Jasper offers its citizens a unique area to work and recreate. There are jobs here that can’t be offered anywhere else, and Peter Lemieux’ job is just that – one of a kind. 

Lemieux has been conducting Icewalks on the Athabasca Glacier since 1985. He takes curious tourists up the famous glacier on any one of three trips ranging from three to over five hours. 

His journeys up the glacier began in 1980, when he worked for Parks Canada as an interpretive guide. 

“I was lucky enough to benefit from their interpretive training and the coaching of very talented naturalists,” Lemieux said. The guide is also a member of the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides, which includes training in crevasse rescue. “It’s very handy being trained in crevasse rescue when out on an active glacier.”

The crevasse training is something a glacier guide hopes to never use, but one July in the 1990s, Lemieux and a fellow guide had to use their rescue skills.

“We were just ascending the lower tongue of the Athabasca when we heard some frantic shouting,” Lemieux said. “When something like that happens, the tone is unmistakable.”

Leaving their groups in a safe spot on the glacier, Lemieux and another Icewalks guide ran over to the source of the noise to find a young girl had fallen into a narrow crevasse about two metres down. She was hanging on tight, but the crevasse was much wider below her with about a 10-metre drop. 

“That’s when the adrenaline kicked in,” Lemieux said. The girl, named Tania, was a young tourist from Israel, and her parents were looking on. Lemieux and the other guide each dropped a rope sling with a loop on it down to Tania.

“Tania reached up, grabbed both slings and we yanked her out onto the glacier beside the crevasse like a beached fish,” Lemieux said. 

Tania was fine and Lemieux continued his Icewalks. Years later in the mid-2000s, Lemieux received a letter from the girl he had plucked out of the glacier.

“The letter arrived saying something to the effect of ‘I don’t know if you remember me, but thanks for rescuing me from the crevasse when I was at the Athabasca Glacier. I would have written you sooner, but my English wasn’t good enough. My boyfriend thanks you too,’” Lemieux said. 

He of course remembered Tania, and saving her from the crevasse. The two have kept in contact now that she is able to read and write in English. 

“So although we haven’t met again, we have kept in touch and I’m sure someday I will run into her,” Lemieux said. 

There have been other incidents on the glacier that didn’t have such happy endings. Lemieux remembers trying to help a German doctor who fell into a crevasse in 1994. They were able to successfully rescue him, but he later died of hypothermia. In the early 1990s several of Lemieux’ guides tried to get a small boy out of a crevasse after he fell in, but were unsuccessful. 

“It’s always a tragedy, but even harder to take when kids are involved,” Lemieux said. “That’s why we hate to see people who aren’t aware of the dangers going up there alone.”

Going with a certified guide significantly lowers the risks of hiking on the glacier. One of the biggest risks is walking on snow, Lemieux said. The snow can cover up cracks in the ice, and putting weight on it can send you tumbling into a millwell (a hole in the ice carved out by water over time) or crevasse that can be up to 100 metres deep.

“A complicating factor is the way the ice can change from ‘grippy’ to ‘slippy’ in a short time, as the weather changes,” Lemieux said. “Like going out in our mountain lakes in a canoe without life jackets – if you don’t fall in, it’s not going to be dangerous. But if you capsize and get separated from the canoe or if you don’t have the right gear, right there, you’re going to die.”

The experience Lemieux had with Parks as an interpretive guide before starting his own guiding company has turned him into a walking encyclopedia of all things glacier-related. On an icewalk, you can expect to learn everything you ever wanted to know about the moving mass of snow and ice – and safety is a huge part of those lessons. 

Lemieux has also learned about the glacier on the job and from geomorphologist Dr. Brian Luckman, who has been studying the six-kilometre long Athabasca Glacier for 30 years. 

“He and others like him are treasure troves of information,” said Lemieux, who studied environmental science at the community college in Lethbridge. 

Each year Lemieux and his fellow guides take several thousand tourists up the Athabasca Glacier, which he said is a drop in the bucket compared to those that tour the rivers and travel the glacier with the Brewster Ice Explorers. 

“We try to keep it small and personable,” he said. 

When not guiding tourists safely over the glacier, Lemieux enjoys hiking to other areas in the Canadian Rockies, but he prefers to keep his favourite destinations to himself. 

“Nowadays, I try to get out with my wife and son into the mountains. Last year we went to the Bow Hut and Wapta Icefield, a great trip for David, my son, as it was his first trip right onto an icefield. But if I told you about my all-time favourite place in the Rockies, I’d have to kill you,” he joked. 

After 25 years, Lemieux said he still enjoys his days spent on the glacier. 

“I’m certainly one of the lucky ones,” he said. “I still really enjoy almost every day out there, and all the cool people I get to meet.”

More information on Icewalks can be found online at www.icewalks.com. Lemieux and his guides offer three different types of trips, with no hiking experience needed. The trips run for three to six hours, and are up to eight kilometres round trip. 

The Athabasca Glacier is the most visited glacier in North America, due to its easy accessibility off the Icefields Parkway. It forms the headwaters of the Sunwapta River, not the Athabasca River as is commonly believed. The Athabasca River is actually formed from the Columbia Glacier. The Athabasca Glacier is one of six ‘toes’ of ice that flow down from the Columbia Icefield high above. The icefield is 25 kilometres long and up to 365 metres deep, and stretches along the Continental Divide.