The Alpine Club of Canada (ACC) recently published its annual State of the Mountains Report for 2025. This latest edition pays hommage to 2025 as the International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation and includes essays by contributors who have spent countless hours researching the alpine environment, offering their firsthand experiences, expertise and photographs to tell the stories of how change in Canadian mountain environments is affecting people and ecosystems.
The calendar year has been marked by a number of initiatives related to glacier awareness. On 21 March, the inaugural World Glacier Day was observed and on 11 December, International Mountain Day, the theme is “Glaciers matter for water, food and livelihoods in mountains and beyond”. The UIAA has produced, and collated, a number of assets related to the International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation, which can be viewed here.
To promote this seminal work, and as part of the UIAA’s outreach for IMD 2025, below is an extract from the State of the Mountains report.
Observation Peak camera station, Banff NP, Alberta, Canada
Photo credit: Lael Parrott setting up to help determine the actual 1903 camera station location. Repeat photos are taken after the historic camera station is pinpointed.
Photo: Mary Sanseverino.
Let the photographs speak!
In the summer of 1903, Dominion Land Surveyor Arthur Wheeler, along with his brother Hector and assistant Morrison Bridgland, were working on Observation Peak in what today is Banff National Park.
They established a camera survey station on the false summit south of the main peak. This vantage point afforded them outstanding views of the area, from Mount Hector to beyond Peyto Lake. They set up their transit and camera and proceeded to take readings and photographs – all part of the process allowing them to make topographic maps of the region for the Dominion government.
On August 22, 2022, Mary Sanseverino and Lael Parrott – both from The Alpine Club of Canada – retraced Wheeler’s footsteps. Working on behalf of the Mountain Legacy Project (University of Victoria, mountainlegacy.ca), Parrott and Sanseverino located the exact position of Wheeler’s camera station and repeated the images taken 119 years earlier. The historic/modern photo sets tell a tale perhaps more compelling than any written word could capture.
Mary Sanseverino is a Teaching Professor Emerita, Department of Computer Science, Faculty of Engineering, University of Victoria. She is also an alumna of UVic’s Mountain Legacy Project. She currently serves, on behalf of the ACC, as a full member and Vice President of the UIAA Mountain Protection Commission.
Lael Parrott is the past Alpine Club of Canada Vice-President for Access & Environment. She is a Professor in Sustainability and Dean of the Irving K. Barber Faculty of Science at The University of British Columbia.
Before & After: Repeat Photo #1
Photo 1. Below Observation Peak looking southward over Bow Lake, Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada. Photography: A.O. Wheeler and team, 1903. Image courtesy of Library and Archives Canada / Bibliothèque et Archives Canada.
Ecopy #e011083102 – 103.
Repeat of Photo 1. Looking southward over Bow Lake in Banff National Park. Photography: M.E. Sanseverino & L. Parrott, for the Mountain Legacy Project,
Aug 22, 2022.
Before & After: Repeat Photo #2
Photo 2. Below Observation Peak looking southwest over Peyto Lake, Banff National Park, Alberta,Canada. Photography: A.O. Wheeler and team, 1903. Image courtesy of Library and Archives Canada / Bibliothèque et Archives Canada. Ecopy #e011083104 – 105.
Repeat of Photo 2. Looking southwest over Peyto Lake in Banff National Park. Photography: M.E. Sanseverino & L. Parrott,
for the Mountain Legacy Project, Aug 22, 2022.
