Left: Scientists at the Peyto Glacier research station (built in the 1960s) after a day spent studying glacial composition and melt rate. Right: Researchers May Guan, Steve Bertollo and Scott Munro set up monitoring equipment on Peyto. This image was taken in 2011; the ice they’re standing on has since melted and formed a large lake. Photos: Lynn Martel.
On the last day of the festival, the great day, while Jesus was standing there, he cried out, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink.
As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’ ”
John 7: 37-38 NRSVue
In the mid-1960s our family did what a lot of Canadians were doing at the time -- we piled into the car and headed across the country, destination Vancouver. It was a grim forced march for my brother and me, in large part because our father had no appreciation that driving for endless hours might make two young boys restless and goofy.
There were stops along the way including Peyto Lake and Glacier in the Rocky Mountains. There was the surreal colour of the water and the massive sheet of ice that I recall being unexpectedly dirty. Over the past 60 years this glacier has done the disappearing act of glaciers around the planet with an alarming acceleration since the turn of the millennium. Canada's glaciers seemed inexhaustible, as did those in Iceland, and the Himalayas. The same with the icecaps at both poles. In turns out that we humans have a remarkable ability to alter just about everything for our own selfish purposes and to foul our own nests.Somehow we've transformed the term "glacial speed" from something ponderously slow moving to disturbingly fast.
If you have visited glaciers as an adult you may have had more of a spiritual experience, as we did when touring Iceland. We have also had remarkable moments with icebergs in Newfoundland, including paddling relatively close to them while staying on Change Islands near Fogo during the "year of the Icebergs" in 2017. These bergs were once part of Greenland glacial formations.
In 2019 Iceland commemorated the once huge Okjokull glacier with plaque that warns action is needed to prevent climate change
In September 2019, a "funeral march" was held in the Swiss Alps to commemorate the death of the Pizol glacier, a symbolic act to raise awareness about climate change and the loss of glaciers due to global warming
There have been events mourning the demise of glaciers in the manner of funerals, a recognition of the grief felt for what we once took for granted. Glaciers are absolutely vital for the storage and release of water for creatures around the planet, including hundreds of millions of people.
In places such as the Andes of Peru glaciers are considered sacred and as many as 100,000 pilgrims travel hundreds of kilometres for annual religious festivals. At an altitude of 16,500 feet, they'll camp out, sing, dance and pray during Qoyllur Riti, which means "snow star" in the local Quechua language.They bring back chunks of ice from the glacier, symbols of water and life, to their communities.
This is World Water Day 2025 with the theme of saving glaciers and I'm all for appreciating the sacred aspect of glaciers. Jesus described himself as living water so why not throw in an icecube?
Moi, Change Islands July 2017
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