Saturday, June 16, 2007
It is 8:00 am — in less than two days time, weather permitting, I will be walking on a glacier that feeds the Athabasca River.
There is much to do and much to think about and the six months of planning time now seems like too little. Thanks to MEC, we were able to secure much needed gear ranging from skis and crampons to carry us up the glacier to dry suits, paddles, and spray skirts for our canoeing through whitewater. The amount of gear to organize was sizable. Schaun, Laura, and I spent yesterday cleaning and fixing the camper — a rickety old camper circa the 1980s — needing some TLC for our ground support throughout the summer.
We intend to be on the glacier early in the day — no later than 3:00 am. Coffee is in order. We do this for a couple of reasons, colder snow makes for happier traveling and less ice breakage — there's some nasty ice falling over a cliff that we'll need to pass beneath, before the sun warms and weakens the ice.
Our destination is called Snow Dome. Although not the highest point of the watershed (that would be Mount Columbia) it is the top of three watersheds: Water from Snow Dome drains to the Arctic, Atlantic (via Hudson's Bay), and the Pacific Oceans. To get to Snow Dome, we'll be walking up the Athabasca Glacier which feeds a tributary to the Athabasca river — the Sunwapta — eventually joining the Athabasca River. But the true source of the Athabasca River is the Columbia Glacier (which has nothing to do with the Columbia River) requiring a 90 kilometre backcountry trek. Whoever named these glaciers did a great job of confusing everyone!
I was reminded of why I had undertook this project as I watched a car sit outside my house idling for twenty minutes. Inside the car sat the husband while his wife went inside to take care of some business. Perhaps he left the car on for air conditioning, as it wasn't a particularly hot day. I tried to justify his situation. Maybe he simply preferred artificial air. Maybe he wanted to be prepared in case he had to make a getaway from an unforeseen enemy. Maybe we were the enemy — I certainly wasn't in my best attire. Or maybe he simply didn't want to be there and the idling car served as a reminder to his wife that there were other, more important appointments that day. Given what we all know about global climate change and its impact on our glaciers and water supply, I wondered whether he connected his actions with this larger problem? We all play our part in this dependency on oil — myself included. But at what point do we cross that line where our justification simply don't hold water anymore? Our government uses this justification strategy also as they tend to focus more on finding oil and less on protecting our water supply. Maybe we'll develop a way to replace fresh water with a system that lets us drink oil?
Whatever the answer, I am even more inspired to do this trip.
