Photography by George Webber
Bob Sandford leans against his walking stick and lifts his pale blue eyes toward the horizon. The 59-year-old resident of Canmore, Alta., has just reached the top of Parker Ridge, a trail high above the Icefields Parkway in the Rocky Mountains. He's looking out to the impressive mass of ice that very nearly took his life almost 40 years ago.
Twenty years old and a park naturalist at the time, Sandford was hiking down the Saskatchewan Glacier in Alberta's Columbia Icefields when he slipped and disappeared into a huge crevasse. Miraculously, he survived to tell the tale of how he tumbled through this "planetary artery" – a world of glowing blue subglacial light, falling rocks, freezing cold water and ice – and was quickly and "unceremoniously" spit out of the glacier into what is the birthplace of the North Saskatchewan River.
Sandford – more like Indiana Jones of the Rockies in his trademark brown felt hat – maintains that this event changed the course of his young life, giving him a profound respect for the earth's natural water systems. The experience also drove home an awareness of what it means to be Canadian – our identity being so closely linked to the snow, water and ice that surrounds us – and the importance of managing the natural resources that sustain us and shape our identity.
The myth of abundance
Telling the stories of Canada's glaciers, rivers and streams is what Sandford does. With his book Water, Weather and the Mountain West (Rocky Mountain, 2008), the author and self-taught natural scientist endeavours to give voice to Canada's waterways. He believes that their stories need to be heard.
More than anything, though, Sandford wants to dispel the myth that we have a limitless abundance of water, and make Canadians understand the urgent need to protect the glaciers, streams, rivers and lakes that generate, purify and transport this vital resource.
"We're used to taking water for granted in Canada. We don't think about how much we have," says Sandford, who travels throughout the country and around the world in his various professional roles. "Our populations are growing. Our needs are expanding exponentially and climate change is reducing the amount of water we have in many parts of the country."
To make his point, Sandford speaks about the Rockies and the interior ranges of British Columbia, where "glaciers are shrinking and water sources are becoming less dependable." Then there's the southern plains stretching from Alberta to Manitoba. River flows have been reduced by as much as 40 per cent as a result of longer, warmer summer seasons, smaller snow packs in the mountains, and heavy water use from cities and agriculture.
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