Fire, Ice and Floods: Is there a cure for the summertime blues?

Athabasca Glacier, Skywalk View 2025

After many years of pondering, my husband and I took the leap this summer and returned to the Canadian Rockies after a 42-year absence. Always beautiful, the national and provincial parks are a delight (even in peak season, with the right attitude). They are also vivid indicators of the scale of changes in our environment over recent decades.

We rarely fly anymore. The carbon impact, crowds, and jam-packed flights are deterrents, but for a variety of reasons we opted to fly to Calgary. After picking up our rental car, we headed west under brown skies, and we could taste the smoke in the air inside the car. This left us immediately re-thinking all the outdoor activities we had planned. We couldn’t see the mountains rising in the distance, but trusted they were there, and got confirmation only when we were amongst them. The next morning the winds shifted, and we didn’t mind the chill and mist in the air, which was not just crisp, but clean. That afternoon we headed up the Icefields Parkway with stops at the many spectacular views along the way. We watched delighted children from many parts of the world thrill to discover fresh snow on the path to the Peyto Lake vista, unable to resist impromptu snowball “fights” regardless of parental interventions.

With an overnight stay planned at the lodge at Columbia Icefield Centre, we had time to enjoy views and tours of the otherworldly landscape of bare rock and ice, which I had last toured in 1976. The first evening gave us views of the Athabasca and neighboring glaciers and the upstream reaches of the Sunwapta River from the somewhat strange, somewhat wonderful glass viewing platform over the chasm below. As we looked at the expanse of these enormous glaciers, the churning waters they fed, and the surrounding icefields, our guide said these glaciers provided 65% of Canada’s water. Being Great Lakes folks with an insufferable need for accurate data, we asked whether this was surface water, drinking water, etc., and how this ranked with Great Lakes water as another significant source. We managed to stump both our guide and a Parks Canada scientist, who responded, “Good questions, now we’ll have to look this up!”

The next day we bundled up for the tour that brings you to the glacier itself, on the “glacial explorer” vehicle. Our guide explained before we unloaded that we had 40 minutes on the ice. Yes, we could drink the water, but not too much to avoid the scouring effects of “rock flour;” and no, we could not wander past the boundary ropes. Within the boundary, the ice surface has been intentionally roughed up for better footing, reducing the likelihood of slips and falls, which in the United States, would make attorneys swoon with opportunity. We carefully picked our way around the small area, appreciating the crystal water in little blue rivulets that many were sampling (our guide even went for a quick “facial dip”). The groups on the glacier were from many nations and many backgrounds. Some were reverently filling water bottles, others were absorbed in countless selfies. Mass tourism can certainly shape how we experience a place. During our brief visit, we were trying to absorb the magnitude of a glacier whose origins date back 200,000 years, but which may only last another 30 years, given the pace of our warming climate. What does it mean to be present with a doomed glacier? Wonder? Sadness? Resignation for the hubris of our species?

Athabasca Glacier, 2025

One source noted that “over the past 125 years, the Athabasca Glacier has halved in volume, receding by 1.5 km over that span, and continuing to shrink about five meters per year.” I was pleased that our guides were comfortable talking about climate change, and hope this experience was more than a photo op for busloads of other tourists. As part of the message, the park has posted signs as to where the toe of the glacier used to be (and has since retreated) from 1890, where the highway now zips through the valley, and 1935, when my parents were just children, and 1992, two years before our son was born. We are watching the acceleration of glacial time and geological time at an unfathomable pace.

As we headed north on the Parkway, our next “in-your-face” encounter was the burned forests from the 2024 Jasper fires. The Parkway winds through deep valleys, many of which were filled with black spires of charred lodgepole pines over a reach of more than 30 miles on the approach to Jasper. A year after this fire, we were heartened to see many areas where green plants and flowers and a scattering of little aspens were carpeting the forest floor, pioneering a new generation of life. The signs of initial recovery were extensive, but not universal. The scale of destruction is very sobering, as were the many stories people shared with us about the fire, and the efforts to rebuild lives, homes, and jobs since.

A year after the Jasper fires, 2025

Elsewhere in Canada, this has been another record-setting wildfire year, especially in Saskatchewan and Manitoba. August 6 data indicated 429 current fires, and a year-to-date total acreage of 6,887,686 hectares (that’s 17,019,842.765 acres). Meanwhile, fires are also active in the United States. “As of today, (August 11 data) 36 large fires are actively burning across the country, having burned 609,449 acres.” In combination, that’s a lot of destruction that is fouling the skies with soot and releasing decades of previously stored carbon. While wildfire is a natural phenomenon, and some forest trees need fire to release seeds and trigger germination, the scale and intensity of these fires over the last three years is far beyond “normal.”

In July, several Midwestern members of Congress decided to fight smoke by expressing umbrage in a letter to Canada’s ambassador to the United States, and asserting that Canada needed to take “proper action.” Fred Clark, former director of Wisconsin’s Green Fire, posted a potent critique of the members’ assessment of the cause of the fires and their assertion that reversal of wildfire trends is possible through technology. Containing wildfire at the scales we are witnessing today is no simple task, nor is any particular nation solely responsible for global-scale climate influences. The long-term solutions will include rapidly reducing carbon and methane emissions that are driving our hotter, and often dryer summers. However, the United States remains the second largest source of greenhouse gas emissions (after China), and our federal government is actively promoting denial and inaction and a new love affair with fossil fuels. Canada is way down the list at number 11, but that doesn’t mean they are off the hook.

We spent most of our trip “over the divide” at a pleasant little cabin near Mt. Robson, with the pleasures of nearby temperate rainforests, glacial streams, waterfalls, and mostly clean air. We returned home to nearly chewable air quality and a red moon rising over the airport. A little more than a week later, we were gifted with torrential rains, but not as torrential—11 to 14 inches in one day—as those that left Milwaukee County with extensive flooding. The emergency forced Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District to release an estimated five billion gallons of combined sewer overflow into Lake Michigan and two tributaries between August 9 and 13. Yuck.

Many people are justifiably unhappy about smoky summers and the intense storm events that create flood conditions. I too, miss blue-sky summer days, morning walks before the heat rises, and what we think of as “normal” summers. Wildfire outbreaks around the world, unprecedented (but predictable) storm, heat, and flood events, and glaciers receding before our eyes can indeed invite a case of the summertime blues. If we don’t want to live with the symptoms, we need to do something about the causes, and denial at the highest levels in government is not a solution. To protect our health, environment, and the waters that sustain life requires leadership, commitment, and international cooperation. Keep writing and calling your elected officials, reduce your personal carbon footprint, and keep paying attention to what’s driving the conditions we dislike.

—Jane Elder

GLEN welcomes diverse perspectives on Great Lakes protection. Please note that the views in our posts are those of the author. To learn more about GLEN please visit our website at https://www.greatlakesecoregion.org/