In Caring for Glaciers, Karine Gagné shows that glacier engagement is more than the factual monitoring of changes in their physical state. Glacier engagement in Ladakh, as Gagné shows, contributes to the development of a sense of self and a sense of place: “The engagement over time with the material and affective environment of the high pastures, where herders perform strenuous work, experience intense feelings, develop acute sensory perception, and meet a world of morality, is central to how glaciers are known” in the Indian Himalayas (p. 148).

This latest addition to the “Culture, Place, and Nature: Studies in Anthropology and Environment” series from the University of Washington Press contributes to the environmental anthropology of climate change. As anthropologists grapple with the ontological status of humanity provoked by the Anthropocene, Gagné reminds readers that “knowledge is never just information or data; rather, knowledge is always situated, often coproduced, and deeply relational, and its presentation, ultimately, is inescapably human” (p. xx).

This book presents the challenges Himalayan people face in fulfilling their moral responsibilities to the land, the animals, and each other as they themselves struggle to find their own place in this new age. Gagné does not shy away from exposing the anthropologist's inevitable emotions of discomfort involved in living through the brutal cold of Himalayan winter, and the heaviness that engulfs her as she leaves her interlocutors behind to face the solitude of more winters to come. Front and center throughout the book are the affect-laden realizations of Ladakhi modern life.

Although based in India, this book tells a pan-Himalayan story. The socioeconomic and environmental drivers of change at play in the Himalayas are bringing about similar changes for many communities where mountain depopulation and demographic change are a reality (p. 169).Footnote ¹ Just as glaciers are receding, the presence and influence of Ladakhi elders are also decreasing amid the dazzle of a new era (p. 172). While the younger generation leaves for urban centers in search of better socioeconomic opportunities, the elders remain to take care of the land and animals. When the elders are physically unable to do so, without the support of a new generation of farmers and herders, they are forced to stop cultivating their land or sell their livestock. They describe this as abandoning a friend—their sense of morality burdened with remorse (p. 169).

Gagné also speaks of the crack in the landscape:

Aptly titled, this book suggests caring for glaciers. But what does that mean? Dolma—who tries to convince Gagné that renting her horses and trekking to the glaciers with her husband, Phuntsok, a man in his late sixties, is going to be a much more valuable experience than going with any village youth—offers an answer to this question. Her words are instructive. “To care for the glacier, you have to see the glacier, you have to know the glacier, like you know a friend” (p. 140).

Tsewang Lhamo, one of the last herders of Nye to regularly go to the high pastures with her animals, had seen with great dismay that much of her village glacier had melted, ice cover giving way to bare rocks. Her sense of despair was so profound that she mobilized her fellow villagers to address the problem. They requested the help of a monk who performed a religious ritual that included prayers and the burying of a sacred vase in the valley that leads to the summit. According to Gagné, this was an intervention that is part of the conceived entanglement among glaciers, invisible forces, and villagers, in mutual relations of care and reciprocity.

This refreshing, honest-to-life portrayal of ethnographic moments makes this an essential book for anyone interested in understanding contemporary issues in the Himalayas and changing human-cryosphere relationships, as well as gaining a processual understanding of life overcoming the nature/culture divide.Footnote ² It complements Radhika Govindrajan's Animal Intimacies in broadening our understanding of the region that constitutes more than the humans.Footnote ³ As a result, the Himalayas can no longer be seen simply as a geological massif. Gagné demonstrates that the region becomes meaningful through the entanglements of land, animals, and humans. In Caring for Glaciers, readers learn that the ethics of care, which maintain these entanglements, are eroding. It is therefore a sobering gift.