'Chasing Ice' returns to the Pickford Nov. 9

At the request of Western Reads, the documentary “Chasing Ice” returns to the Pickford Cinema at 4p.m. Saturday, Nov. 9.

The documentary tells the story of one man’s mission to change the tide of history by gathering undeniable evidence of our changing planet. Within months of that first trip to Iceland, the photographer conceived the boldest expedition of his life: The Extreme Ice Survey. With a band of young adventurers in tow, Balog began deploying revolutionary time-lapse cameras across the brutal Arctic to capture a multi-year record of the world’s changing glaciers.

Western Reads, a campus-wide reading program at Western Washington University, has chosen “Early Warming: Crisis and Response in the Climate-Changed North,” by Nancy Lord, as its 2013-14 reading selection. A number of climate-related events, including the film screening, are taking place throughout the year in Bellingham.

Nancy Lord’s “Early Warming: Crisis and Response in the Climate-Changed North” weaves stories of her own experiences in communities of Alaska and Northwest Canada, where the effects of climate change are most immediate, with reports of warming salmon streams, village relocation plans and “polar bear tourism.” The narrative talks about regions where the people who face life-threatening change also demonstrate conservation ethics and adaptive capacities. In Shishmaref, Alaska, for example, new seawalls are going up while residents navigate the many practical and bureaucratic obstacles to moving their entire island village to higher ground.

Lord writes from home in Homer, Alaska. As a commercial salmon fisherman for 25 years and later as a naturalist and historian on adventure cruise ships, she takes a particular interest in coastal Alaska and the sustainability of its resources and communities. She has authored three short fiction collections and four books of literary nonfiction; and from 2008-10, she served as the Alaska Writer Laureate.

Currently, Lord teaches at the Kachemak Bay branch of Kenai Peninsula College and in the low-residency graduate writing program at the University of Alaska at Anchorage. Her awards include fellowships form the Alaska State Council on the Arts and the Rasmuson Foundation, a Pushcart Prize and residencies at a number of artist communities.

For more information, visit www.wwu.edu/westernreads.

In other Western Reads-related events, the “Vanishing Ice” exhibit opened Nov. 2 at the Whatcom Museum and runs through March 2, 2014.

Comprising 90 works of art, Vanishing Ice introduces the rich artistic legacy of the planet’s frozen frontiers now threatened by a changing climate. It traces the impact of glaciers, icebergs, and fields of ice on artist's imaginations, and the connections between generations of artists over two centuries. Interweaving science, history and art, this exhibition encourages audiences to value alpine and polar environments for the preservation of biological and cultural diversity.