For the past two and a half weeks, I traveled the
Canadian Arctic and Greenland with the expedition group, Students on Ice.
There were 132 international participants, 86
students and 46 leaders, who embarked on our ship the "Sea Adventurer,” for
a 16-day journey. We started in the northern Canadian village of Kuujjuaq,
Nunavut, and made our way down the Labrador coast, visiting the extraordinary
Torngat Mountains National Park. From there, we crossed the Labrador Sea and
explored the abandoned villages and breathtaking glaciers of southern
Greenland.
Thirty students on board were Inuit, and shared
with us what it was like to live in the North. As someone who had thought the
North was only a place for polar bears and Santa Claus, I was in for a wake up
call as I learned all about the aboriginal people and visited their vibrant
northern communities.
The staff, too, was not what I expected.
Originally, I thought these adults would be all climate scientists, but it
turns out that we had world-renowned leaders from many different professions. There were musicians, artists, educators,
entrepreneurs, and more! There was such a wide range of specialties within the
staff, that there was always someone to answer my questions. A question about birds- check. Fish-check.
Rocks- check. How to play guitar- check. And those relationships will continue
even after the trip. All these instructors brought something different to the
table, and allowed for students to learn in different ways.
While some students expressed themselves most
comfortably through discussion, others played music to express their thoughts
and feelings about the Arctic.
The places that inspired these discussions were unbeatable. Fjords,
which painted the skies with mountains and the waters with humpback whales,
were all about. The seas were so clear that you could see the Arctic char
swimming below, and the water was so fresh that you could fill your water
bottles underneath the waterfalls.
We witnessed climate change as we visited glaciers where sea ice had
receded a thousand meters in the last decade, and saw glaciers calving in front
of us. We saw how the tree line and southern vegetation is expanding
northwards, and bringing with it southern species of birds. We heard the
stories of how the caribou decline is affecting the native people’s eating
patterns.
Huddling in a small tent, we learned the stories of the elders. They
told us what it was like to be forced out of their homes as kids when the
Canadian government decided to condense the native people’s villages.
Throughout the two and a half weeks, this place which I once thought
void of life became the epitome of life itself. There is no better feeling then
sitting on a rock staring up at a glacier and realizing how small you actually
are. The song of the birds and the pounding of the waterfall against the ground
below was the only noise I heard.
Next year will be Student On Ice’s 15th anniversary. And although 80% of
the students were able to be sponsored do to generous donors like my sponsor Climate One, next year SOI is hoping
to reach its goal of 100% sponsorship. The US Embassy of Canada is upping the ante
along with sponsors around the world to accomplish this goal. With that comes
even more students getting to experience this once in a lifetime trip- entering
as visitors leaving as lobbyists for the Arctic.
