JANUARY 17 – APRIL 13, 2025

Etched in Ice offers an intimate view into the Campbell Icefield. The icefield and surrounding glaciers have endured for centuries in a delicate balance with Earth's climate. Glacial ice acts as a living archive, preserving ancient layers that record the passage of time and the glaciers of the Canadian Rockies, once steadfast in their frozen stillness, have come to represent all that we love about wilderness. While often perceived as pristine, white masses adorning mountain peaks, glaciers today face a rapidly changing environment. This exhibition captures images of glacier ice during a period of accelerated transformation.

​

The glaciers of the Canadian Rockies are as iconic as the mountains themselves. The mountains create the conditions necessary for glaciers to form, yet its the glaciers' growth, recession, and movement that have sculpted the mountains over millennia. This process, typically spanning vast timescales, is now being altered by unprecedented melting. Made up of countless layers of snow accumulated over thousands of years, glaciers bear unique witness to past atmospheric and environmental conditions. They are an irreplaceable archive of endangered memory. However, as these glaciers recede, entire chapters of Earth's history are lost. 

​

"The photographs in this exhibition aim to depict how glaciers appear in our changing climate. I focussed on a small area along the Continental Divide in British Columbia, including an icefield and three glaciers. The mosaic of patterns seen in these images has been created by the interplay of rockfall and silt from meltwater. The result is a visual tapestry of textures depicting the dynamic processes of glacial eroding and depositing."

- Glen Crawford

​

About the Photographer:

Glen Crawford studied visual communications at the Banff School of Fine Arts (1974-76). Over the past 5 decades his career has involved photography, film, and video production often in remote and challenging locations. The use of drone photography in Etched in Ice is an exploration using modern technology to capture ancient subject matter.