Icy Initiative Tracks Glacier Changes Across Multiple B.C. Parks

The Icy Initiative is a new community science program that encourages visitors to national and provincial parks in British Columbia and across Canada to photograph glaciers to help researchers monitor changes such as retreat, thinning, and disappearance over time. Cell-phone stands have been installed in parks including Jasper, Glacier, Bugaboo, Garibaldi, and Mount Robson, where visitors can take glacier photos and upload them via QR codes or the GeoReach website. Researchers from the University of Waterloo will use these submissions to track glacier changes, which are accelerating due to climate change and affecting water resources downstream. The initiative, supported by Parks Canada, BC Parks, the BC Parks Foundation, and the Canadian government, aims to deepen public engagement with environmental science and builds on the Coastie program that monitors coastal changes. Canadian officials emphasize the program's educational value and its role in collective conservation efforts amid the UN International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation. By involving the public, the initiative hopes to foster a greater understanding of the impact of climate change on these critical natural landscapes.