New exhibition at Banff’s Whyte Museum highlights glaciers of the Columbia Icefield

Two men who summited Mount Everest have joined forces to shine a light on climate change, using photos of the Columbia Icefield. Kevin Fleming explains.

Banff’s Whyte Museum has a new exhibition that showcases the glaciers of the Columbia Icefield.

Called Meltdown – A Drop in Time, the exhibition opens on Saturday in honour of the United Nations' declaration of 2025 as International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation.

The show features a series of photos taken from the ground and in the air highlighting a series of glaciers in the Columbia Icefield – a remote part of the world that few get to see.

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“We would trek into an area – usually with about a week’s worth of food and gear – then, go with a specific objective in mind, and then sit there and watch the weather, and usually it was pretty crappy,” said Jim Elzinga, photographer.

Elzinga partnered with Roger Vernon on the project in 2021.

Vernon says it started out as a passion project to document the west side of the Columbia Icefield and glacier recession.

“To get into this region would require a multi-day trip,” he said. “So really, the only people that are familiar with this territory are pilots or alpinists that go into to look at these peaks specifically.

“Most of the public doesn’t have a clue what this area looks like.”

Elzinga says one particular photo took an entire week to capture.

“There’s one called The Heat Dome. We waited seven days,” he said. “This was the last day that we had time for the shoot, we just went up on our ridge, we hadn’t got one shot all week, all of a sudden the sun broke and bam!”

The photographers first published a book with their glacier photos, and say they hope to use the art to shine a light on the urgent need to take action to preserve the glaciers.

“These glaciers are water towers; this is our future, and most people look at these things and they go, ‘Oh yeah, they’re glaciers, but who cares? so what?’” said Vernon. “But the fact of the matter is, is that this is our freshwater 40 years from now, hopefully further, so when these are gone, guess what? There’s going to be a lot of fresh water that we won’t have and unfortunately, that’s not part of our conversation and it needs to be.”

Christina Cuthbertson, director of curatorial initiatives at the museum, says they’re honored to host the exhibition.

She says Banff has visitors from all over the world who may not know about the impact global warming has on glaciers.

“The museum sees a global audience,” she said. “In some cases, people who have never seen ice or snow, and really might not understand the role that glaciers play in water supply here and around the world, so it’s a great learning opportunity and it also really showcases the majesty of this area in the Canadian Rockies.”

Leanne Allison is an independent documentary filmmaker based in Canmore.

Her 14-minute film Losing Blue is part of the exhibition.

“The film has been described as a cinematic poem,” she said. “One of the lines is ‘blue is the color of memory’ – and it’s that blue that’s locked up into the in the ice, and then it appears in the lakes.”

Allison says that blue is from “glacial flour” in the runoff, and one day – if glaciers disappear – so do the blue lakes. Her hope is that the exhibition can make visitors think about their impact on the environment and that they need to act now to make a difference.

“We’re living in this era of this incredible change, it’s all happening so quickly,” she said. “I think collectively that that does make a difference when we get really moved.”

Meltdown - a Drop in Time runs until April 13.

Learn more about Meltdown here: www.whyte.org/events