CELPIP Reading Part 3 Practice Test: The Athabasca Glacier and the Columbia Icefield

Paragraph A

High in the Canadian Rockies, near the boundary between Banff and Jasper national parks, lies the Columbia Icefield, the largest body of ice in the Rocky Mountains, covering more than two hundred square kilometres. An icefield forms where more snow falls each winter than melts each summer. Over centuries, the snow is pressed into thick layers of ice, which slowly flow outward and downhill. Because the icefield sits on high ground, its meltwater drains in different directions, eventually reaching three oceans: the Pacific, the Atlantic and the Arctic. Few places anywhere in the world can make the same claim.

Paragraph B

Several glaciers flow down from the edges of the icefield like fingers from a hand, but one is far better known than the others. The Athabasca Glacier ends only a short walk from the Icefields Parkway, the scenic highway that links Lake Louise and Jasper. Running for more than two hundred kilometres past lakes, waterfalls and rugged peaks, the parkway is often described as one of the most beautiful drives in the world. As a result, it is one of the most visited glaciers in North America. Travellers driving the parkway can pull into a parking area, follow a trail to the foot of the glacier and stand within metres of ice that may have fallen as snow hundreds of years ago.

Paragraph C

The trail itself tells a story. Along the way, small signs mark where the edge of the glacier stood in particular years, and the distance between the oldest markers and today’s ice is striking. Over the past century and more, the Athabasca Glacier has retreated well over a kilometre and lost a large share of its volume. A glacier shrinks when more ice melts at its lower end each summer than arrives from higher up, and that has been the case here for a long time. On average, its edge moves back several metres every year. Scientists study the glacier closely because changes there offer a visible measure of how warming temperatures are affecting mountain ice across western Canada.

Paragraph D

For all its accessibility, the glacier can be dangerous. Its surface is crossed by deep cracks called crevasses, which may be hidden beneath a thin layer of snow, and people who walk onto the ice without proper equipment have fallen into them. Visitors are therefore urged to stay behind the barriers unless they are with a trained guide. Even at the edge of the ice, meltwater streams are fast and extremely cold. Those who want to go farther can join a guided walk or ride one of the large all-terrain buses built specially for travel on ice, which carry passengers onto the glacier during the warmer months of the year. Across the highway, a visitor centre offers views of the glacier and exhibits about the icefield.