Meltdown: The Making and Breaking of a Field Scientist

by Sarah Boon

Meltdown tells the story of Sarah Boon’s field adventures in snow and ice, the struggles of choosing an academic career over that of a writer, and the challenges of being a woman in science. An undergraduate field trip to Hilda Glacier in the Canadian Rockies ignites Boon’s scientific passion, leading her to pursue a PhD in cold regions hydrology in the High Arctic while writing on the side. Her narrative blends adventure and academia, featuring experiences like traversing John Evans Glacier on Ellesmere Island, building weather stations in northern British Columbia, sampling proglacial rivers, and scaring away grizzlies with helicopters. Interwoven with tales of historic female explorers like Mary Schäffer Warren and Phyllis Munday, Meltdown celebrates the indomitable spirit of women in exploration. However, amid the rigours of fieldwork, Boon faces gender bias, department politics, and imposter syndrome. Her journey is marked by injury, mental health struggles, and job insecurity in the academic workplace. When a severe mental health diagnosis threatens her position, Boon must decide if leaving science is the only way to manage her illness. As the landscapes she studies undergo profound transformations, Boon’s personal journey mirrors the evolving contours of her research. Meltdown is a candid narrative of developing identities, the need for open dialogue about scientific research and mental health, and one woman’s search for work-life balance.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Memoir

312 pages, Paperback

Published June 17, 2025

Reviews

[Katie Ives · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wrote a blurb for Sarah's book. Reposting it here:

With Meltdown, Sarah Boon evokes landscapes of intense vulnerability and power, inviting her readers on a journey that is both a daring adventure and a poetic meditation on seeking meaning in a precarious world.

[Alberta Views Magazine]

Meltdown opens with a harrowing scene. Alone with a student on an Arctic glacier, hours from help, the student repeating “I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die.” In such remote places a small misstep can rapidly become life threatening. Author Sarah Boon rises to these moments. A hydrologist by training, she has ventured across northern and western Canada, from the forests of northern British Columbia to Ellesmere Island in the high Arctic to the Rocky Mountains in southern Alberta. Her fieldwork offers a window into landscapes few ever see. Among the most dramatic is the collapse of meltwater lakes that form on Arctic glaciers each summer: “We sensed movement—like a freight train running beneath our feet—and heard loud cracking and creaking with the ice. It was a bit unnerving to imagine the glacier as a living organism on whose back we were standing as it shook off the remnants of winter.”

Reviewed by Annie Prud'homme-Généreux
Full review at: https://albertaviews.ca/meltdown-sara...

[Elaine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sarah Boon’s vulnerability and honesty about her journey (thus far) is inspiring and insightful. Her book is a valuable read for anyone caught between vocational callings, considering a career in academia or science, or seeking to understand how what you love can have a place in what you do.

[Lisa Gardiner · Rating 5 out of 5]

This memoir of a field scientist takes readers from awe inspiring Canadian glaciers to the challenges of life in academia. Over time, the Arctic environments she studies change as climate warms and her life changes in unexpected ways.