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UN-GLACIER TOUR 2024

A THIRD UN-GLACIER TOUR will be held AUGUST 18, 2024 in conjunction with the Global Glacier Casualty List launch and ceremony at the Glacier Graveyard, to honor of the 5th anniversary of the Okjökull memorial. Please use the contact form here if you are interested in attending.

Many tourists in Iceland are enchanted by the opportunity to walk across glaciers or thrilled to snowmobile across them. The Un-glacier Tour—the only one in the world—is different. It is a guided hike to the top of Ok mountain and an opportunity to see the glacial remains of Okjökull (Ok glacier). As anthropogenic climate change drives glaciers toward extinction, the Un-glacier Tour is meant to be a reckoning with glacial demise as well as a celebration of glacial life. From the top of Ok mountain, it is possible to see three other spectacular glaciers and a shield volcano.

Anthropologists Cymene Howe and Dominic Boyer developed the Un-Glacier Tour in 2018 and in 2019 they created a memorial marker to be placed atop Ok mountain in commemoration of Ok glacier: the first of Iceland's major glaciers to be lost to climate change. The memorial marker, with words authored by one of Iceland’s most prominent writers, Andri Snaer Magnason, is the world's first monument to a glacier-that-was: a modest recognition of a body of ice that once moved, but that now exists only in the form of what the Icelandic glaciologist Oddur Sigurdsson calls "dead ice."

The Un-Glacier Tour II, on August 18, 2019 was attended by 100 people including prominent politicians and artists, and featured the installation of the memorial plaque. Several children in attendance pushed the bronze memorial into place, symbolically cementing a more hopeful future.

Coverage of the event and the initiative to commemorate Okjökull can be found in several thousand news reports published around the world from July 20-August 25, 2019.

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A Little Movie
About a Small Glacier
at the End of the World

 

Glaciers have been distinctive features of the Icelandic landscape ever since human settlement on the island 1200 years ago. But since the early 20th century Iceland’s 400+ glaciers have been melting steadily, now losing roughly 11 billion tons of ice every year; scientists predict that all of Iceland’s glaciers will be gone by 2200. One of Iceland’s smallest known glaciers is named “Ok.” Not Ok is its story. This is not a tale of spectacular, collapsing ice. Instead, it is a little film about a small glacier on a low mountain--a mountain who has been observing humans for a long time and has a few things to say to us.

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IN THE MEDIA

“Scientists Unveil Memorial To Iceland's 'First' Dead Glacier Lost To Climate Change,” Time, July 22, 2019
https://time.com/5631599/iceland-glacier-climate-change/

“Iceland’s first melted glacier to be marked with memorial,” The Irish Times, July 22, 2019
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/iceland-s-first-melted-glacier-to-be-marked-with-memorial-1.3964218

“'Only you know' if we did enough, says memorial to Iceland's lost glacier,” Reuters, July 22, 2019
https://af.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN1UH26H

“The First Glacier Killed by Climate Change Is Getting a Haunting Memorial in Iceland,” LiveScience, July 22, 2019
hhttps://www.livescience.com/65996-iceland-ok-glacier-memorial-plaque.html

“Memorial to Mark First Icelandic Glacier Lost to Human-Induced Climate Change,” The Weather Channel, July 22, 2019
https://weather.com/news/news/2019-07-22-scientists-memorialize-ok-glacier

“Scientists memorialize the first glacier lost to climate change in Iceland,” CNN, July 22, 2019
hhttps://www.cnn.com/2019/07/22/world/iceland-glacier-climage-change-trnd/index.html

“Icelandic memorial warns future: ‘Only you know if we saved glaciers’,” The Guardian, July 22, 2019
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/22/memorial-to-mark-icelandic-glacier-lost-to-climate-crisis?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other/

“Iceland Honors First Glacier To Disappear Due To Climate Change With Memorial ‘Letter To The Future’,” IFLScience!, July 22, 2019
https://www.iflscience.com/environment/iceland-honors-first-glacier-to-disappear-due-to-climate-change-with-memorial-letter-to-the-future/

“En Islande, Okjökull n’est plus un glacier. Et « tous nos glaciers suivront la même voie,” L'Obs, July 22, 2019
https://www.nouvelobs.com/planete/20190722.OBS16247/en-islande-okjokull-n-est-plus-un-glacier-et-tous-nos-glaciers-suivront-la-meme-voie.html

“Scientists memorialize first glacier lost to climate change in Iceland,” KZTV (Channel 21, Oregon), July 22, 2019
https://time.com/5631599/iceland-glacier-climate-change/

“To Call Attention to "What's Being Lost" to Climate Crisis, Former Glacier to Receive Monument,” Common Dreams, July 21, 2019
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/07/21/call-attention-whats-being-lost-climate-crisis-former-glacier-receive-monument

“Scientists honor Iceland's first glacier lost to climate change with plaque, eulogy,” The Hill, July 21, 2019
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/454069-scientists-honor-icelands-first-glacier-lost-to-climate-change-with

“Somber Monument to Mark Glacier Lost to Climate Change,” The Huffington Post, July 21, 2019
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ok-iceland-glacier-monument_n_5d34408de4b004b6adb11b7e

“Scientists Wrote a Eulogy for Iceland's First Glacier Lost to Climate Change,” Gizmodo, July 20, 2019
https://earther.gizmodo.com/scientists-wrote-a-eulogy-for-icelands-first-glacier-lo-1836542745

“'First Glacier Lost to Climate Change to be Memorialised,” Iceland Review, July 20, 2019
https://www.icelandreview.com/news/first-glacier-lost-to-climate-change-to-be-memorialised/

“A Day Trip to a Dead Glacier: Okjökull,” Travelade, September 21, 2018
https://travelade.com/iceland/stories/day-trip-dead-glacier-okjokull-iceland/

“Ok, Bye: A New Documentary on the Disappearance of Ok Glacier,” The Reykjavík Grapevine, July 31, 2018
https://grapevine.is/news/2018/07/31/ok-bye-a-new-documentary-on-the-disappearance-of-ok-glacier/

"Interview with the Directors of Not Ok," Tengivagninn, art's and culture-program Icelandic National Radio, Rás 1. (RÚV)
http://www.ruv.is/frett/fyrsti-af-400-joklum-landsins-til-ad-hverfa

"Not Ok-New Documentary Focuses on Disappearing Glacier in Iceland," Houston Public Media, Houston Matters program
https://soundcloud.com/houstonmatters/not-ok-new-documentary-focuses-on-disappearing-glacier-in-iceland

Fréttablaðið (Iceland's largest circulation national newspaper)
https://www.frettabladid.is/frettir/jon-gnarr-er-roedd-oks-i-nrri-heimildarmynd

Jon Gnarr’s interview with Smartland
https://www.mbl.is/smartland/stars/2018/08/16/svo_er_madur_sjalfur_audvitad_i_thessari_bullneyslu/

"Les glaciers ont besoin de l’attention humaine," Libération
https://www.liberation.fr/debats/2019/01/20/les-glaciers-ont-besoin-de-l-attention-humaine_1704216

Debut Screening

Bio Paradis (Reykjavík, Iceland)
17 August 2018