Created by Nicolas Bakken-French

© 2023 Nicolas J. Bakken-French

The first time I cried at a view of natural splendor I was above the treeline on the north slope of Koma Kulshan (Mt. Baker) and viewing the Coleman glacier cascading from the summit, adorned with wildflowers and flanked by a family of Marmots. Moments like this have led me to dedicate myself to the glaciers, forests, peoples, and ecosystems of the West Coast of the U.S., showing people what is still here, what must be saved and why we must save it. 

The Ring of Fire, the subduction zones that surround the Pacific Ocean and which create terrifying earthquakes and monumental volcanoes, birthed the volcanoes and mountain ranges that support glaciers on the West Coast of North America. These volcanoes produce monumental destruction, but also rebirth and balance. The ecosystems of the Pacific Northwest thrive because of the ice that forms on these volcanoes. The volcanoes and mountains of this region reach high enough into the sky that a fraction of the winter snowfall survives the summer heat. Year after year that snow builds, compresses, forms ice, and then that ice flows with gravity, creating glaciers. These glaciers cool and stabilize the local and global climate, a climate that, in the Pacific Northwest, supports the largest temperate rainforest ecosystem in the world, the earth’s rarest biome. Glaciers feed the rivers that create habitat for salmon whose nutrients feed the forest. They are – or were – part of an ecosystem perfectly in balance. Logging the forests, damming the rivers, and anthropogenic emissions warming the atmosphere are melting the glaciers, and shifting that balance. 

The volcanoes and mountain ranges of the Pacific Northwest contain an immense and commanding amount of ice, from a tiny cirque glacier in the crest of the Sierra Nevada in California to the largest non-polar icefield in the world in the Chugach Mountain Range of Alaska. This ice impacts every aspect of life in North America, in ways both easily apparent and very subtle. The common theme for all of this ice is that it is disappearing, faster than anywhere else on the planet. In fact, melting glaciers in Alaska are contributing more to sea level rise than melting glaciers from anywhere else on the planet. The consequences of this rapid disappearance will be cataclysmic for the globe, but especially for North America. To preserve the influence of this ice on our ecosystems–the stability of our lives and cultures, the beauty and grandeur of this ice–is imperative.

Glaciers have come and gone, but this time is different. This time it is in our hands. 

The Juneau Icefield of Alaska has the longest running measure of mass-balance of any ice in North America. Thanks to the Juneau Icefield Research Program (JIRP), there is incredible data on the history and status of some of Alaska's most important glaciers. There is also important historical documentation. In 2021, as a student of JIRP, I replicated some of these historical photographs in order to provide perspective on the immense amount of ice that has been lost. Below are those photographs from the Juneau Icefield, followed by my photographs of the ice and ecosystems that we can still save in California, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska. 

Click on photo for more information (Not available on mobile device).

C A L I F O R N I A

What end will we write to your story? 
As you pass into legend.
"I'll acquaint myself with the glaciers…" Muir said.
But now we can only interpret your work
After our warmth has stolen your strength.
What have we lost when a glacier is merely an idea?

- B.W., Yosemite National Park Volunteer

This journey begins south, high in the crest of the Sierra Nevada mountains. A range carved entirely by the ice that once dominated the landscape. Icefields as prolific as those that now cover the ranges of Alaska carved the most well known mountain faces in the world, including Half Dome in Yosemite National Park. As the planet exited the last glacial maximum, these icefields retreated to reveal deep canyons that filled with tall forests. But that ice did not disappear entirely. High in the crest of the Sierra remained many glaciers, which over time moved and continued to carve the mountains, until – only recently – they died, which is to say: they are stagnant. Those glaciers did not have to die. Their demise was due to an unnatural and rapidly warming planet. Today, only one living glacier remains in the Sierra Nevada, the Palisades glacier. But the Palisades glacier is not the only glacier that remains in the state. California’s Mt. Shasta has the state's largest concentration of active glaciers. Unfortunately, just to the west of Mt. Shasta, high in the Trinity Alps, a glacier that only a decade ago was an active glacier, is now a minuscule collection of blocks of ice. What remains is but a shadow of what once supported endemic species, such as the ice beetle, and waters that flowed all the way to the Coastal Redwoods and fed rivers of salmon. It was the last glacier in the Trinity Alps.

O R E G O N

"Those volcanoes are the water towers for the region, the wine you drink from river valleys that are fed by glacial meltwater, the salmon in your rivers - those are all intimately linked to a system that has been in equilibrium, but now we have perturbed that system."

- Anders Carlson, Ph.D, President, Oregon Glaciers Institute

Volcanoes of the Oregon Cascades grace the state’s skyline, when they aren't covered in clouds. But the Pacific Northwest’s weather is precisely the reason Oregon boasts a significant number of glaciers. It is here In Oregon, as we move north, that glaciers have more and more of a significant impact on the landscape. Glaciers fertilize and water the landscape below, providing water and soil for the orchards and wineries in the shadow of Wy’East (Mt. Hood). The glacial meltwater on the west side of the Three Sisters supports one of the largest intact contiguous tracts of old growth temperate rainforests in the state. On the east side, glacial meltwater flows into the Deschutes River, as does meltwater from glaciers on Seekseekqua (Mt. Jefferson). The Deschutes River provides the lifeblood for Central Oregonians and for the state’s critical salmon habitat. Further, the outdoor recreation supported by glaciers and the rivers they feed, is a billion dollar contributor to the state's economy. These ice-capped mountains are also symbols of identity for the people of Oregon, a symbol threatened to be forever altered. 

W A S H I N G T O N

“...these ecosystems have evolved with the glaciers for thousands of years…” 

- Dr. Jon Riedel, National Park Service Geologist


The indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest migrated to the new forests when the most recent ice age ended and the ice retreated to the high Cascade Mountains. What the ice created is a land of incredible abundance and balance, a land with which indigenous people formed a beneficial symbiotic relationship. That all changed, however, when European settlers invaded and tilted the balance, cutting down the old growth forests and damming the free rivers, introducing industry which destroyed much of the intact ecosystems and indigenous communities of the Pacific Northwest. Soon after, the glaciers began to retreat. The balance and rhythm that indigenous people had lived with for thousands of years forever changed. In Washington, high in the North Cascades, this imbalance is felt deeply by the Nooksack Tribe, whose salmon run depends on glacier meltwater from Koma Kulshan (Mt. Baker) and Mt. Shuksan. The Nooksack Tribe runs a comprehensive glacier and streamflow monitoring program to better understand melting glaciers impact on salmon runs in the Nooksack River. The glacier's importance is deeply understood.

A L A S K A

K’ats’i Tl’aadi - “The one at cold waters”

Alaska, the farthest North in the journey up the Ring of Fire. It is a land where people co-exist with magnificent and massive glaciers. In Alaska, glaciers are not simply an afterthought, something mysterious and high in the mountains, but rather a fact and a reality of daily life. People live beside glaciers and in their sphere of direct influence. People work on glaciers and with them. The state’s economy and livelihood are linked to a constant flow of people visiting glaciers. Consider McCarthy, AK., in the heart of Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. Here is a community that depends almost entirely on glaciers. Formerly a town built on extractive industry, McCarthy is now a destination for glacier tourism, attracting visitors wishing to experience glaciers, through stepping foot on them, climbing them, and rafting down their cold rivers. McCarthy sits at the toe of Kennicott glacier, in the middle of America's largest National Park, some of its largest mountains, and North America's largest glaciers. The scale is incomprehensible, as is its beauty, and its importance. Alaska is losing more ice than anywhere on the globe, forever changing the landscape and the planet.