Jostedalsbreen
Olden
Norway, 2026

As the largest glacier on the European mainland, Jostedalsbreen holds within it the memory of thousands of years of snow, pressure, and time, and forms a defining part of the Norwegian mountain landscape, its water system, and the imagination of the far north.

Yet that apparent permanence proves fragile. As the climate warms, Norwegian glaciers are retreating on a large scale; recent measurements showed further shortening in almost all of the glacier tongues surveyed. As a result, Jostedalsbreen is slowly changing from a symbol of endurance into an image of loss, in which beauty and threat uneasily converge.