by Sia Bagul
Grade 6
Millburn Middle School, NJ
“Sia, wake up!” my mom shouted. My eyes fluttered then closed again, I probably was just dreaming… BANG! BANG! BANG! “Huh?” My eyes opened as my mom rushed into my room in our Airbnb, “Sia we’re late!” “What?” I thought. Then it hit me, The Athabasca glacier, the bus! I checked the time , it was 9:00am. The bus was at 10:45, I jumped out of bed and ran into the bathroom, soon enough we were heading into our car.
Finally at 10:43 we arrived, we entered the service area and ran to our bus,”Here’s our bus ticket,” My dad gasped almost out of breath. I was so glad that we made it on time. The sunflowers dazzled in my imagination, quickly changing to gray storm clouds until, “Sorry sir, you have arrived too late, please find another bus,” “NOOOOO! I scream in my head, “This can’t be true!” But all over again we headed back into the service area, and to the ticket booth, and we headed out on time for another bus at 11:15. Not so bad, as we explored the service area gift shop. Finally, at 11:00 we headed towards the bus 15 minutes early, surely we were actually going on the bus.
All over again we were back at the bus,” Tickets please,” We handed our tickets and we were on our way to the glacier. Time passed and we were finally stepping off of the bus. But we weren’t there yet, so we had to take one more bus to the glacier. This bus had big, thick tires – like the Antarctic expedition buses so it could climb the slippery ice. We headed into the bus and sat down. On the way we saw Sunwapta lake. It’s a gray lake where its water comes from the Athabasca glacier mixed with rocky flour. According to the bus driver, she said the Athabasca glacier supplies water to a few other lakes. Near the Athabasca glacier, on the way we saw one more glacier on the top of the mountain called ‘Snow Dome’, she said it divides the continent 3 ways and supplies water to the Arctic Ocean, Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, fascinating..!!
When the bus stopped, I slipped in my jacket and headed out. The glacier was slippery and it had many ice crystals where you could step without sliding around. I tried to pretend to ice skate but that didn’t go well. I ended up falling and getting my pants wet. My family and I noticed a little stream on the side, on the glacier. Someone said it is freshwater and that most of Canada’s water comes from these glaciers. I bent down and used my hand as a cup to drink the water. As I sipped it, it felt like I was drinking diamonds, it was cold, the water was clean and refreshing, it was amazing! Finally it was time to go. On the way back, the bus driver said, the water we drank could be 1000 years old, and we were lucky to sip it. We stepped off the bus and arrived back at the service area.
We walked around until we noticed a board. It explained what a threatening thing was happening to the glacier. It explained how it was melting fast, it lost most of its volume in the past 100 years due to climate change, and it also lost 16ft per year, soon enough this glacier would be gone, most of Canada would have to find a different source of water. This made me feel terrible, “This beautiful glacier is melting fast? ” On the side of the board it also explained how we can help, just by recycling, not littering, and turning off lights when you’re done using them could help. With enough people doing this we could help.
When we started to head back, I kept thinking about all the things written on the board. It made me mad to think that some people were just careless about earth, and how earth could eventually be ruined because of humankind, but that didn’t have to happen, if we all take some love and care for this earth, we could save it, we could save all the beautiful things that earth has, we can fix this.
