December 30, 2015 — Old Town’s Jill Pelto has been visiting the North Cascade Glaciers of Washington State with her father since she was 16 years old.
“I had seen pictures growing up of my dad’s trip, but it doesn’t prepare you for what it’s like out there,” Pelto said. “I was amazed at how beautiful the glaciers are.”
The rugged mountains and snowy summits were stark and beautiful.
“I was in awe,” she said.
She’s returned to Washington State every year since then, but things have drastically changed since her first experience at 16 years old.
Now she’s trying to explain those changes through her artwork.
Originally from Worcester, Massachusetts, Pelto, now 22, graduated in December from the University of Maine as a double major in studio art and earth science.
“I started working in Washington in 2009 when I was 16,” Pelto said. “I was able to do that because my father, Mauri Pelto, got his Ph.D. at UMaine, and when he was a doctoral student here he started a research project in Washington that he’s still doing now. The purpose [of the project] was to create a continuous glacial monitoring program where every year he would survey the glaciers to figure out how the size was changing.”
Mauri Pelto, a professor of environmental science at Nichols College in Massachusetts and glaciologist, started the North Cascade Glacier Climate Project in 1984 and has studied glaciers and the rapid changes they have undergone for over 25 years.
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