Arctic Archipelago

What happened when it became trapped in the ice, the vessel? Why exactly did his decision to leave before it sunk become so consequential?

Okay, so this is, yeah, this is getting to the heart of the Canadian Arctic expedition.

The flagship of this expedition was the Kahluk, a ship, a whaling ship that had been specially reinforced against the ice.

It was hoped that this was going to, Stephenson intended to smash a passage through the ice, through the cracks in the ice, in the hope of discovering land.

There's also Victoria Island.

If you're coming to Canada, make sure you get your plane tickets right because Victoria Island is way over in the northeastern Canadian Arctic.

So if you get those plane tickets, make sure you get the right place.

Anyways, Vancouver Island, Victorian native Natasha Anquist was on our show many years ago.

And these are two sculptures.

They're soapstone carvings that he got in Arctic Canada.

So they were carved by Inuit.

And one is of a beautiful seal.

I'm gonna go north of Franz Josef Land, and I'm just gonna stay way the hell up there, and I'm gonna see if I can't ride sort of the edge of the polar ice cap from Svalbard all the way to Alaska, or, you know, well, the, the archipelago that is the, the Northwest, the heart of the Northwest Passage.

Technically, above Alaska is the Northwest Passage also, but when people think about the Northwest Passage, they're really thinking about the, the Arctic, the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.

But yeah, if I stay up there, I mean, obviously they're north, the, the FSB is north of Novaya Zemlya, um, because that's where they boarded me twice.

But, uh, they're not up by Franz Josef Land.

We're in Toronto.

I live up in the Canadian Arctic called Nunavut.

So I will zoom out.

Here is Nunavut.

For almost a century, the Fish and Wildlife Service and its predecessor, the Biological Survey, have been collecting data on the important details of bird migration.

Scientists have gathered information concerning the distribution and seasonal movements of many species throughout the Western Hemisphere, from the Arctic Archipelago south to Tierra del Fuego.

Supplementing these investigations is the work of hundreds of U.S., Latin American, and Canadian university personnel and volunteer birdwatchers who report on the migrations and status of birds observed in their respective localities.

These data, stored in field notes, computer files, and scientific journals, constitute an enormous reservoir of information pertaining to the distribution and movements of North American birds.

These birds winter on the Atlantic coast, chiefly at Barnegat Bay, New Jersey.

But depending upon the severity of the season and the food available, many winter south to North Carolina.

Their breeding grounds are in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and on the coasts of Greenland.

Careful studies have shown that the main body travels northward in spring along the coast to the Bay of Fundy, overland to Northumberland Strait, which separates Prince Edward Island from mainland New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

And apparently from Churchill, they're actually also going to, um, Now, it hasn't said they've actually contracted

for it, but what they said, they want to build up the presence to supply northern communities in Nunavut and also the, well, the whole Canadian Arctic.

And I thought to supply that from Churchill, well, again, you're going to be cutting down your delivery times.

A barge up the Mackenzie and then around the north is going to be a lot more cumbersome than just shipping that out of Churchill.

Valerie has been an athlete all of her life, competing in cross-country skiing and rowing internationally.

She has also done various ultramarathons and has been on multiple expeditions to some of the most remote places on Earth, including places like the Atacama Desert and the Canadian Arctic.

In this episode, Mason and Valerie explore Valerie's seven-day expedition across Baffin Island on skis, made even more impressive by the fact that only a few months before that expedition, she was diagnosed with cancer and was going through chemotherapy.

I hope this episode encourages someone out there today.