MOUNTAIN LIFE - Coast Mountains | Fall Winter 2018

116 MLCM FALL/WINTER 2018 Gwenn Flowers is a professor of Earth Sciences at SFU. A specialist in glaciology, Flowers developed the station with Washer. “The glaciers in this area, like those in other parts of the world, are retreating,” she says. “Some are retreating so quickly they are collapsing in terminus, near the end of the glacier.” Flowers explains that the caves Head-Line share with guests are actually what glaciologists call Röthlisberger-channels (or R-channels, named after the Swiss glaciologist who outlined the theory of their formation), formed by water flowing under the ice. The water moving under the ice creates heat, which melts the glacier and creates the magnificent catenary arches and illuminated aqua blue caverns that Washer loves to explore. If the glacier above the R-channels is thick enough, it can squeeze the channels closed over time. But if it is thin and melting from both top and bottom the channels can collapse, which will cause the entire glacier to disappear more quickly. “In BC and Alberta in the 1980s we had 30,000 square kilometres of ice,” Flowers says. “That was 23 per cent of all non-polar ice in North America and four percent of non-polar ice globally. In the last 20 years, at least 10 per cent of this ice has been lost.” Which is why it’s exciting to have new data coming from a local source. Input beamed down from the new station can be used to develop better computer models for the future. As well, working with Washer allows Flowers and her SFU students to log real time on local ice. They can test equipment, hone techniques and gain experience before embarking on long, expensive trips to the glaciers of the north. “It’s a lot easier to fly students 12 minutes from the Whistler heliport than to get them up to the Yukon,” Washer says. “And our guides can help them with field safety.” Unlike the avalanche field, there are no standards for safety assessment on the icecap so we are leading the industry by developing new tools, terminology and assessment techniques where none existed before. But no one is kidding themselves—as incredible as Washer’s initiative is (he puts three per cent of Head-Line’s heli ice cave experience profits back into research) the future of the world’s glaciers looks pretty grim. Glaciers feature in every British Columbian’s daily life in the form of hydroelectricity created by the rivers they feed. They also produce drinking water at the hottest and driest times of the year, and moderate stream and river habitat temperature. A loss of ice will affect BC salmon runs and the vast ecosystems they support. “Since 1990 our global human contribution to the global loss of these mountain glaciers is 70 per cent,” Flowers says. “And if the average global temperature increases another 1.5-3.5 degrees by the end of this century, most of our local glaciers will be gone. That seems far away, but if you think about it, almost everyone will have someone they love who will be alive at the end of this century. And they might inherit a world without these glaciers.” Flowers does admit to having an optimistic streak, despite a barrage of depressing data. “No amount of science and evidence is going to change people’s minds,” she says. “What changes minds is culture. And if you look at major social changes throughout history, they seem like they are impossible until suddenly they happen. And we already have the technical ability to transition to a low carbon economy. So it can happen.” But it’s up to us to change the culture—to ensure pictures like the cover photo of this magazine don’t only exist in the history books and that future generations can feel the awe of standing in an R-channel, staring into a wall of ice, and witnessing that geologic time first-hand. LEFT The Wedgemont Lake glacier in 1971... CLIFF JENNINGS RIGHT ...and in 2013. JEFF SLACK. BELOW SFU Students testing an ice auger locally before embarking north on an expedition. DOUGWASHER