Watch where you step: Tourists voice concerns after slipping into holes on icefield glacier

When Richard Strandquist and his family stepped off a glacier sight-seeing tour on the Columbia Icefield last month, the safe zone wasn't yet marked. 

Strandquist said staff told guests to stay in the plowed area until a perimeter was established.  

As Strandquist walked on what he thought was solid ice, his left leg suddenly plunged into a water-filled ice hole. 

"I was still going down and couldn't seem to pull myself up," he said.  

Strandquist called for help and other guests managed to dig and pull him out. 

"I couldn't touch the bottom."

The glacier tour was operated by Pursuit, which is part of Viad Corp. Guests access the glacier via an all-terrain vehicle called an Ice Explorer. 

Staff ended up leaving a caution sign by the hole that Strandquist fell into, warning other guests of the danger. 

While Strandquist was able to walk after his fall, due to increasing pain, he later went to the hospital in Jasper. He said an X-Ray found he had a tibial plateau fracture in a bone that connects to his knee. 

Strandquist ended up cancelling his other tours booked with Pursuit, but said the company would not give a refund for his trip onto the glacier. 

He wants to warn other guests who plan to take the popular tour on Athabasca Glacier, which is part of the Columbia Icefield in Jasper National Park, of potential risks.

In an email to CBC, a spokesperson for Pursuit said all employees who guide guests receive safety training and have regular check-ins.

The company also provides a safety message to guests before disembarking the Ice Explorer, advising them of the risks associated with walking on a glacier.

Where the tour disembarks on the glacier, staff also monitors the area, following weather changes and naturally occurring events.

Pursuit tour

Pursuit operates tourism attractions throughout the Canadian Rockies, Alaska, Montana, Vancouver, Reykjavik and Las Vegas.

In 2020, a Pursuit glacier sight-seeing bus the Athabasca Glacier rolled down a moraine embankment for about 50 metres, killing three people and injuring 24.

While there were no criminal charges, the company was fined $475,000 under Alberta's Occupational Health and Safety Act. 

'Sucked into a snow cone'

Megan Kostka-Dietz also took the same tour as Strandquist, but a couple of weeks earlier. While waiting to get back onto the bus, she stepped onto what she thought was solid ice.

Instead, she plunged up to almost her waist into a hole, managing to catch herself on the ice's edge. 

"It felt like I was getting sucked into a snow cone." 

Kostka-Dietz said she did not touch the hole's bottom. 

"My legs were just kind of dangling," she said. 

Luckily, she managed to climb out of the hole, with the help of her husband and mom.

"I've had nightmares about getting sucked into this ice water and being gone forever."

Thinning ice 

While the holes that Megan Kostka-Dietz and Strandquist  stepped into are not unusual, said William Armstrong, glaciologist at Appalachian State University in North Carolina, he said they can be difficult to see, especially if there is fresh snow or churned-up ice by another glacier sight-seeing bus. 

Armstrong is part of a research project on the Athabasca Glacier, investigating how the speed of the glacier has changed over the last 60 years. 

Holes can form by flowing water, especially when there is some kind of weakness in the ice, like an old naturally sealed crevasse and with so much meltwater, holes can form quickly, he said. 

While Athabasca Glacier is still 180 metres thick on average, its surface is melting by six centimetres daily during the summer, said Armstrong.

With climate change and a warmer climate, there will be more meltwater available, he said, which could result in more holes. 

Since 1960, the glacier has thinned by about 20 per cent and retreated by 600 metres.