These days, a trip to your favourite mountain getaway can be a sobering reminder that the changing climate is disproportionately affecting Canada’s high places.
Whether you think the warming climate is just part of Earth’s natural cycles or that human carbon emissions cause it, the fact remains that things are heating up worldwide, and our alpine environment is rapidly changing.
Since 2018, the Canmore-based Alpine Club of Canada (ACC) has published the State of the Mountains Report annual report. It’s a fascinating snapshot of the critical forces shaping, changing and influencing Canada’s mountain ecosystems and communities.
Some changes are obvious, like melting glaciers in the headwaters of important rivers like the Bow and Athabasca. In 2023 alone, the famous Peyto Glacier, one of Canada’s most studied and photographed glaciers, lost a record 9 metres in ice thickness.
Other changes are less obvious, like some of the unique animal and plant species that have evolved to survive in the harsh alpine environment. They are also feeling the pressure.
For example, the pika, a tiny mammal related to rabbits, lives only above treeline, where the alpine meadows provide enough food in summer to sustain them in their snow-insulated wintertime burrows. However, the mountain climate and ecosystem are changing, and the pika may be unable to adapt.
The whitebark pine tree also thrives at high elevations, where the ground is rocky, the soil is poor, and the growing season is short. However, the warming climate has made this tree vulnerable to wildfires, disease, and insect infestations.
“A sense of loss is palpable. Glaciers are disappearing. Permafrost is collapsing on slopes and along creeks. Smoke often hangs on the air. Plants and animals seem increasingly stressed by extreme weather conditions. Mountain communities have been devastated by fires and floods,” write Zac Robinson, David Hik, and Lael Parrot, co-editors of the 2024 State of the Mountains Report.
From Jasper’s devastating wildfires to a ski industry grappling with warmer winters and uncertain snowfalls, there’s much to talk about.
This year’s edition features essays on the future of Canada’s ski industry in a warming climate, Indigenous cultural burning practices in northern British Columbia, partnerships between Jasper National Park and Indigenous nations for caribou recovery, sustainable energy at ACC’s backcountry huts, whitebark pine recovery, research on life found in deep-sea environments, a Canadian preview on the 2025 United Nations International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation, and the impact of melting permafrost in the mountains.
Among the contributors are Stephan Gruber, a Carleton University geographer specializing in permafrost research, and Natalie Knowles and Daniel Scott from the University of Waterloo, who research climate change impacts on ski tourism.
“The impacts of climate change in mountains are manifested in many different ways, requiring new knowledge and adaptation strategies,” write the co-editors.
Click here for the full report and to learn more about some of the efforts underway to make mountain communities and ecosystems more resilient to a warming climate.
