Scroll II: A new print about the ecology of North Cascades Glaciers

Relief and intaglio prints, collaged

Rives BFK, sekishu, and washi paper

22 x 80’’

Background on the elements of Scroll II.

Reading from the bottom up, or the top down, or from the middle out, this scroll tells several stories. Many small prints accumulate here as a testament to complex, beautiful moments on Easton Glacier and Mt. Baker from the summer of 2020. Scroll II is the first of three scrolls to be completed. Each focuses on a different time period and set of narratives.

scroll II raven.jpeg — Raven surveys the watershed from the high reaches of the volcano. The Deming Icefall splinters below.

Each of the five animals in this print are made up of shapes that were inspired by the patterns of snow melting off of the glacier’s blue ice. Although they rise from a common source, each animal has their own character and story.

scroll II scientists.jpg — Two scientists “go fishing”. They lower a weighted and metered rope into a deep crevasse on the Easton Glacier.

By collecting data on snow depth, the team can calculate the mass balance of the glacier. In a good year, thick snow insulates the glacier from melt and there isn’t much bare ice to be seen. The rope sinks 3, 4, 5, meters down into the snow-topped crevasse before reaching the glacier ice. To stay healthy, the glacier needs to retain snow over 65-70% of its area. Unfortunately, there are a lot of bad years when snow vanishes from much more of the glacier.

During their annual field work, the team also keep tabs on other glacier responses to climate change, such as streamflow, crevasse depth, and the location of the glacier terminus.

This tricolored puzzle has the texture of a frothing glacial creek. But the shapes show something much more macro: watersheds. These are the three forks of the Nooksack River.

The three forks drain the area west and south of Mt. Baker. Of the forks, the North is fed by many glaciers, the Middle by a few, and the South no longer receives any glacial melt. Anadromous fish, including the five species of Pacific salmon, thrive in habitat created and maintained by glaciers and glacial melt. Will the salmon of the South Fork of the Nooksack soon be ghosts? And what will happen when a piece of the puzzle goes missing? Fortunately, dam removals and stream restoration (including planting hundreds of trees and engineering dozens of new log jams) are giving the fish places to go in a warming world.