Every April, we pick a nonprofit doing work we believe in. This year, we went looking for people who've been at it longer than almost anyone.
We found them on a glacier.
80 YEARS ON THE ICE
The Juneau Icefield Research Program ("JIRP") has been running since 1946. Every summer since 1948, they send a team of scientists and students onto the Juneau Icefield in Southeast Alaska for an eight-week expedition. They ski roughly 100 miles across one of North America's most remote landscapes, collecting glaciological data the entire way.
That dataset now spans more than 75 years. No satellite can go back and take the measurements they recorded in 1952. The continuity is irreplaceable, and it's been cited in IPCC (the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a UN body of climate scientists that publishes major assessment reports synthesizing the state of climate change), climate assessments worldwide.
JIRP has trained hundreds of scientists over its lifetime. It's a nonprofit. And it's still going.
QUICK PRIMER ON GLACIERS
The deepest glacier in the Western Hemisphere started retreating. The Taku Glacier runs 4,800+ feet deep. For decades, it was the rare glacier that was actually advancing. In 2019, it officially reversed course. Even the strongest one blinked.
Ice worms are real. Mesenchytraeus solifugus lives in the surface ice of the Juneau Icefield, thriving just above freezing and dying if temperatures climb past 40°F. Researchers have counted up to 7,000 per square meter. As glaciers retreat, so do they.
The Mendenhall Glacier has retreated 2.5 miles since 1958. It flows to within three miles of downtown Juneau, and the pace is accelerating. The before-and-after images are some of the most striking in climate science.
GLACIER: 2026 EARTH MONTH FINISH
This year's limited-edition finish is called Glacier. It's a stunning matte blue, available across our razor and dermaplaner lineup for Earth Month.
A portion of the proceeds from every Glacier tool sold goes directly to JIRP and the work they've been doing since before most of us were born.
Named for the ice. Built to support the people studying it.
