier.

Mongolia is an extremely dry and barren country with only 12% that is forested. From the scientists based at the Potanin Glacier we learned that the glacier was shrinking by 4 meters/year at lower levels and 2 meters/year at the upper levels. Indeed, the glacier was melting so rapidly during the time we were there, that by noon it was slushy on the surface and rivulets of water were flowing all around us. 

Between 1940 and 2014 Mongolia’s average annual temperatures warmed by 2.1 degrees Celsius, around three times more than the global increase over the same period. Since 2003, the mass balance of Potanin Glacier, has been in the negative. Mass balance is the sum of all the accumulation of snow, ice, freezing rain, and melt or ice loss across the entire glacier. 

For a country with very little water prone to drought conditions in the summer and harsh winters, the nomadic herders have lost millions of livestock, forcing many of them to abandon their traditional livelihoods and move into the city ghettos. However, in recent years with funds from the World Bank’s Sustainable Livelihoods Project, herders have begun to implement a more efficient method of water harvesting. 

Water harvesting means taking water from the main pasture areas during the spring snow melt and summer rains, instead of relying on groundwater wells where the groundwater table has become too low.

2007 – Lowell Glacier, St. Elias Range, Yukon 

In the same year, after my return from Mongolia, I did a two-month artist residency at the Ted Harrison Artist Retreat in the Yukon, where I rafted on the Alsek River in the Saint Elias Range to Lowell Glacier.

I immersed myself in the history of the land and the early Athapaskan/Tlingit people that travelled past the glaciers between the interior and the ocean. I found their stories of glaciers as sentient beings most intriguing. According to Anthropologist Julia Cruikshank in her book titled “Do Glaciers Listen?” the Indigenous people believed that glaciers were equipped with senses of smell and hearing, alert to the behaviour of humans and quick to respond to anger, swearing, or frying meat, by surging forward and destroying encampments. This made me rather nervous when our guides were frying sausages over the campfire during our first night camping across the lake from the glacier. Just a few hours earlier, the glacier appeared to send us a warning signal, by calving a huge iceberg into the lake with a sonic boom, causing a mini tsunami that tossed our rafts about. It was there that a lonely bergy bit caught my attention and gave me pause. I wondered if the reason we humans were having such a hard time grasping the concept of ‘global warming’ was because the size of the planet was beyond the human scale and therefore, hard to comprehend, while something small like the bergy bit was within the grasp of the human scale, and its melting rate much easier to observe. The irony is, at the point at which we comprehend the bergy bit is melting, its melting rate is so rapid that it’s too late to stop it. Which made me wonder, if at the point we grasp the urgency of climate change, will it be too late to stop it?

During July 2018, temperatures higher than normal for that time of year created a “swamp of slush” on the Lowell Glacier. In just four days the snow from the previous winter melted into a pool of slush covering an area more than 40 square km. Within a week, the slush was lost from the glacier as it flowed into Lowell Lake, driving the glacier to retreat even further.

July 2008 – Illecillewaet Glacier, Rogers Pass, GlacierNational Park, Selkirk Mountains, B.C.

In 2008 Helen took me to the Illecillewaet Glacier in RogersPass, Glacier National Park, B.C.

The glacier occupies a special place in the history of Canadian glaciological study, with some of the earliest photographic documentation of a glacier in North America dating back to 1887. The Vaux family, a prominent Quaker family from Philadelphia comprised of photographers, were yearly visitors to the glacier, contributing greatly to the study of glaciology by providing a rich history of documentation through time. Mary Vaux would continue to visit the area every summer until her death in 1940. Since 2009, the Illecillewaet Glacier has been studied yearly by a team of scientists who’ve only witnessed one year when the glacier had a gain. Their concern is for the loss of cold, fresh downstream water during the late summer, into rivers, lakes and wetlands. With the retreat of glaciers supplying less fresh water in the summer, the temperature of that water will end up much warmer, impacting fish migration and creating stress. They say that all species, including us, will be greatly impacted.

August 2008 Haig Glacier – Kananaskis Country, Kananaskis Range, Canadian Rockies 

As my project grew in scope, it was endorsed by the United Nations Water for Life Decade 2005-2015, and the University of Calgary’s Environmental Sciences. In August 2008, three female graduate students from the University of Calgary were tasked with taking me to the Haig Glacier in the Kananaskis Range of the Rockies.

The glacier rests on the Great Divide between Alberta and British Columbia. Before I could step on the ice, I was geared up with a rope, crampons, carabiner, and axe.

While we didn’t see any crevasses or mill wells, there was a lot of “watermelon snow”, also known as glacial blood. It is caused by algae that turns the snow a shade of pink. The algae blooms in summer, forming on the snowfields that linger on glaciers. With global warming, the summer melt is extended, increasing the algae bloom, which in turn, decreases reflectivity and accelerates glacial melt.

Although we didn’t see any crevasses or mill wells on the surface of the glacier, there was a lot of water movement going on underneath, coming out as a roaring waterfall. Which was a reminder to always be safe and well equipped. 
The Haig Glacier was used as a summer biathlon and cross-country ski camp, hence the track. It opened in 1989 but had to shut down for the first time in 2023, due to a low snowpack which would have melted off too quickly, exposing the ice below.

In 2000, a monitoring station was set up at the glacier which showed a loss of one meter a year of ice since then. Not only does it stand to redefine the Alberta/BC border, but it can also cause a shift in which way the water will flow from the divide. The concern is that it will affect hundreds of thousands of people and animals that rely on glacier-fed streams and rivers as a water source.

September 2008 – Peyto Glacier, Jasper National Park,Canadian Rockies

Following the Haig Glacier, Helen Sovdat and friends took meto Peyto Glacier in August of 2008. 

Peyto Glacier is situated in Banff National Park, Alberta, approximately 90 km northwest of the town of Banff. It is among the most closely monitored glaciers in the world. In 1968, the United Nations selected Peyto as a reference glacier for the International Hydrological Decade research initiative. Ever since, teams of scientists have travelled to Peyto to conduct field work and calculate changes in the mass of the glacier. According to the World Glacier Monitoring Service, it has lost 70% of its mass during the past 50 years and retreated 80 meters horizontally in just a few years.

According to Dr. John Pomeroy, Director of University of Saskatchewan’s Centre for Hydrology, who has studied Peyto for decades, Peyto and other glaciers in the Rocky Mountains will completely disappear within the next few generations. He warns that downstream communities in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba should be preparing now for hydrological droughts that will be “more severe than any we’ve experienced”. 
Once again, I did recordings of melting sounds, made mould impressions and took photos of breathtaking bottomless mill-wells.

2009 Torre Glacier, Patagonia, Argentina In 2009 

Helen organized a group hiking trip around my project to South America’s Patagonia, my third and last continent. Patagonia is a geographical region in the Andes Mountains that is governed by Argentina and Chile, famous for its landscapes, vast forest, natural reserves and parks, glaciers, native wildlife, and of course the incredible spires for climbing.

The first glacier we visited was the Torre Glacier in the Glaciers National Park, Argentina, which required taking a rope pulley to get across a rushing glacial river to get there.

Our seasoned guide told us that within a decade the glacier had retreated from the rock face and formed a lake.

Once again, with help from my friends, I was able to do recordings, mould impressions and frottage on silk. The colours of the meltwater in small pools were the most stunning I had ever seen. I might add the riskiest part of going on a glacier is coming on or off it, because the edges are softening and prone to collapse.

Grey Glacier, Patagonia, Chile 

Our next glacier was the Grey Glacier in Chile’s Laguna Raphael National Park, which calved the most stunning other-worldy icebergs. It is one of Torres del Paine’s most spectacular glaciers, tumbling into the serene Lago Grey. It is part of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field, and at its peak is 30 meters high and around six km wide.

The Grey Glacier is now receding 100 meters a year, and in November 2023, Chile’s National Forestry Corporation permanently banned hikers and ice-climbers from the glacier, citing rapid, destabilizing melting. The overnight closure came as a shock to local guides, who rely on ecotourism. Ice-climbers around the world are being forced to adapt to the effects of warmer temperatures on well-known routes. In July 2022, a building-sized chunk of the Marmolada glacier in the Italian Dolomites collapsed onto a popular hiking route, killing 11 people, and several agencies canceled ascents of Mont Blanc for the first time, as melting ice loosened an alarming number of rockfalls.

Perito Moreno Glacier, Argentina 

Our last glacier was the breathtaking Perito Moreno, a UNESCO WORLD Heritage Site, located near the city of El Calafate, Santa Cruz province, Argentina.

Heralded the 8th wonder of the world with 250 sq km and 80-meter-tall walls, it is visited by thousands of tourists each year. At the time, it was the only advancing glacier in Patagonia, defying climate change, due to the perfect climactic conditions and its location in the Andes. However, in 2023 it was reported that slabs weighing many tons cascaded from the 18,000-year-old glacier’s 230ft-high face with alarming frequency, leaving an eruption of ice and water in their wake, with slabs destined for Lake Argentino.

Results 

Once all the information was gathered, and back at the Banff Centre studio, a hands-on multi-media production began in earnest to complete all the works in three months for an opening at the Peter Whyte Museum of the Rockies in Banff. The frottage on hand-dyed fabric became a piece called Moulin.

The frottage on hand-dyed fabric became a piece called Moulin.

The mould impressions were cast in wax to represent Arctic ice melt titled Ice Flows and Sound Retreats.

4,000, 50ml bottles of arctic glacier water, courtesy of University of Calgary, became Mass Balance.

A five-panel wax painting, 5’x15’, was called Falling Water Suite. The sound recordings were compiled into a video with photographs of glaciers. That body of work has shown in Alberta, Newfoundland and British Columbia.

2024 Athabasca Glacier, Jasper National Park, Canadian  Rockies

Returning to the Athabasca Glacier after ten years, wasbittersweet.  The beauty of the Rockiesthat I have loved and hiked in for many years was still the same, but theglacier was substantially reduced and looking very sad. Its edges were muchshallower and there was now a lake in front of it.

In a recent Global News article by Carolyn Kury de Castillo titled Soot from wildfires, record heat, adding to excessive glacial melt: Canadian Scientist. The scientist she interviewed was John Pomeroy, who said “scientists have been warning for years about the need to remove carbon from the atmosphere - it may take a national treasure left in ruins for citizens and government to connect the dots”. He said “People wonder, what does it mean if we don’t? This fire in Jasper shows us what it means. It’s awful and its intolerable.” When he was at the Athabasca Glacier Station on July 16th (just a few days before us) he recorded that the ice depth sensor was four meters up in the air due to ice melt of 3.3 meters since September 15, 2023. The melt on the Athabasca has been between 70 and 80 cm per week in the heat. The ice fall still had a magical allure, even though it looked a bit tired and slumpy. As long as there is enough mass in the glacier for the gravitational pull, the ice will continue to move downhill. However, once the mass reaches a critical point, it will remain stationary until all the ice is gone.

Conclusion 

The term solastalgia was first coined by Australian philosopher Glenn Albrecht, as “homesickness we feel while still at home”. It is the pain and longing we feel with the loss of a healthy place and thriving ecosystem, as we realize the world around us is changing. Indeed, while Canada remains our home, little by little we are losing that which defines us, the landscape that we love and treasure. Yet, scientists tell us that there is still a sparkle of hope in the future. They believe that if humans can get their act together and de-carbonize, glaciers could return through a process that would take hundreds of years. Over time, and with the right conditions, accumulated snow eventually becomes thick ice. The most important thing is being as informed as possible and understanding the science behind what is happening, so that we can step up when the moment arises and do all that we can.

Acknowledgments 

I am deeply grateful for the support, trust and endorsements I received during this journey, when few people believed in ‘global warming’, now called climate change. Without the help of the guides and fellow travellers, the scientific and arts community, and funding from government agencies, this project would not be possible. I wish I did not have to speak on behalf of the glaciers nearly twenty years later, but the reality is such that it begs for action. For this leg of the journey, I thank Curator Jessica Turner for prompting me to revisit a theme near and dear to my heart; the B.C. Arts Council for making it financially feasible; Bob Sandford, who holds the Global Water Futures Chair at the United Nations, for endorsing my project under the UN Preservation of Glaciers 2025 initiative; Luuk Wijik, Digital Media and Film Permit Coordinator, Jasper National Park, Parks Canada; Corin Lohman, owner of Athabasca Glacier Ice Walks, and David Copithorne, freelance photographer and cinematographer of Calgary.

Drawing by Judy Steele (2009)

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