In May 2023 I had the honor of joining the University of Maine’s Sea to Sky Program as the team’s science communication and art instructor. Sea to Sky is a unique interdisciplinary capstone field experience for students in the Earth and Climate Science Department. From exploring a landscape with radar to gathering bedrock samples and painting the colors observed in a glacier, each day was filled with science, adventure, and learning. In addition to my instructional role, I also documented the experience through photographs, video, and paintings created every day. At dusk, the new paintings were added to a wall in our gathering space and formed a small constellation of our shared experience.

The trip began in Juneau, where we hiked to the Mendenhall Glacier, flew to the Herbert glacier (and collected samples of trees run over by the glacier over 5,000 years ago!), explored coastal ecosystems, and learned sketching techniques and basic watercolor skills by the ocean. We had absolutely phenomenal weather for this first part of the trip, with sunny and clear days that made the sky a vibrant dark blue and set the ice glowing with the most incredible shades of aquamarine. We then loaded onto the ferry to Skagway and drove over a high pass in a cloud to Whitehorse and eventually Kluane Lake. Here the data collection, science communication, and research projects continued both by the shores of the lake and on a brief one day trip to the icefield divide high in the Wrangell Saint-Elias Mountains.

Stepping off the plane in Juneau I think I was just as excited as the students, as this teaching and documentary role was a dream come true for me as well. Each day I was not only a teacher, but also a witness to these places, to our warming and changing world, and to the incredible impact of this program on the students. This page, and the snippets of video, photos, and excerpts from my field journal, is a small window into the experience. I know the echoes of these landscapes and the people I had the privilege of working with will resound in my work for years to come.