Meltdown tells the story of Sarah Boon’s field adventures in snow and ice, the struggles of choosing an academic career over that of a writer, and the challenges of being a woman in science. An undergraduate field trip to Hilda Glacier in the Canadian Rockies ignites Boon’s scientific passion, leading her to pursue a PhD in cold regions hydrology in the High Arctic while writing on the side. Her narrative blends adventure and academia, featuring experiences like traversing John Evans Glacier on Ellesmere Island, building weather stations in northern British Columbia, sampling proglacial rivers, and scaring away grizzlies with helicopters. Interwoven with tales of historic female explorers like Mary Schäffer Warren and Phyllis Munday, Meltdown celebrates the indomitable spirit of women in exploration. However, amid the rigours of fieldwork, Boon faces gender bias, department politics, and imposter syndrome. Her journey is marked by injury, mental health struggles, and job insecurity in the academic workplace. When a severe mental health diagnosis threatens her position, Boon must decide if leaving science is the only way to manage her illness. As the landscapes she studies undergo profound transformations, Boon’s personal journey mirrors the evolving contours of her research. Meltdown is a candid narrative of developing identities, the need for open dialogue about scientific research and mental health, and one woman’s search for work-life balance.

Sarah Boon is a freelance writer and editor. She has published essays, book reviews, author interviews, and articles in a range of magazines and journals, including Science, Nature, Longreads, Flyway Journal, Electric Literature, and others. She trained as an environmental scientist and held a tenured position in physical geography before returning to her writing and editing roots. She is a member of the Creative Nonfiction Collective Society and the Federation of BC Writers, and a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. She was a co-founder of the Canadian science blogging network Science Borealis. She blogs at https://watershednotes.ca/ and lives and works on southern Vancouver Island, traditional unceded territory of the Quwut’sun people.

Sarah Boon's profile page

"With Meltdown, Sarah Boon evokes landscapes of intense vulnerability and power, inviting her readers on a journey that is both a daring adventure and a poetic meditation on seeking meaning in a precarious world." Katie Ives, author of Imaginary Peaks: The Riesenstein Hoax and Other Mountain Dreams

"Meltdown is a deeply personal narrative that reveals the hidden challenges of academic careers, including physical struggles, mental health issues, and the complexities of identity and impostor syndrome. Through candid accounts of fieldwork, interactions with colleagues, and the pursuit of work-life balance, Sarah Boon offers an unflinching look at the highs and lows of a career set against the backdrop of Arctic expeditions and a passion for nature and science." Melody Sandells, Northumbria University

"Meltdown is a real-life science thriller with a narrative as richly braided and unexpected as the glacial stream systems Sarah Boon studies. It’s a clear-eyed, courageous look at the costs of being female in field science, suffused with deep love for the wild places where glaciers live." Susan J. Tweit, field botanist and author of Bless the Birds

"Boon’s work can be compared to Rachel Carsen’s Silent Spring in its ability to channel scientific and human storytelling about our world at an extraordinary juncture of change and transformation. Boon is a writer who can observe field work like Aldo Leopold in Sand County Almanac, convey anguish like Patricia Van Tighem in The Bear’s Embrace, and open up silences like Maria Coffey in Where the Mountain Casts its Shadow." PearlAnn Reichwein, author of Climber's Paradise