The UN General Assembly has declared 2025 the International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation and designated March 21st as World Day for Glaciers. Our Vanishing Glaciers serves as a powerful reminder of the fragility of these natural wonders and the urgent need to protect them for future generations.

Winner of the 2017 Lane Anderson Award for best Canadian science writing, this updated edition features a new essay and additional photographs highlighting the UN International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation. In addition, it celebrates global partnerships and initiatives aimed at safeguarding glaciers, including Guardians of the Ice, a nonprofit blending art and science for advocacy, and contributions from visionaries such as Caroline Coté, Tim Patterson, and Amy Snider. Sandford offers a poignant yet hopeful perspective, mourning the rapid disappearance of glaciers while inspiring collective, intergenerational efforts to combat climate change. He calls on humanity to “listen to the ice,” fostering deeper connections with nature and reimagining our coexistence with the planet.

Centred around the Columbia Icefield, a vast expanse straddling the Continental Divide, Our Vanishing Glaciers showcases an extraordinary collection of visual materials, including photographs, illustrations, aerial surveys, and thermal imaging. Drawing on 45 years of personal observation, Sandford captures the grandeur and scale of glaciers in western Canada.

Backed by compelling evidence, Sandford reveals that as many as 300 glaciers have disappeared from the Canadian Rockies since 1920. This large-format, fully illustrated book vividly portrays the rapid pace of glacial retreat projected to continue throughout this century while celebrating the indispensable role of water, ice, and snow in the region’s ecological and cultural heritage.

Robert William Sandford is the EPCOR Chair of the Canadian Partnership Initiative in support of the United Nations "Water for Life" Decade and also sits on the Advisory Committee for the prestigious Rosenberg International Forum on Water Policy. He is a director of the Western Watersheds Climate Research Collaborative, an associate of the Centre for Hydrology at the University of Saskatchewan and a fellow of the Biogeoscience Institute at the University of Calgary. As well, he sits on the advisory board of Living Lakes Canada and is co-chair of the Forum for Leadership on Water and a member of the Advisory Panel for the RBC Blue Water Project. In 2011 he was invited to be an advisor on water issues by the InterAction Council, a global public policy think tank composed of more than 20 former national leaders, including Jean Chrétien, Bill Clinton and Vicente Fox.

Robert is the author of some 20 books on the history, heritage and landscape of the Canadian Rockies, including Water, Weather and the Mountain West (RMB, 2007), The Weekender Effect: Hyperdevelopment in Mountain Towns (RMB, 2008), Restoring the Flow: Confronting the World's Water Woes (RMB, 2009), Ethical Water: Learning to Value What Matters Most (RMB, 2011), Cold Matters: The State and Fate of Canada’s Fresh Water (RMB, 2012), Saving Lake Winnipeg (RMB, 2013), Flood Forecast: Climate Risk and Resiliency in Canada (RMB, 2014), and Storm Warning: Water and Climate Security in a Changing World (RMB, 2015). He is also the co-author of The Columbia River Treaty: A Primer (RMB, 2015) and The Climate Nexus: Water, Food, Energy and Biodiversity (RMB, 2015). Robert lives in Canmore, Alberta.

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“Our Vanishing Glaciers is an informed and compelling siren, framed in an aesthetic yet judicious manner, and should be standard reading for Canadians concerned with the future of the mountain climate and the place of humanity in such a delicate yet real changing world.” –Canadian Alpine Journal

“In an era where climate change feels unavoidable…Our Vanishing Glaciers: The Snows of Yesteryear and the Future Climate of the Mountain West, offers some much needed hope.” –Rocky Mountain Outlook

“We need to take a collective possession of our vanishing glaciers if we are to turn things around. No matter that we are late to the game, Sandford’s book imparts knowledge and inspiration to help us begin the process.” – Crowfoot Media