Filmmakers Raphael Rogers and Paul Rennick met Rick Brown, a guide at Exit Glacier, during their adventure to Alaska.
Pretty much the filmmaker’s journey becomes Brown’s reflection on the rapid change occurring to the valley glacier due to climate change.
“Normally the Park [officials] would tell you it retreats 150 feet per year. Right now they are looking at it retreating at 10 to 15 feet per day,” said Brown who has worked as a guide on Exit Glacier since the early 1990s. He has lived in Seward, near the glacier, permanently since 2003.
“We are just watching the transformation happen in front our eyes,” he said, adding that it is also affecting village communities that need to be relocated and the amount of snow they are getting each year has diminished greatly. Brown is also seeing changes in the types of wildlife in the area and they’re experiencing more erratic weather patterns.
“Our ten year floods are happening every other year now,” he said.
“This place will not stay the same, it’s going to be different but I just hope we learn just how to take care of it,” he said.
“Y’know I have for daughters and a bunch of grandkids – as I sit and talk about this – I wonder what they will see, if they come back after I am gone. That’s my concern, for the future, wondering how this climate thing is going to work out for them,” he said.
So, press the top left play button on the above feature image so the video can play for you.
The film’s photography is often breathtaking with Rogers and Rennick making good use of drones to tell this story.
Glacier Exit was edited by Kristin Gerhart.
Watch some more outdoorsy video camera work from Raphael Rogers here: