The Great Divide: A snowflake’s journey through Alberta
By: Andrew Findlay
Mountain Life – Rocky Mountains – Winter 2025
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Snow Dome, rising on the edge of the Columbia Icefield in Jasper National Park, is a topographical anomaly. This icy, 3,456-metre monolith is what’s known as a hydrological apex because it perches at the junction of two landscape-defining continental features: the Great Divide and the Arctic Divide. Depending on what side of Snow Dome a snowflake falls, when it melts into a droplet of water it will flow into either the Arctic, Atlantic or Pacific Ocean…