Melting Glaciers, Cashmere Goats, and How Knitting Can Help

While most of us hear about glaciers receding more rapidly, we might not experience the consequences of these changes in our own communities. A new collaboration—and contest—is afoot that aims to bring attention to the people, animals, and landscapes under threat right now.

Year of Glaciers

More than 2 billion people, including many fiber producers, rely on melt from glaciers and snow for their very survival. To bring attention to the threat to glaciers in the High Himalayas, engineer Sonam Wangchuk climbed into the mountains near Ladakh, India, and carried back a 7 kilogram chunk of glacier. It began a journey across two continents, wrapped in 3 kilograms of cashmere, and finally arrived at the United Nations in New York. The UN has named 2025 the International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation, and Wangchuk’s Travelling Glacier brought the threat of climate change to the world’s door. The cashmere covering the sample not only insulated the ice, it also demonstrates what’s at risk when glaciers melt. The animals and people living in these regions depend on glaciers for water; when the glaciers melt too abruptly, the overflow of water sweeps away whole villages and cities in devastating floods.

Many herders have reported suffering up to a 50% loss of kids due to water shortage and inaccessibility.

Three kilos of cashmere, you say?

In an amazing series of events, which Linda Cortright of Wild Fibers shared on the Long Thread Podcast (see Resources), the cashmere that traveled to the United Nations wrapped around that famous piece of glacier landed in the hands of fiber folks. What does one do with several trash bags full of some of the world’s highest quality cashmere? Call your friends. Linda Cortright reached out to Linda Ligon and Long Thread Media, and the Cashmere on Ice contest was born.

While there are categories and prizes and rules, the real goal is bringing attention and awareness to the communities and animals living in areas threatened by glacier loss. And to make the contest more accessible, there are many ways to participate.

The first step in the contest is to find cashmere fiber or yarn and start creating. Anyone can enter a handmade project to be featured in the gallery, but to be eligible to win a prize, each item submitted must be handmade, at least 50% cashmere, and fit in at least one of our prize categories: Best Wearable, Best Art or Décor, or The Best of Ladakh.

For knitters, this means that you can use any yarn that is at least 50% cashmere. You can:

• Use cashmere yarns in your stash.
• Order from a US grower such as Clean Cashmere.
• Order from a yarn company that supports cashmere growers abroad, such as June Cashmere.
• Order some handspun cashmere from the High Himalayas available from Wild Fibers.
• Unravel a thrifted cashmere sweater and reknit it!

Join us!

Whether you enter a project in the competition, submit photos of your work for the project gallery, or view the work that fiber artists from around the world create using cashmere fiber and yarn, you can join us to celebrate and raise awareness of the connection between endangered glaciers and precious fiber.

To learn more about the contest, visit our FAQ and see the contest page for official details and rules.

Resources

• Cashmere on Ice, cashmere.longthreadmedia.com.
  
• The Long Thread Podcast, “Spotlight: Cashmere on Ice”.
  
• Wild Fibers shop and resources, wildfibersmagazine.com/cashmereonice.