Highlights from the Launch Event

Katie Goldie / The Whyte

Artists of MELTDOWN. Leanne Allison, Jim Elzinga, Roger Vernon, and Tiffany Shaw

Professor Kaveh Madani, Director of the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH)

Jim Elzinga, Founder and Executive Director, Guardians of the Ice

Dr. Corinne Schuster-Wallace, Executive Director of the Global Institute for Water Security (GIWS) at the University of Saskatchewan (USask)

Senator Karen Sorensen, Parliamentary Tourism Caucus, and Standing Senate Committees on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources (ENEV) and Indigenous Peoples (APPA)

Roger Vernon, Artist and Co-Founder, Guardians of the Ice

IYGP Canada Team

Melanie Kwong, Executive Director, Parks Canada

David Cox, CEO, The Whyte

Katie Goldie / The Whyte

The launch event, organized by UNU-INWEH in collaboration with the Canadian Initiative in Support of the United Nations International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation and the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies, emphasized the critical importance of glaciers and their role in stabilizing the global climate. The event officially marks the start of the IYGP and inaugurates the related photography exhibitions at the Whyte Museum.

The event's purpose was to raise awareness, advocate for policy change, and promote sustainable actions to preserve glaciers, which are essential for ecosystems, livelihoods, and water security in Canada and across the globe. The Whyte Museum is hosting two winter exhibitions: MELTDOWN – A Drop in Time and Etched in Ice – Photographs by Glen Crawford. Both exhibitions highlight the fragile beauty and urgent vulnerability of glaciers, using art and photography to emphasize their significance as natural archives of Earth's history and their rapid transformation due to climate change. These exhibitions will be on display at the Whyte Museum until April 13, 2025.

Thank you to our partners, the MELTDOWN team, The Whyte Museum, and everyone who has supported the IYGP in Canada, we are very excited for the upcoming year.