Meltdown: The Making and Breaking of a Field Scientist

In Meltdown, Sarah Boon tells us about field adventures in snow and ice, the tough decision of choosing an academic career over that of a writer, and the challenges she faces as a woman in science. Her story blends adventure and academia as she traverses John Evans Glacier on Ellesmere Island, builds weather stations in northern British Columbia, samples proglacial rivers, and scares away grizzlies with helicopters. Along the way, Boon finds inspiration in the stories of historic female explorers like Mary Schäffer Warren and Phyllis Munday, celebrating the tenacity of women in the field. But her path isn’t without obstacles. In addition to the physical and psychological rigors of fieldwork, Boon faces gender bias, departmental politics, and job insecurity in academia. Her journey is also marked by injury, struggles with imposter syndrome, and a serious mental health diagnosis. Meltdown is an honest and reflective narrative about the process of finding your identity, the need for open conversations around mental health and science, and one woman’s pursuit of balance between her career and personal life. 

Sarah Boon is a freelance writer and editor. She has published essays, book reviews, author interviews, and articles in a range of magazines and journals, including Science, Nature, Longreads, Flyway Journal, Electric Literature, and others. She trained as an environmental scientist and held a tenured position in physical geography before returning to her writing and editing roots. She is a member of the Creative Nonfiction Collective Society and the Federation of BC Writers, and a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. She was a co-founder of the Canadian science blogging network Science Borealis. She blogs at https://watershednotes.ca/ and lives and works on southern Vancouver Island, traditional unceded territory of the Quwut’sun people.

ISBN: 9781772127911
Format: Paperback
Pages: 312
Publisher: University of Alberta Press
Published: June 17, 2025

"Boon’s work can be compared to Rachel Carsen’s Silent Spring in its ability to channel scientific and human storytelling about our world at an extraordinary juncture of change and transformation. Boon is a writer who can observe field work like Aldo Leopold in A Sand County Almanac, convey anguish like Patricia Van Tighem in The Bear’s Embrace, and open up silences like Maria Coffey in Where the Mountain Casts Its Shadow." PearlAnn Reichwein, author of Climber's Paradise

"Meltdown is a deeply personal narrative that reveals the hidden challenges of academic careers, including physical struggles, mental health issues, and the complexities of identity and impostor syndrome. Through candid accounts of fieldwork, interactions with colleagues, and the pursuit of work-life balance, Sarah Boon offers an unflinching look at the highs and lows of a career set against the backdrop of Arctic expeditions and a passion for nature and science." Melody Sandells, Northumbria University

"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." Katie Ives, author of Imaginary Peaks: The Riesenstein Hoax and Other Mountain Dreams

"Meltdown is a real-life science thriller with a narrative as richly braided and unexpected as the glacial stream systems Sarah Boon studies. It’s a clear-eyed, courageous look at the costs of being female in field science, suffused with deep love for the wild places where glaciers live." Susan J. Tweit, field botanist and author of Bless the Birds

"In Meltdown, Sarah Boon’s riveting account of breaking from her courageous, exacting life as an Arctic researcher is also a hope-filled map to making it as a world-class writer." Rebecca Lawton, author of The Oasis This Time and other books