The Geographer: Canada (Winter 2017)

The

Geographer Winter 2017

The newsletter of

the Royal Scottish Geographical Society

Canada at 150: Challenges and Choices Big, Bold, Beautiful, Sustainable and Fair

• Freshwater and Underwater Canada • An Inuit Perspective and Canada’s Blind Spot • Shackleton Medal Presentations • National Parks and Natural Declines • Snorkelling the NW Passage • Naomi Klein, David Suzuki, Wade Davis • Interview with James Cameron • RCGS’s Fortunes and Fellowships • Opportunities for the Climate

“The summit of the mountain, the thunder of the sky, the rhythm of the sea, speaks to me.”

Chief Dan George OC, Tsleil-Waututh Nation

The

Geographer

Canada

T

he relationship between Canada and Scotland has been very fruitful on many levels and whilst the Scottish influence on Canada is well reported, Canada has an increasingly positive influence on Scotland too, and there is a great deal we can learn from each other. For example, in Canada, rather than using administrative units which bear little relationship to nature, a systematic natural framework devised of 39 natural regions was identified. What should be protected, what mechanisms should be used, how are local communities engaged, and what future management should there be, were all questions learnt from the Canadian experience. Scottish Natural Heritage’s Natural Heritage Futures programme was borne out of this Canadian approach.

There are lessons to be learnt from Canada in interpretation too.

At Joggins Cliff in the Bay of Fundy area of Nova Scotia, and the Burgess Shales in Yoho National Park in British Columbia, the displays are quite brilliant in providing the general public with an understanding of the environments of the past. And the current Canadian approach to engagement with its Indigenous communities in the care and management of nature provides lessons for us in Scotland, as we try to have a better engagement with our own local communities in the joint management of important natural and cultural sites.

As Chair of RSGS, I am delighted to welcome the development of our relationship with Canada and the Royal Canadian Geographical Society (RCGS). Mike Robinson and I are both honoured to have been offered Fellowship of the RCGS, and we will sign a Memorandum of Understanding when we visit Ottawa in November to attend the RCGS College of Fellows Annual Dinner. I am confident this is only the start of a new chapter of even more fruitful relations.

Roger Crofts, Chair, RSGS

Reaching out Mike Robinson, Chief Executive, RSGS It has been a real pleasure to work on this current magazine, speaking to some wonderful people and working more closely with our Canadian colleagues at RCGS. I am especially grateful to Aaron Kylie, Editorin-Chief of the Canadian Geographic magazine, for his invaluable assistance, and to John Geiger, CEO of RCGS, for his help and support.

I am greatly honoured to be receiving a Fellowship of this proud organisation, especially as Canada celebrates its 150th anniversary of confederation, and we look forward to working with RCGS over the coming months and years. We will be taking copies of this magazine over to Ottawa in mid-November to share with RCGS Fellows at their annual dinner.

The production of this edition of The Geographer comes at the end of a very busy period for RSGS, as we juggle the start of the new Inspiring People talks season, the replacement of staff, the maintenance of the office fabric, the hibernation of the visitor centre, and the development of new fundraising schemes and ideas.

Meanwhile, we continue to have an impact and influence which belies our size. We have continued to push our education concerns in a series of high-level meetings with the Cabinet Secretary, Scottish Government and others. We have had useful meetings with AGI, Ordnance Survey and Education Scotland, amongst others, and were invited to a meeting on climate change progress with the UKCCC at ECCI. We have given talks for a number of universities (Strathclyde, MIT, Dundee), and various businesses and Rotary Clubs, to help raise the profile of our work.

We attended two key conferences: one on Transformational Change, and one on proposals for Scotland to progress towards a Good Food Nation (tackling issues such as food security, farming, food poverty, obesity and food waste) which will form a far-reaching consultation during 2018. These may be themes we pick up in The Geographer next year. In the meantime our priority will be to seek new funds and new members, and find new audiences for our work. We get some great feedback about all aspects of our work; we just need to make more people aware of it, and convert the vast amounts of goodwill into tangible funding support.

Finally, if you are struggling for ideas for Christmas, do consider gifting RSGS membership, or help us by buying our limited edition prints of Rob Hain’s The Fair City, or a copy of Jo Woolf’s new book The Great Horizon (see back page). We hope you all enjoy this season of talks, and have a wonderful Christmas and Hogmanay when it comes.

Communications change The articles on pages 8, 29-31 and 36-37 are reprinted with the kind permission of the RCGS.

RSGS, Lord John Murray House, 15-19 North Port, Perth, PH1 5LU tel: 01738 455050 email: enquiries@rsgs.org www.rsgs.org Charity registered in Scotland no SC015599 The views expressed in this newsletter are not necessarily those of the RSGS. Cover image: The Polar Prince at Nunavut. © Michelle Valberg Masthead image: State of Grace. © Jason Leo Bantle

RSGS: a better way to see the world

Thanks to the efforts of our Communications Officer, Gemma McDonald, RSGS’s social media presence has grown significantly over the past three years, and we now have an online following of some 10,000 people.

Having achieved this, Gemma has now left us to pursue new opportunities as Regional Media Officer with the RNLI in Scotland. She goes with our best wishes, and we are sure that she will do very well in her new role.

We are delighted now to welcome James Cave, who is taking over from Gemma in late October. James is a Geography graduate with a broad range of skills, and with experience across a range of media platforms. We look forward to working with him to build our profile with different audiences and increase support for our many activities.

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Winter 2017

RSGS Shackleton Medallists The 2016 Shackleton Medal was jointly awarded to three of the key architects of the Paris Climate Agreement – international political figures who worked incredibly hard to achieve global consensus on the most critical geographical issue of our time. In October, we were delighted to be able to present Medals to Christiana Figueres and Manuel Pulgar-Vidal at special events in Edinburgh and Glasgow (having previously presented a Medal to Laurent Fabius in September 2016). We are grateful to Cabinet Secretary Roseanna Cunningham MSP and the Scottish Government for hosting us at Edinburgh Castle, to the ScottishPower Foundation for all their help with organising the event at their HQ in Glasgow, and to Dr Francesco Sindico and 2050 Climate Group Vice-Chair Kerry-Anne Mackay for their introductions to Manuel Pulgar-Vidal on the night.

The Shackleton Medal is awarded for leadership and citizenship.

Shackleton himself said that “Difficulties are just things to overcome, after all.” Persuading 197 sovereign nations to agree to cut carbon emissions and change the course of the global economy, as the Paris Climate Agreement did, presents difficulties aplenty.

Roseanna Cunningham MSP welcoming guests to Edinburgh Castle. © Chris Watt

Presentation to Christiana Figueres, Edinburgh Castle, 3rd October 2017 Christiana Figueres has been involved in international climate change negotiations for over 20 years, initially as part of Costa Rica’s negotiating team, before being appointed as Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. This was in 2010, just after the disappointment of the climate talks in Copenhagen in December 2009. It is hard to overstate the sheer positive willpower needed to re-galvanise the international community. For the following six years, she worked tirelessly worldwide, nudging and cajoling the international community. Her contribution to the successful outcome of the talks in Paris was praised by climate economist Lord Stern as “really extraordinary,” and he went on to say, “She is gifted with an outstanding ability to see where we need to go as a world and to bring people together. Christiana is one of the great leaders of our time. The challenge for everyone is to build on her achievements.”

Christiana Figueres addressing an invited audience. © Chris Watt

Presentation to Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, ScottishPower Headquarters, Glasgow, 11th October 2017 Manuel Pulgar-Vidal is first and foremost a lecturer in environmental law and natural resource management at the Catholic University of Peru. He founded the Peruvian Society for Environmental Law in 1986, and acted as President of both the Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense, and the Permanent Seminar on Agricultural Research. He was a Director of Profonanpe, the Fund for the Promotion of Protected Natural Areas of Peru, and was Alliance Director for the Tropical Andes. Critically, he was Minister of State for Environment in Peru from 2011 to 2016, and it was his skilful chairmanship of the 2014 UN climate conference in Lima, and his contribution to the Paris climate negotiations the following year, that inspired so many countries to sign the Paris Agreement. He is now Leader of Climate and Energy Practice for WWF International.

Ann McKechin, ScottishPower Head of CSR, said, “ScottishPower Foundation was delighted to co-host this prestigious event with RSGS and welcome Manuel Pulgar-Vidal to his first visit to Glasgow.

His longstanding personal commitment to tackling climate change provided inspiration to everyone who attended.”

Manuel Pulgar-Vidal with Erin Fowler (left) and Fiona Cuthill of the RSGS Young Geographer editorial team. © Chris James

L–R: Dr Francesco Sindico, University of Strathclyde; Kerry-Anne Mackay, Vice-Chair, 2050 Climate Group; Manuel Pulgar-Vidal; Mike Thornton, Chair, ScottishPower Foundation; Professor Roger Crofts, Chair, RSGS. © Chris James

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news Canadian connections

Dr Smith was an eminent geologist best known for The fit of the continents around the Atlantic, published with Sir Edward Bullard and Jim Everett in 1965, which laid the groundwork for the theory of plate tectonics. The fit of the American, African and European coastlines had long been noted, but it was not until 1912 that the first complete theory of continental drift was published by Alfred Wegener, against the dominant theory that continents formed when the Earth cooled and then remained fixed.

In the 1960s, University of Cambridge geophysicist Bullard set his PhD student, Everett, the task of quantifying the ‘fit’ using an early mainframe computer. Everett wrote a program that fitted together any two wiggly lines on a sphere, and showed the relationship between the continents at different submarine depths.

Smith, then a research assistant, provided much-needed geological expertise. They achieved almost perfect fits at the 500 fathom line, showing conclusively that the continents around the Atlantic were once contiguous, and that the Ocean had grown at rates of a few centimetres per year since the Early Jurassic period.

Not all right for whales There are thought to be only about 450 endangered North Atlantic right whales left in the world, so the news that 15 were found dead in the Gulf of St Lawrence or along the US east coast in the summer of 2017 caused a great deal of concern. Described as an “unusual mortality event,” the precise reason is unclear, although most were apparently the victims of ship collisions or became entangled in fishing lines. In response, the government made a series of emergency changes to protect the animals, including slowing down ships and the early closure of a snow crab fishery.

Inspiring People We are pleased to report a great start to the 2017-18 season.

Christy Harrison and Will Millard, who gave the first dozen talks, were very well received by audiences across the country.

Both speakers are new to RSGS, and we hope to invite them back to speak again in the future.

change of venues

Space for a Teacake?

The First Minister of Scotland, Rt Hon Nicola Sturgeon MSP, has sent her congratulations and best wishes in a video message for the Dinner, saying, “Today, over 15% of the Canadian population identify themselves as having Scottish roots. And the economic, academic and cultural ties between our two nations are growing ever stronger. That is reflected in the relationship between our two Royal Geographical Societies. The two organisations are working increasingly closely to promote academic and policy collaboration – on issues like tackling climate change and implementing the Sustainable Development Goals. Those are two areas where Scotland and Canada have both shown real leadership. And I know that our countries will benefit from greater exchange of knowledge and expertise in the future.

That’s why I would welcome even stronger links between the Royal Scottish Geographical Society and its Canadian counterpart in the years ahead.”

In March 2018, we will be delighted to welcome RCGS’s Chief Executive Officer John Geiger to Scotland, where he will speak to RSGS audiences in Dumfries, Galashiels, Ayr and Helensburgh about The Third Man Factor, as part of our Inspiring People programme of talks.

Adelie penguin tragedy All but two Adelie penguin chicks have starved to death in their east Antarctic colony, in a breeding season described by experts as “catastrophic”. Unusually high amounts of ice late in the season meant that adults had to travel further for food. It is the second bad season in recent years; in 2015, no chicks survived. Conservation groups are calling for urgent action on a new marine protection area in the east Antarctic to protect the colony of about 36,000. WWF says a ban on krill fishing in the area would eliminate their competition and help to secure the survival of Antarctic species, including the Adelie penguins.

UK oil and gas reserves A study published in September by the Edinburgh Geological Society has suggested that UK oil and gas reserves may last only a decade. University of Edinburgh scientists carried out a fresh analysis of oil and gas production, and examined the likely potential for fracking, taking into account the longterm downward trends of oil and gas field size and lifespan, alongside the break-even costs for fracking.

Analysis of hydrocarbon reserves showed that discoveries have consistently lagged behind output since the point of peak oil recovery in the late 1990s, and the researchers found that the UK has only minimal potential for fracking, with many possible sites being in densely populated areas, or having low-quality source rocks or complex geological histories.

On Friday 13th October, the Glasgow Science Centre launched a Tunnock’s Teacake (named Terry) into space. Terry was airborne for two hours and four minutes, reaching a peak altitude of 37,007m. He was exposed to UV-c, a harmful ultraviolet radiation which the ozone layer otherwise absorbs to stop it reaching ground level. Terry took 40 minutes to return to Earth, where he landed safely in a tree in Galloway Forest Park.

Visit www.glasgowsciencecentre.org/glasgow-science to watch Terry’s journey in full, and for more Glasgow Science videos.

Professor Roy Thompson, of the University of Edinburgh’s School of GeoSciences, who led the study, said, “The UK urgently needs a bold energy transition plan, instead of trusting to dwindling fossil fuel reserves and possible fracking. We must act now and drive the necessary shift to a clean economy with integration between energy systems.

There needs to be greater emphasis on renewables, energy storage, and improved insulation and energy efficiencies.”

University News

We have had to rearrange two venues. Vanessa Collingridge’s Edinburgh afternoon talk on 15th November will now be in Lecture Theatre A, David Hume Tower, George Square (set back between 50 George Square and the David Hume Tower building). Jo Woolf’s Glasgow evening talk on 13th December will now be in Lecture Theatre C of the University of Glasgow’s Boyd Orr Building.

In November, RSGS’s Chief Executive Mike Robinson and Chairman Professor Roger Crofts are travelling to Ottawa to attend the Royal Canadian Geographical Society’s College of Fellows Annual Dinner, and to accept Honorary Fellowship of the RCGS.

Canada

Dr Alan Smith (1937-2017)

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RSGS Strategic plan 2017-22

Simon Bateson, founder of Take One Action Film Festivals, was presented with RSGS Honorary Fellowship at an event in Edinburgh in September. RSGS Chief Executive Mike Robinson said, “Take One Action (TOA) is an exceptional initiative, now in its tenth year, which provides a platform for voices we rarely hear and faces we never normally see, Simon Bateson (right) receiving RSGS and which helps throw light on Honorary Fellowship from Mike Robinson. difficult issues, creates empathy © Douglas Robertson between people all around the world, and helps to build a sense of a truly global community.

Simon started this initiative in 2008 because he wanted to do something to help encourage a kinder, fairer, more sustainable world. I am delighted to welcome him as an Honorary Fellow of RSGS, to recognise that laudable ambition and his incredible drive and passion which have made it the great success this film festival is today. No-one who attends TOA can fail to be moved, enlightened, motivated, angered or inspired, and this festival is a glittering gem in Scotland’s busy events calendar.”

RSGS Board has developed a new Strategic Plan to see the Society through the next five years. The overall vision for the new Plan is “Promoting geographical understanding of people, places and the planet.” The focus of attention will be on four priority areas – Schools Education and Young People, Research and Knowledge Exchange, Local Action, and Collections – in addition to our usual Corporate Activities.

Progress will be reviewed using four indicators – membership, resources, profile and credibility – seeking to increase our performance on each one over the next five years. Search for ‘Strategic Plan’ on rsgs.org for a copy of the plan.

Electric vehicles in Scotland In September, the Scottish Government announced “a bold new ambition on ultra-low emission vehicles (ULEVs), including electric cars and vans, with a target to phase out the need for petrol and diesel vehicles by 2032, underpinned by a range of actions to expand the charging network, support innovative approaches and encourage the public sector to lead the way.”

O’Dell Collection In response to Kenneth Maclean’s article on Railways of Scotland in the summer 2016 edition of The Geographer, RSGS member and railway enthusiast Richard Ardern suggested that readers might like to know about the University of Aberdeen’s O’Dell Collection. Ranking as one of the major railway collections in Britain, it is the legacy of a lifelong study of transport, especially railways, by Andrew C O’Dell (1909-66), first Professor of Geography in the University of Aberdeen.

With over 10,000 volumes dating from the 1830s to the present, the Collection is particularly relevant to railway transport in the North-east of Scotland, especially the history of the Great North of Scotland Railway Company. It includes a wide range of ephemera, maps, timetables, and guide books for the many railway companies that operated in Scotland and in England and Wales (as well as in Europe and worldwide), and there are also small sequences of works on inland waterways, sea transport, road and aviation.

Plans drawn by Edinburgh-born engineer and surveyor James Anderson in 1818, which look remarkably similar to the new Queensferry Crossing, recently came to light in a University of Edinburgh archive. Anderson’s proposal for a “Bridge of Chains proposed to be thrown over the Frith [sic] of Forth” was discovered by University geographer and RSGS volunteer Bruce Gittings while researching his Gazetteer for Scotland (www.scottish-places.info).

The remarkable plans for a roadway linking North and South Queensferry were proposed 72 years before completion of the iconic Forth Bridge. Both Anderson’s design and the new Queensferry Crossing are suspension road bridges, with their supports extending as straight lines from the towers, resembling the sails of an immense yacht. Anderson’s scheme has the roadway supported by chain cables, forged from iron bars, very similar to Thomas Telford’s bridge across the Menai Strait in North Wales.

Bruce Gittings said, “It is important to remember Anderson’s pioneering work. His design was beyond the engineering capabilities of the time, as evidenced by the collapse of the Tay Bridge in a storm in 1879 and of the Chain Pier at Trinity in Edinburgh (on which Anderson also worked) in 1898.”

Pelly Island melting…

According to recent research by Natural Resources Canada, the Canadian Arctic coastal region is experiencing warmer temperatures and longer ice-free seasons. Whilst much of the coastline is known to be eroding at long-term rates of 1-2m pa (and in excess of 17m pa in some places), the decadal rates of change for this region have remained relatively constant over the last 50-60 years.

However, new data suggest an acceleration of coastal erosion on some portions of the coast, such as at Pelly Island, where portions of the coastline receded 315m in 1950-85, and 650m in 1985-2013. Latest research shows that this ice-rich coastline retreated an additional 40m in just a two-month period during the summer of 2015. A combination of warmer air and ocean temperatures and increasing storm damage are exacerbating the rapidly melting permafrost, causing the island to almost visibly ‘melt’ into the sea.

Canada

To support this, the Government said it would: • expand the electric charging infrastructure between now and 2022, whether in rural, urban or domestic settings; • work with delivery partners to create Scotland’s first ‘electric highway’ on the A9, including charging points along the route; • accelerate the procurement of ULEVs in the public and private sectors, transforming public sector car and van fleets by the mid-2020s and commercial bus fleets by the early 2030s; • introduce large-scale pilots across the country, to encourage private motorists to use ULEVs; • provide financial support for local solutions and small-scale research and development to address the particular challenges to expanding the charging infrastructure in Scotland.

Crossing Forth

University News

Simon Bateson FRSGS

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Give a gift of a city!

My favourite place in Scotland

We are very pleased to have sold 50 signed limited edition prints of Rob Hain’s engaging and colourful painting of Perth. Not only is it a joy to share such a cheerful artwork, but thanks to Rob and to Edinburgh Arts, 75% of proceeds come to RSGS.

Blackrock Cottage, Pat Brown

buy a print!

Prints are available in two sizes (120cm x 80cm for £250, 60cm x 40cm for £120) and would make very attractive and unusual presents – or just treat yourself!

Please contact HQ on enquiries@rsgs.org or 01738 455050 for more information.

Collections restoration We would like to thank an anonymous donor who has paid for the restoration of perhaps one of the most special items from our collection – the original visitor book. This book is not quite as old as Canada, but holds signatures from our very first public talks (by Henry Morton Stanley) in December 1884, through to medal presentations in the early 2000s. It has of course since been archived, and a new visitor book created which we hope will capture the incredible people we work with and meet for the next 125 years.

help us care for our collections

If you would like to help us care for our collections, please get in touch with HQ and ask about our ‘Adopt an Atlas’ scheme.

University News

International speaker at University of Stirling

Many of you will recognise this iconic view: it is Blackrock Cottage, where Rannoch Moor meets the mountains at the head of Glen Coe. It is now the club hut of the historic Ladies Scottish Climbing Club and, as a member, I have been fortunate to stay there many times.

During its long, largely unrecorded history, the cottage has withstood the challenges of life at a thousand feet, and to me those club members in the early photograph reflect the same stoic determination against the odds in their time. Our regular maintenance meets, in the 60 years we have been tenants, help to ensure that it withstands even the worst of winter storms.

Occasionally we drag Blackrock towards modernity, but it has a unique, much-loved character and we don’t want to betray its traditions. Inside, almost all the interior still has the old dark wood lining, and tiny shuttered windows are set into the thick walls. In the dim living room, an open fire, a motley collection of chairs, a long wooden table and benches, a crowded bookshelf. Memories of countless, sometimes epic, mountain days – from visiting clubs too – are chronicled in well-thumbed records.

The minimal kitchen, with its stone-cold walls and floor, still relies on buckets for water. Until recently, these were filled from the nearby burn – a speedy task as usually rain, midges, snow, or gales prevailed. Now we fill buckets from a tap in proper washroom facilities in the newly converted adjoining byre!

Mike Robinson, Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, Ian Simpson and David Mackay.

We were delighted to work with Professors Ian Simpson and David Mackay from the University of Stirling in arranging for Manuel Pulgar-Vidal to give a talk to students, reflecting on his experiences of international law and climate negotiations.

As the previous Minister of State for Environment in Peru, Manuel chaired the Lima UN COP and participated in the Paris Climate Agreement, and was able to share his unique perspective. He spoke of the importance of ‘joining dots’ to achieve true sustainability. He saw a need for clear sectoral road-maps, to end perverse subsidies and help change behaviour, and spoke of the essential role of teamwork. He also told students that he had been influenced by his uncle Javier Pulgar-Vidal, who had defined the eight biogeographical regions of Peru in 1938, which has shaped much modern thinking.

Candles and Tilley lamps gave way to electricity, its large, ugly pole thankfully later removed to restore a perfect view. A steep wooden ladder with knotted rope handrail leads up to two spartan bedrooms in the attic.

Outside, the panorama of superb mountain scenery is, I think, enhanced by the presence of Blackrock Cottage, but for me it is also a step back in time… if only those old stone walls could talk!

Table of creation Our Chief Executive was invited to a recent ‘table of creation’ dinner by The Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, around a theme of don’t build a wall, build a longer table, to discuss the Church of Scotland’s role in promoting sustainability. The Rt Rev Dr Derek Browning has chosen ‘hospitality’ for his year as Moderator, and is calling on a small number of experts in various fields to join him to consider ways in which the Church might respond to these types of complex issues in the future.

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Fracking ban in Scotland

Fair Maid’s House Open Day

In October, Scottish Government Energy Minister Paul Wheelhouse announced that “fracking cannot and will not take place in Scotland.” The move was welcomed by environmental groups; Sam Gardner of WWF Scotland said, “The climate science is clear. The vast majority of fossil fuel reserves need to be left in the ground.” But Tom Pickering, operations director of Ineos Shale, said, “The Scottish Government has turned its back on a potential manufacturing and jobs renaissance.”

Doors Open Day 2017 allowed RSGS to show off its historic premises in the Fair Maid’s House and something of its geographical concerns and activities, together with a special display of items from our collections. This year’s theme of Archaeology, Heritage and History saw some 112 visitors through our doors, including these three Dutch students studying at the University of Dundee, for whom we produced their national flag – much to their surprise and pleasure!

In 2015, the Scottish Government introduced a moratorium on both fracking and underground coal gasification (UCG, a technique used to extract gas from coal seams deep underground). Expert reports were published on the potential health, environmental and economic impact of the controversial techniques, and a public consultation was carried out. Mr Wheelhouse said the consultation showed “overwhelming” opposition to fracking, with 99% of the 60,000 respondents supporting a ban.

Personal connections Lorna Ogilvie, RSGS Board Member

Canada

Supporting indigenous selfdetermination Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau used his speech to the UN General Assembly in September to acknowledge the dark history of Canada’s colonisation as one of “humiliation, neglect and abuse.” He promised his Government would do more to help indigenous Canadians, who make up about 4% of the population and face higher levels of poverty and violence and shorter life expectancies, in part through high suicide rates.

“We know that the world expects Canada to strictly adhere to international human rights standards,” said Trudeau, who has put reconciliation with First Nations at the top of his reform agenda. Acknowledging Canada’s attempt to force assimilation through residential schooling and other repressive policies, Trudeau called the living conditions aboriginals face, “the legacy of colonialism in Canada.” He responded to claims that there has not been enough progress, by promising to move forward with a review of federal laws and policy, and to support indigenous self-determination.

Our collections explored Margaret Wilkes, Head of RSGS Collections Team At the invitation of our Collections Team, RSGS headquarters volunteers had a special glimpse into our collections on 4th September – one with many surprises, each item unveiled being related to the interests or background of each of those attending. We started fittingly with the Fair Maid of Perth and the recent gift of a book of engravings relating to her, passing on through a variety of deeply absorbing items to our climax – a large, handsome pair of late 19th to early 20th century wooden skis which had belonged to W G Burn-Murdoch (1862-1939), a former VicePresident of RSGS – skis with a further possible link to the great Norwegian explorer, Fridtjof Nansen.

Peyto Lake, Alberta. © Jennifer Sander

Arriving at the University of Calgary in September 1969 as an MSc graduate student I little realised that, 48 years on, my personal links between Edinburgh, Canada, and RSGS would become so intertwined with those of my Professor, Wreford Watson.

As one of a small cohort nearing the end of the relatively new BSc course in physical Geography at the University of Edinburgh, I was attracted to a flyer promoting Masters degrees at the University of Calgary, with an aerial view of the university campus looking west over the prairie towards the snow-capped Rocky Mountains. Given my interests in geology, biogeography and meteorology, and love of skiing and hill walking, it was the perfect next step!

During my time as an undergraduate, Wreford Watson held the Ogilvie Chair of Geography at Edinburgh. Like me, he emigrated to Canada following graduation. He took Canadian citizenship and was eventually appointed Chief Geographer of Canada, before returning to Edinburgh to work in the Geography Department from 1954 to 1975. He later established the Centre for Canadian Studies, of which he was Director until 1982.

From 1977 to 1983, Professor Watson served as RSGS President; like him, I have found myself drawn back to Scotland and to RSGS – as a Board member, as a regular volunteer in HQ, and as Vice-Chair of the RSGS Perth Group.

I have retained many friendships from my Calgary days. As we approach our 50th anniversary in 2019, and look back on shared experiences – the challenge of fieldwork in the mountain foothills, and socialising in the bars of Calgary, including the favourite ‘Highlander’! – I realise that, perhaps inspired by Wreford Watson’s example, I have become a product of that close friendship between our two nations.

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Canada’s national park system Mike Wong, Regional Vice-Chair North America, IUCN World Commission of Protected Areas

Canada is the second-largest country in the world by area (9.98 million km2) and borders the Atlantic, Arctic and Pacific Oceans.

Its natural landscape ranges from large expanses of boreal forest and alpine mountains to prairie grassland and Arctic tundra.

Many of these exceptional ecosystems are currently protected within 46 national parks. Since 1885, when Banff National Park was created, to the present day approximately 330,000km2 of Canada have been set aside as national parks – a territory larger than countries such as Vietnam, Poland, and Italy.

Parks Canada is the federal agency which establishes and manages national parks. Its system plan’s objective is “to protect for all time representative natural areas of Canadian significance in a system of national parks, to encourage public understanding, appreciation and enjoyment of this natural heritage so as to leave it unimpaired for future generations.” The goal is to have at least one national park in each of Canada’s 39 terrestrial natural regions, and the current plan is about 75% completed, with 30 of Canada’s 39 regions represented.

grassland ecosystems of the South Okanagan-Similkameen region, in interior British Columbia.

Canada, along with other signatories to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, has made a commitment to protect at least 17% of terrestrial areas and inland waters by 2020, as well as to effectively manage these areas. The country currently protects about 10.5%. Jurisdiction over land is shared among federal, provincial, territorial, and indigenous governments of Canada. A new, promising collaborative effort is underway to help the country achieve its international obligation under the Convention’s Aichi target for protected areas.

The name of Canada has been in use since the founding of the French colony in the 16th century. The name originates from the Huron-Iroquois word kanata (or canada) for ‘settlement’, ‘village’, or ‘land’. In such a context, it is interesting to note that there is now considerable attention for the development of a new model of ‘protected or conservation areas’ by indigenous communities.

Indeed, the Parliamentary Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development’s March 2017 report recommended that the Government of Canada pursue common conservation objectives and reconciliation with indigenous peoples through a nation-to-nation relationship. This would include expanding federal protected areas within traditional territories, as well as working with indigenous peoples in designating and managing new indigenous protected areas within their own territories.

“The goal is to have at least one national park in each of Canada’s 39 terrestrial natural regions.”

In 2015, Canada established its 45th and 46th national parks. Under consideration for over three decades, the Mealy Mountains National Park Reserve was established with the transfer of 10,700km2 of land from the province of Newfoundland and Labrador to the federal government. The park, known to the indigenous people as Akami-uapishk and KakKasuak, will be co-managed with the Labrador Innu. With both tundra and forest ecosystems, this park is a refuge for caribou, wolves, black bears and martens.

Qausuittuq National Park, at approximately 11,000km2 in size on Bathurst Island, Nunavut Territories, represents the Western High Arctic natural region. Qausuittuq (pronounced Kow-soo-ee-took) means “place where the sun doesn’t rise” in Inuktitut. The 46th national park, also co-managed with the Inuit people, provides important shelter for many Arctic species, including the unique and endangered Peary caribou.

To help conserve the remaining native biodiversity and ecosystem processes in the most populated part of the country and to potentially connect 20% of Canada’s population to nature, Parks Canada created its first National Urban Park in Toronto in April 2015. Initially established with only 19km2 of land, the size of Rouge National Urban Park is now at 79km2.

Recent advances to create other national parks include negotiations with the government of the Northwest Territories and Łutsël K’e Dene First Nation to establish a reserve in the Thaidene Nëné (Land of the Ancestors) area in the East Arm of the Great Slave Lake, discussions with local First Nations for a proposed national park in the Interlake region of the Manitoba Lowlands, and support for a national park in the special

Michael Wong directed the development and implementation of natural resource conservation programmes in Canada’s national parks, marine conservation areas and other protected areas, most recently as the Executive Director for Ecological Integrity at Parks Canada.

Protected areas are recognized by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as key tools for biodiversity conservation. They are also essential for providing ecosystem services such as clean air and water, adapting to climate change impacts, supporting local economies, and protecting the culture and traditions of indigenous peoples. And, national parks are some of the few remaining places to connect people to nature, in our urbanized, technologically charged world.

Canada’s world-renowned national park system continues to grow and has the potential to expand even further. Completing the national park system is a challenging, but meaningful, pursuit. Linking national parks with new forms of indigenous protected areas will be a very constructive step forward. It is not too far-fetched to imagine that with a single, significant investment for protected areas, Canada will be able to achieve multiple historic outcomes: biodiversity conservation; vibrant local livelihoods; climate change adaptation; a new generation of environmental stewards; a reconciled relationship with the country’s indigenous peoples. If this can be realized, it will be a momentous step forward for the country as it propels into its next sesquicentennial.

FURTHER READING Pathway to Canada Target 1 website (www.conservation2020canada.ca)

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Canada’s national parks in a year of celebration Dr Robert Scace, Scace Environmental Advisors Inc, Calgary, Alberta

Last year the Government of Canada announced that, as part of the country’s celebration of its 150th anniversary of Confederation, entry to its national parks in 2017 would be free. The decision brought nationwide attention to a system of protected areas which has grown from roots almost as old as Confederation itself: Banff National Park, today’s flagship park, was created as the Hot Springs Reserve in 1885, less than 20 years after Canada became a country.

As might be expected, the Government’s decision elicited a range of opinions. Some observers warned about the potential impacts of high numbers of visitors on park environments, visitor experiences and infrastructure; all this in a period of growth in paid park visitation and concern about ecosystem integrity. Others welcomed the move as an opportunity to expose Canadians to one of the world’s foremost national park systems, to foster a stronger conservation ethic, and perhaps spur desired improvements in people management, such as additional public transport arrangements in a car-dominated society.

More than 14 million people entered the national parks and national historic sites between 1st January and 31st July, an increase of 12%, or more than 1.5 million, over the numbers for the same period in 2016. The ten busiest national parks accounted for 75% of visitors, and were responsible for 66% of the increase in traffic. Large numbers of people have swamped some of the smaller parks, although seven parks, most of them in remote locations in the North, actually experienced a decline in visitor numbers.

The events of this year may challenge parks administrators on existing plans for the future if growing awareness about, and popularity of, the parks does indeed spark more demand for in-park facilities at the potential expense of maintaining the primary, legislated purpose of national parks – that of ecosystem integrity.

In one sense, how we approach management and use of our national parks is embodied in a much broader conversation in Canada about the future state of our environments, what directions have to be taken to achieve stated goals, and in particular our understanding of Indigenous peoples’ place in the landscape. This debate currently is perhaps best exemplified in the uncertain future voiced about the hydrocarbon industry, a major contributor to the Canadian economy, and whether a number of pipelines opposed by environmental groups, Indigenous peoples and some provincial governments will be approved to take product from land-bound provinces to tidewater.

When national parks first were set aside in Canada and for many

decades thereafter, Indigenous peoples were denied rights or were excluded from places where traditionally they had lived as part of their seasonal movements. Governments’ emphasis in creating parks derived, in large measure, from the myth of ‘the uninhabited wilderness’. Attention was centred on protecting scenic places and attractive wildlife species, facilitating outdoor recreational pursuits and generating economic opportunity for commercial enterprises, all from the perspective of a young nation set upon settlement and growth.

Recently, proposals for Indigenous Protected Areas (IPAs) have brought to attention another mechanism for local people to play a vital role in conservation areas. This borrows from the Australian model where the IPA is a class of protected area formed by agreement with Indigenous Australians; in 1997-2007, IPAs contributed two-thirds of all new additions to that system, and today there are almost 40 IPAs. In Canada such areas would be highlighted for protection by First Nations through selfgovernment agreements, and managed and monitored by them.

Participation by local Indigenous peoples in co-operative arrangements takes many forms. Of particular note is the Guardian programme, of which there are about 30 now in place. Guardians monitor wildlife and visitor activity, and patrol protected areas across Canada, from the actions of the Haida Nation in regard to the island, marine and cultural environments of Gwaii Haanas on the Pacific, to Labrador on the Atlantic coast where the Innu Nation monitors forestry, fishing, mining and wildlife. The participation and support of First Nations are sought too in specific undertakings, such as the reintroduction to Banff National Park in 2017 of plains bison which historically had disappeared from the area before that park was created.

At the end of 2016, only 10.5% (1.05 million km2) of Canada’s terrestrial area (land and freshwater) and 0.96% (55,000km2) of its marine territory were protected, far short of the targets set for 2020 by the Convention on Biological Diversity.

Canadians must move with urgency in the process of protecting and conserving our biophysical and cultural landscapes in the face of inexorable factors such as non-renewable resource development and climate change.

Above all, we must work with local communities to continue to add to our national parks system which stands at the core of all our conservation initiatives.

“Canadians must move with urgency in the process of protecting and conserving our biophysical and cultural landscapes.”

FURTHER READING Canadian Parks Council (2008) Aboriginal Peoples and Canada’s National Parks and Protected Areas (www.parks-parcs. ca/english/cpc/aboriginal.php)

8 Winter 2017

Environmental Bill of Rights David Suzuki

all, and could be a source of great pride as we celebrate the country’s 150th birthday.

I know what it’s like to be deprived of rights. During the Second World War, the Canadian government stripped my family’s property and rights and sent us to an internment camp in the British Columbia Interior, even though we were all Canadianborn citizens. I’m also old enough to have witnessed Canada’s progress on human rights. Just seven years before I was born, a legal decision concluded that women in Canada were “persons” and could be appointed to the Senate. People of African and Asian descent, like my family, were finally allowed to vote in 1948, and Indigenous Peoples got full voting rights in 1960. In 1969, homosexuality was decriminalized.

If it’s such a great idea, what are we waiting for? More than 110 countries – from Argentina to Zambia – have already embedded the right to a healthy environment in their constitutions, but we’re behind the game. Canada was once a leader in this field, and the idea of fundamental human rights has deep roots in our history.

Despite the fact that Canada is known for its spectacular natural wonders and passed the Bill of Rights in 1960 and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982, many Canadians would be surprised to learn that the right to live in a healthy environment was never included in these laws.

In an effort to remedy this omission, I set out with David Suzuki Foundation and Ecojustice staff and allies in 2014 for a crosscountry tour. Our mission was to eventually have environmental rights enshrined in Canada’s Constitution, albeit with several interim steps along the way, including municipal and provincial declarations of environmental rights and a federal environmental bill of rights. After all, the right to clean air, water and soil shouldn’t be left to the whim of day-to-day politics, to be continually fought for. The response exceeded our wildest dreams.

First Nations leaders and communities came out in support of our effort, and by the fall of 2016 more than 100,000 people had signed on, and 140 municipalities representing a third of Canada’s population had passed resolutions supporting the right to a healthy environment.

This has been an incredibly unifying movement for Canada, with support pouring in from coast to coast to coast.

There’s something profoundly Canadian about guaranteeing everyone basic rights, and not letting anyone slip through the cracks. This is reflected in the way we’ve crafted our social safety net. But that net is incomplete without environmental rights. It’s shocking that some communities still face perpetual boilwater advisories or must fight against companies that would pollute their food sources. Having the constitutional right to a healthy environment would make Canada a better place for

“The right to clean air, water and soil shouldn’t be left to the whim of day-to-day politics, to be continually fought for.”

When it was enacted, the Bill of Rights was a good first step, but it left a great deal of discretionary power with the provinces, and it was difficult to enforce. In 1982, Pierre Trudeau’s government brought in the charter to enshrine these ideals in the Constitution, thus giving them greater strength. Today the charter is so firmly embedded in the norms of Canadian culture that it’s hard to imagine a time when Canadians didn’t enjoy basic guarantees in areas such as religious and press freedoms and protection against racial discrimination. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has an opportunity to carry on his family’s legacy of being at the vanguard of supporting human rights in Canada and internationally by strengthening the charter to include the right to a healthy environment.

Now that we have a critical mass of popular support, we’re setting our sights on the next step: a federal environmental bill of rights. We have a narrow window of opportunity to get this passed, and are seeking the support of MPs across the country from all political parties. Although getting the added protection and stability of constitutional change is a long-term and formidable goal, this crucial next step is within reach and could be achieved before the next election.

What do you get the country that has it all for its 150th birthday?

A bill of rights that will ensure protection of its natural assets for generations to come is a great start.

The Dempster Highway cuts through Yukon’s Tombstone Territorial Park, and offers stunning views of tundra and mountain landscapes. © Grace Donald|Can Geo Photo Club

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Winter 2017

Canadian climate action: the right thing for future generations Catherine McKenna, Member of Parliament for Ottawa-Center, and Canada’s Minister of Environment and Climate Change

To travel to some of the wildest and most remote parts of Canada is to gain perspective on the past, and the future. In 2017, I was fortunate enough to do exactly that. I paddled a kayak on the frigid waters of Lancaster Sound off the northernmost reaches of Baffin Island. I held my breath at the towering landscapes of Torngat Mountains National Park on the northern tip of Labrador, and gazed east across the open water to distant Greenland.

Canada is a magnificent land, rich in natural treasures. Our rivers, lakes, plains, forests and mountains constitute an invaluable heritage. In 2017, our country marked 150 years of confederation, while acknowledging that Indigenous peoples have lived on the land since time immemorial.

“Climate action will make our economy stronger and more sustainable.”

Many Canadians – and countless visitors – lived extraordinary moments like I did, celebrating the country, its urban and natural environments, and the diversity that has come to define Canada’s modern society. Ours is a land of Indigenous peoples, settlers and newcomers. Diversity has always been at the core of our success. Canada’s history is built on people overcoming their differences to work and thrive together.

During this memorable year, we reaffirmed our commitment to preserving our natural environment. But we did it as much out of a need to ensure its future as out of a desire to celebrate the past.

Our sense of urgency stems from climate change. In Canada, as in the rest of the world, we see its effects everywhere. In the Atlantic Provinces, coastline erosion is a real and significant challenge. By 2100, the sea level in Atlantic Canada could rise by up to one metre with serious repercussions. On the Canadian Prairies, the intensity of extreme weather such as droughts and floods is increasing. These events can have devastating effects on crop yields. They can lead to deaths of livestock and bring increased prevalence of pests and disease.

In Canada’s Arctic, climate changes are magnified.

Average temperatures have increased at a rate nearly three times the global average. Sea ice, glaciers and permafrost are all in rapid decline.

Indigenous peoples in the North are no longer able to predict the weather as their ancestors did. These changes have a profound impact on communities that rely on ice for transportation, access to hunting and traditional sites, and access to food and supplies.

Addressing climate change is the critical issue of our age. It is an environmental imperative to ensure the long-term future of the land we call home. Taking action to address climate change not only serves to protect our environment, it also presents historic economic opportunities… for all of us around the world. Besides reducing the harm we cause our planet, many of us are seizing this moment to change the ways our societies function.

Canada’s government is committed to being among the leaders in these efforts. In the wake of signing the Paris Agreement on climate change in 2015 (in

the company of almost 200 other countries), Canada embarked on a non-stop period of climate action. From Paris to Vancouver, from Marrakech to Ottawa, at national and international meetings, Canadians and their government led by example.

We committed to contributing $2.65 billion over the next five years to help developing countries tackle climate change.

We helped negotiate an international agreement to reduce hydrofluorocarbons used in refrigerators and air conditioners that can be thousands of times more powerful than carbon dioxide in inducing climate change.

But we knew that if Canada was going to be among the world’s climate change leaders, we also needed to take action at home. In December 2016, the federal, provincial and territorial governments announced the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change. Together with our country’s Indigenous leaders, we agreed to price carbon pollution, drive innovation, help Canadians and the rest of the world transition to a global economy based on clean growth, and build resilience to climate impacts. People across the country – not only government officials – helped inform this groundbreaking strategy: business leaders, environmentalists and individual Canadians.

As we moved forward, adapting to and preventing the worst impacts of climate change increasingly became the focus of efforts. Society had to learn to rebuild itself in the face of this new threat. And it had to bring down levels of greenhouse gas emissions, to slow the harsh effects of climate change itself.

Our government’s commitment to climate action only strengthened. We maintained that building a strong economy and safeguarding our environment go hand-in-hand. We called for innovative ideas and bold leadership. It was no longer a matter of whether we could afford to take action; it became a question of could we afford not to?

Climate action will make our economy stronger and more sustainable. Our infrastructure will be more resilient, our public transit cleaner, and our energy systems more efficient.

Our clean-tech industry best illustrates Canada’s commitment to innovation and climate action. It already employs more Canadians than the forestry, pharmaceutical, or medical-device industries.

Some analysts predict it could employ 72,000 people before 2022. In 2014, the Canadian clean-technology market generated about $11.6 billion in revenues. Exports accounted for half of those revenues. Innovation-based firms now export $14 billion around the world. Our government is making key investments in clean energy and emissions-reducing science. We want to see more domestic adoption of clean technologies. Of course, we also want Canadians to deploy our energy know-how and technology to markets around the world.

Canadian society is evolving, in pursuit of 21st-century jobs that reflect both the environmental challenge before us and the opportunity to be among the world’s climate change leaders.

The changes we see around us also point to a national desire to care for our many natural gifts. The legacy of Canada 150 will be emotional, symbolic, human… and practical.

Never before have Canadians been so connected to one another.

They and their governments have strived to make that connection meaningful. There is no country on this planet that can walk away from the reality of climate change. For our part, Canada will continue to fight for the global plan that has a realistic chance of countering it. We have a responsibility to future generations, and we will uphold it.

10 Winter 2017

Connecting Canada’s natural places Harvey Locke, Co-founder of Yellowstone to Yukon, and Nature Needs Half

Canada was among the first countries in the world to create national parks: Banff National Park, established in 1885, was the world’s third. Continental-scale conservation took some of its first steps in the early 20th century through a migratory birds treaty that Great Britain entered into with the United States of America on Canada’s behalf. Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park, shared with the US, was the first of its kind when created in 1932. But it was not until the last decade of the 20th century that we had a full realization of the need to think big for nature conservation.

Two factors converged to shift the scale of conservation thinking.

The advent of radio telemetry enabled biologists to follow the movements of large mammals as never before. Wolves radio-collared in the northern Rockies of the US found their way hundreds of kilometres north into Canada. Similarly, wolves radio-collared near Banff travelled south into the US. DNA results then revealed they were one large population. At the same time, theories about patterns of extinction and their prevention emerged.

forest in an interconnected way while ensuring only careful extractive practices would occur on the rest. The Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society adopted the goal of protecting half of Canada’s public lands and waters.

When further studies from around the world affirmed the need to protect in the range of half, it became obvious to me that we should start talking about that at a global scale. Thus in the closing plenary of the World Wilderness Congress in Merida, Mexico we launched the global Nature Needs Half movement.

Both Ontario and Quebec in Canada now have commitments to protect half of their northern regions. There is now a Nature Needs Half network (natureneedshalf.org) and many organizations around the world have signed on to the vision. American E O Wilson’s recent book Half Earth has helped build momentum for a similar idea. Recently a number of us from around the world published a paper that demonstrates how Nature Needs Half would apply across all the Earth’s ecoregions. In the spring of 2017, Canada’s all-party Parliamentary Standing Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development issued a unanimous report that noted “perhaps 50% of terrestrial and marine areas is needed to safeguard Canada’s natural heritage.”

“Nature Needs Half would apply across all the Earth’s ecoregions.”

Grizzly bears had followed a pattern of fragmenting into isolated populations and then of eventually disappearing from the resulting habitat ‘islands’. This had happened many times in the American west since 1922, so only one isolated population of any size was left and that was in iconic Yellowstone, the world’s first national park. Further north, a thin peninsula of connected grizzly bear population ran down the Rocky Mountains from Banff to the Waterton-Glacier but it too was at risk of fragmentation.

Just as Yellowstone had become a dangerously isolated island for grizzly bears, the trends bode ill for the eventual isolation of Waterton-Glacier. Meanwhile, further north in the Canadian Rockies and Mackenzie Mountains of Canada there lay some of the wildest country on Earth, yet it had almost no protected areas.

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At the founding meeting of Yellowstone to Yukon, Dr Reed Noss mentioned that when studies using western science ask what it would take to protect all of biodiversity in ecoregions around North America they usually come up with the need to protect about half of the ecoregion. Traditional indigenous knowledge was leading to a similar conclusion. The Dehcho Dene of the Northwest Territories (where the Nahanni is located) developed a land use plan by speaking to traditional harvesters who knew the land intimately. They came up with the need to protect over half of their territory in an interconnected way. The idea of protecting half gained momentum in Canada. The Canadian Boreal Initiative was launched with the vision of protecting half our vast boreal

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To address these new challenges, a group of Canadian and American scientists and conservation activists gathered in 1993 in Alberta to consider creating a Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative (Y2Y). The idea took, and thus a grand experiment in large landscape conservation got underway. The new contextual thinking framed by Y2Y helped to cause the world’s most extensive highway mitigation structures for wildlife to be built over and under the Trans-Canada Highway in Banff.

It has guided private lands acquisition in key corridors and helped to inspire huge new protected areas in the Nahanni area of the Northwest Territories and the Muskwa-Kechika area of northern British Columbia. Much more work is underway by an organization called the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative (y2y.net) and by hundreds of other collaborators who share the vision. Y2Y has become a global icon of large landscape conservation.

It is my hope that Canada and the world will move to the scale of protecting at least half the world’s land and seas in an interconnected way to ensure a prosperous future for humans and the rest of life.

Priority Areas

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Winter 2017

Canada has a wildlife-loss problem David Miller, President and CEO, World Wildlife Fund Canada

When the latest wildlife losses make news and scientists warn of a rapidly unfolding sixth mass extinction, many think ‘this can’t happen in Canada’. Canada, after all, has wide open spaces with ample room for grizzlies and gannets, caribou and cougars, polar bears and piping plovers.

The causes

Sadly, new research from WWF-Canada shows that it can happen.

Wildlife populations in Canada are experiencing significant declines.

• Climate change: the rate of warming in Canada is increasing at nearly double the global average. In addition to habitat loss, this brings new diseases for which some wildlife populations are not immune, plus a host of still unknown impacts.

With the best available data, WWF-Canada created a national Living Planet Index to measure Canada’s ecological performance, similar to how the stock market index measures economic performance. The effort marks WWF’s 50th anniversary in Canada and aims to gain the knowledge necessary to show what needs to be done to preserve Canada’s rich natural bounty.

We studied 3,689 population trends for 903 vertebrate species over a 44-year period, from 1970 to 2014. The result, published in September 2017 as the Living Planet Report Canada, is the most comprehensive synthesis of wildlife population trends ever conducted in Canada.

What we found •O ne-half of the studied wildlife species are in decline. The average decline for these species populations is 83% since 1970.

• Habitat loss and fragmentation: due to urbanization, industrial development, forestry and agriculture, as well as climate change.

“The science shows that we have the power to make a difference – to stop and even reverse wildlife loss.”

• Pollution: industrial and plastic waste, municipal waste, agricultural runoff, contamination from pipeline and shipping spills, as well as heat, noise and light pollution.

• Invasive species: changing the availability of food and habitat on land, sea and freshwater systems.

• Unsustainable harvest: historical over-exploitation of freshwater, marine and land-based wildlife.

• Cumulative and cascading effects: the above stressors pile up, and the losses in one species trigger changes in others.

How to stop wildlife loss

• Amphibian and reptile populations dropped 34%.

Half the monitored species in our study are either stable or faring well. As we’ve seen, particularly with raptors and waterfowl, efforts to protect species and their habitats have been beneficial.

The science shows that we have the power to make a difference – to stop and even reverse wildlife loss.

•F ish populations declined by 20%. Atlantic marine fish populations declined by 38%.

We need to ensure wildlife populations don’t get to the at-risk point in the first place. This is a challenge we can all embrace.

•W hile some groups of birds are showing signs of recovery and strength, others aren’t faring as well. Canada’s Living Planet Index found that, on average between 1970 and 2014, monitored populations of grassland birds dropped 69%, aerial insectivores fell 51%, and shorebird populations declined by 43%.

Whether it’s an individual planting native species and adopting a low-carbon lifestyle, industry incorporating ecological impact into decision-making while shrinking their footprint, communities making tough land-use decisions and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, or the federal government fully implementing and improving the Species at Risk Act to make it more effective – collectively, we can stop wildlife loss.

• Mammal populations dropped 43%.

•T he most vulnerable wildlife species, those listed for protection under Canada’s Species at Risk Act (SARA), continue to decline despite required federal measures.

State of Grace. © Jason Leo Bantle

FURTHER READING

WWF-Canada (2017) Living Planet Report Canada (www.wwf.ca/newsroom/reports/lprc.cfm)

12 Winter 2017

Canada’s historical blind spot Ry Moran, Director, National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation

Human habitation across the North American continent is readily dated back 7,000 years. Recent discoveries have confirmed human existence over double that on Canada’s west coast. Anishinaabe, Cree, Tsimshian and countless other nations across Turtle Island recount original creation of their peoples occurring on the land now called Canada. In short, indigenous peoples have been living in Canada for a very, very, very long time.

punished via a homemade electric chair kept in the basement.

While the occasional ray of light pokes through from the actions of a kind-hearted teacher, with sports or other events that the kids enjoyed, the system as a whole was morally, ethically and spiritually corrupt.

“This will be one of our greatest tests as a nation.”

But events unfolding across the great oceans would set into motion a series of events that indigenous peoples and communities continue to reel from today.

The fur trade and the lust for access to Turtle Island’s vast natural resources introduced settlers to the land, bringing with them disease and death in the form of smallpox and tuberculosis. Millions of indigenous peoples died.

By 1867 the nascent country of Canada was formed. By 1881, Canada was firmly committed to extending the dominion into nearly all aspects of indigenous life across the country. The Indian Act, a specific race-based piece of legislation that remains active government law and policy to this very day, was instituted, stripping nations of their rights, ceremonies, names, and land.

Healing, legal, and political systems of indigenous peoples all came under attack. Indigenous peoples were prevented from assembling in groups of three or more, could not retain a lawyer, and were prevented from leaving ‘Indian reservations’ without a pass approved by the local Indian Agent. This system worked so well at suppressing rights that officials from South Africa travelled to Canada to study the system. These same South African officials would go on to base the Apartheid system on the reserve and pass systems developed on Canadian soil.

If this wasn’t bad enough, then came the knocks at the door.

Across the country, Indian Agents, priests, government officials and police officers began forcibly removing indigenous children from their homes and parents and placing them into residential schools. Indigenous parents were prevented from resisting the removal of their children under threat of jail or heavy fines. Kids were scooped up as they walked along the sides of roadways; children were transported hundreds, sometimes thousands of kilometres from their families by train, plane and wagons.

The Indian Act effectively enabled state-authorized and statesanctioned child abduction on a massive scale – all in the name of turning indigenous children into Christian non-indigenous children.

These schools, funded by the Canadian government with services delivered by Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian, United and Methodist churches, took the aggressive assimilation process of indigenous peoples to an entirely new, and even more egregious level.

In 2008, the leaders of all political parties in Canada made formal apologies to residential school survivors.

Shortly thereafter, and as a result of the largest class action lawsuit in Canadian history, massive processes of redress were launched, including programmes intended to provide financial compensation for the abuse inflicted on the children.

At the time the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement was signed, roughly 80,000 Survivors were eligible for Common Experience Payments. These payments acknowledged that the simple fact of having attended a residential school was a compensable harm. As the process wound on, just shy of 50% of those Survivors would continue on to have legitimate claims recognized for serious sexual and physical abuse that occurred in the schools, via the Independent Assessment Process. This quasi-judicial process ultimately discovered that the level of serious abuse resulting in lifelong harm was over three times higher than originally estimated.

Running alongside these compensation processes was the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which was intended not only to document the truth of what occurred in the schools, but to amass and preserve all of the Survivor interviews and documents in a permanent archive safe from the reach of government and church control.

This is where I came into the picture. I was brought on board as the Director of Statement Gathering at the National Research Centre, and was tasked with collecting the complex testimony of Survivors and documents from the archives for preservation at what is now the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation.

But seeking the truth was only one component of the TRC’s mandate – there was also that complicated business of reconciliation to contend with. How could we, as a Commission and as a country, not only demonstrate what reconciliation could and should look like, but also provide Canadians with enough of a detailed plan for the collective and individual steps moving forward?

Central in this was the recognition that education was a cornerstone of the reconciliation effort. How could we expect to find healing in a country if the majority of Canadians remained woefully unaware of what occurred in the schools, the harsh

In the early era, the schools were frequently overcrowded, poorly built and unsanitary. They were breeding grounds for tuberculosis and other diseases. Children died in horrific numbers, prompting some government officials to label the schools a “national crime.”

Children were forced into indentured labour, often working long hours on farms or on other menial tasks. Education, in the cases there was any, was often substandard and haphazard.

Emotional and spiritual abuse was the cornerstone of the schools. Children were forcibly prevented from speaking their language. Sexual and physical abuse was widespread. Cases of children as young as five being repeatedly raped are widespread.

Boys and girls alike were not immune from this violence. At one school in a remote region of north-western Ontario, children were

Survivors Circle meeting. © Ian McCausland Aurora Borealis in Fort Smith, Northwest Territories. © Erika E Squires

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Winter 2017

Commissioned in 2009, the TRC’s Bentwood Box spent years travelling the country, collecting items from Residential School Survivors relating to their personal journeys. In January 2017, Residential School Survivors, Indigenous Elders, and the Box’s carver, Coast Salish artist Luke Marston (standing in photo), came together to welcome the Box to its new permanent residence at the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation at the University of Manitoba, where it will continue to be a symbol of hope. © Ian McCausland

treatment of indigenous peoples broadly in Canadian history, and the link between past actions and present-day challenges faced by indigenous peoples? Moreover, it would be impossible to reconcile without tackling the deeply harmful issues of prejudice, racism and discrimination head-on.

of the residential schools to see their families again.

As we are now fully enmeshed in the process of implementing the 94 Calls to Action issued by the TRC, the daunting challenge remains that we are not simply talking about adding a line or two into a grade 10 history text book. The teachers and professors themselves are not aware of the history of indigenous peoples.

Neither are the vast majority of public servants, doctors, lawyers, newcomers to Canada, let alone the kids that are in the school system at present and future.

But it would seem that our challenges are not unique in Canada.

It would seem we live in a world that is fundamentally out of balance; an ecosystem of life support, threats of nuclear war, refugee crises raging across multiple nations.

Canada has a massive historical blind spot in regard to the lived experiences of indigenous peoples. This blind spot continues to impair this country’s ability to live together in respectful ways.

Accountability is likewise central in the path of reconciliation moving forward. Multiple Calls to Action seek both legislated and voluntary production of relevant socio-economic data in order to accurately understand the current gaps in the lived experiences of indigenous and non-indigenous peoples.

We have a partial picture of this already as a country, and the statistics are both sobering and shocking: some of the highest suicide rates in the world are within Canadian indigenous communities; tuberculosis rates are 200 times the national average; incarceration rates are ten to 20 times higher than the per capita percentage of the population – all of this tied to the residential schools and trauma inflicted on indigenous peoples and communities.

There are additional documents to collect and, sadly, countless cemeteries across the country that remain unmarked, unknown, but that contain the bones of the children who never made it out

This will be one of our greatest tests as a nation: to face this truth and to do so in a manner that continues to propel us forward towards an ultimate end state of peaceful and respectful relationships.

Understanding the roots of colonialism in all of this is central in understanding the path of healing moving forward. I know many in Scotland have felt that brutal hand of colonialism first-hand.

My mother’s family are Camerons – part of the great Scottish exodus that fled to Canada to find a better life for their children.

Here in Canada we call upon individuals, organizations and the country itself to reflect on the roots of environmental, social, and political injustice. Knowing the enemy – that it is not people themselves but the perpetuation of unhealthy and divisive societal norms – is at the heart of the healing.

It is with sombre reflection that we understand the tension that exists between the colonization of the Scottish people and the simultaneous colonization and displacement of indigenous peoples by those same Scottish families here in Canada.

There is a root to this; and the root is the unhealthy, unequal and divisive ways in which we see each other in this world.

I think the Calls to Action issued by the Canadian TRC can benefit us all. Let’s seek out those respectful relationships; with each other, with our histories, and most importantly with the first mother that supports us all, Mother Earth. As we understand it here in Canada, to fail in this quest of reconciliation would be to inflict the harms of the residential schools all over again.

14 Winter 2017

Underwater Canada Jill Heinerth, Royal Canadian Geographical Society Explorer-in-Residence

It might have taken some people by surprise when I was selected as the first ‘Explorer-in-Residence’ for the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. What could a cave diving explorer and artist offer humanity? My work takes place in the stygian darkness of water-filled spaces within the planet; claustrophobic caves that would repel most wise people. As a child of the sixties, most of the exploration on Earth was complete. Both poles and the highest peaks were conquered, and Picard and Walsh touched the blackness of the ocean’s deepest trench. And yet, as I watched Armstrong and Aldrin walk on the Moon, I could not shake the dream to document places never before seen by humankind.

People do not know where their water comes from or how they can better safeguard both quantity and quality. Many Canadians live with the mistaken impression that we have an endlessly renewable supply.

So, what can a happy wanderer in the plumbing of the planet offer to humanity? I hope that my images of these hidden worlds can help spawn discussions about the fleeting nature of our unique water landscapes. I hope they will connect citizens to the beauty of a water world worthy of protection.

Now, more people have walked on the Moon than have documented some of the locations that I call my workplace.

I swim through the veins of Mother Earth, within the lifeblood of the planet. In the pulsing vitality of your drinking water, I explore corridors filled with the nourishment for humanity, the animal kingdom, and agriculture that feeds us all. I swim in the beginning of the pipe, where water wells up from the ground to serve as the source for creeks and rivers that reach estuaries that act as nursery grounds for the inhabitants of our oceans – the oceans that fulfil their role as the oxygengenerating lungs of our planet.

My work transpires in this hidden geography of the planet where exploration is measured in breaths. I swim through the world’s secret places inside aquifer caves, descending deep on ocean walls, exploring beneath Arctic ice and into historical shipwrecks. Through these adventures, I hope to connect people to their water resources and make this hidden geography a little less abstract.

Canada’s hidden geography includes over 205,000 kilometres of coastline, more than any other country in the world.

Eight percent of our territory is covered by lakes, more lake area than any other country in the world. We possess nine percent of the world’s renewable fresh water and only half a percent of the global population. We ask a lot of our hidden geography. Our waterways offer tourism, recreation, and commercial fishing. Our abundant reserves support the production of goods. Water irrigates our crops and bolsters the food and beverage industry. Flood control, drought mitigation, environmental purification and reserves for biodiversity are all dependent on our waterscapes.

There is no doubt that water is the defining issue of my generation. When oceans acidify, ecosystems collapse. When community water supplies dry up, unrest follows. When resources are despoiled by individuals or industry, we all lose.

When sea ice is lost, the habitat and its occupants struggle to survive. Water-rich nations can thrive if they manage and protect their most precious asset. But with the connectivity of our water planet, it takes more than a national awareness. It requires a global effort.

The health of Canadians is significantly affected by accessibility to clean, safe water. According to Environment Canada, 90,000 Canadians fall ill from water-borne pathogens each year, and 90 people die. As many as 75% of water systems on First Nations reserve communities have significant threats to the quality and quantity of drinking water. In the past several years, 25% of Canadian municipalities have experienced periodic water shortages.

Lion’s mane jellyfish under the sea ice at Bylot Island, 700km north of the Arctic Circle.

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“I swim through the veins of Mother Earth, within the lifeblood of the planet.”

Images from top: Inside the Earth: a team from National Geographic survey a cave in Abaco where scientists are learning critical lessons about global climate history.

Stellar sea lions are eager for playtime at Hornby Island, British Columbia.

The stern gun on the WWII wreck Saganaga, sunk by a German U-Boat in Newfoundland’s Conception Bay in 1942.

The wreck of the Sweepstakes in Big Tub Harbour, Tobermory, Ontario.

All images © Jill Heinerth

16 Winter 2017

The Royal Canadian Geographical Society John Geiger, Chief Executive Officer, The Royal Canadian Geographical Society and Canadian Geographic Enterprises

Shortly after its founding in 1929, The Royal Canadian Geographical Society (RCGS) held its inaugural Fellows Dinner.

Among those in attendance was Sir Francis Younghusband, explorer and past-President of Britain’s Royal Geographical Society, who presented a sword – given to him by the King of Bhutan – to RCGS founding President Dr Charles Camsell. This act symbolized the new Society’s inheritance of a grand tradition of supporting exploration and advancing geographical knowledge – wedded to the goal of encouraging a deeper appreciation of Canada’s rich geography and fostering a sense of national pride.

“The most significant programme introduced was Canadian Geographic Education, made up of classroom educators from across the country.”

As Geologist in Charge of Explorations for the Geological Survey of Canada, Camsell oversaw the exploration of uncharted parts of Canada’s North – a vast area covering about 25% of the country. He later became Deputy Minister of Mines in Ottawa, and Commissioner of the Northwest Territories. At its first meeting Camsell affirmed the Society was formed “purely for patriotic purposes,” adding that he hoped it would “be a unifying influence upon the life of Canada.”

The new organization attracted the elite of the young country.

Joseph Burr Tyrrell, an explorer, geologist and cartographer, was named Honorary President. His exploits include the discovery of Albertosaurus bones in Alberta’s badlands, making first contact with the Ihalmiut (“People from Beyond”) of the Keewatin district of Canada’s Northwest Territories, and adding the Dubawnt and Thelon rivers to the map of Canada.

The Society’s Board itself was populated by an astonishing array of eminences, including as Vice-President for its first 29 years, General A G L McNaughton, whose day jobs included, alternately, Chief of the General Staff, head of the National Research Council of Canada, Minister of National Defence, Chair of the Atomic Energy Commission, and Ambassador to the United Nations. The powerful Ottawa mandarin Dr O D Skelton, Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs, was another, along with the Clerk of the House of Commons, assorted ex-premiers, judges, deputy ministers and university presidents.

The Society’s Fellowship included everyone from Dr Frederick Banting, co-discoverer of insulin, to Group of Seven painter A Y Jackson, explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson, mariner and explorer Captain Joseph-Elzéar Bernier, and Edward, Prince of Wales.

The chief instrument used to fulfil the young Society’s mandate was the Canadian Geographical Journal (later Canadian Geographic). The magazine had an immediate impact, and with time developed a strong following despite competition from its powerful counterpart to the south, National Geographic.

Gradually, sufficient profits were generated by the magazine that other programmes were introduced. Lectures were organized, medals were struck and presented, expeditions were launched, and research was funded. A federal grant allowed publication for a time of a French-language

magazine, Géographica. Without a doubt, however, the most significant programme introduced was Canadian Geographic Education, made up of classroom educators from across the country, and running an annual school competition, the Canadian Geographic Challenge. This simple model lasted happily until 2008, when Canadian Geographic magazine, suffering because of an industry-wide decline in circulation and advertising revenue, ceased to be profitable.

The fiscal model broken, it looked for a time like the Society might be as well. The RCGS sold its building and reduced staff. It issued an urgent appeal to Fellows to come to the financial aid of the Society, although its Fellowship had withered from its heady early years when it was populated with nation-builders, and the support was insufficient to the need.

The RCGS simultaneously set about to change the way it delivered its mandate. It introduced custom publishing, in which partnerships with outside but like-minded organizations and agencies, such as Parks Canada, Travel Alberta, and the Canadian Space Agency, were cultivated, funding magazine and educational content.

The result was to staunch the red ink, stabilizing Society revenues. Consistent with the Nietzsche maxim that what doesn’t destroy you makes you stronger, the RCGS not only survived the crisis, but emerged positioned for growth. New products were introduced, including Giant Floor Maps and other resources which contributed to the rapid growth in Canadian Geographic Education’s membership of classroom educators, from 2,900 in 2010, to 20,000 today.

The RCGS, which once went more than a decade without a mention in any publication save its own, was also suddenly making news, such as by partnering on the 2014 Victoria Strait Expedition led by Parks Canada, which found the lost Franklin expedition ship HMS Erebus. In 2016 the Society appointed cave diver Jill Heinerth its first Explorer-in-Residence, and revived its historic honorary titles of Vice Patron, Honorary President and Honorary Vice-President, appointing explorer and philanthropist Sir Christopher Ondaatje, celebrated television host Alex Trebek, ethnobotanist and writer Dr Wade Davis, astronaut Dr Roberta Bondar, and Inuit historian Louie Kamookak. The Society’s Fellowship has also tripled since 2010; among the new Fellows the author Margaret Atwood, explorer Adam Shoalts, actor Dan Aykroyd, and Supreme Court Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin.

In 2016, the RCGS announced an exclusive partnership with polar travel company One Ocean Expeditions which saw the commissioning of RCGS Resolute, the first-ever ship to carry the Royal Canadian Geographical Ship prefix.

Early this year the Society joined with the Hon Mélanie Joly, Minister of Canadian Heritage, and leaders of five major Indigenous organizations to announce the Indigenous Peoples Atlas of Canada, an ambitious, ground‐breaking educational resource that is unprecedented in scope, in the level of

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“A unifying influence upon the life of the country.”

Indigenous participation and Indigenous‐led content creation.

Lack of appropriate educational and financial resources for Canada’s Indigenous students has long been cited as a contributing factor to the marginalization of Indigenous communities. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission made a strong call to action in its report, citing education in Indigenous communities as a top priority. The RCGS is proud to help with the creation of this powerful teaching tool.

The Society followed that by securing a long-term lease from Canada’s National Capital Commission for a new headquarters at 50 Sussex Drive, on Ottawa’s major ceremonial route, two doors from the official residence of the Canadian Prime Minister and in a stunning geographical situation, at the Rideau Falls and at the confluence of three rivers.

Its new home, partially open this year, in time for Canada 150, features a lecture theatre, reading room, two galleries, and space for its again-growing staff, as Canadian Geographic continues to produce one of the best-read magazines in the country. The building ranks RCGS alongside the iconic landmark homes of the Royal Geographical Society in London and the National Geographic Society in Washington, DC (not to forget the Fair Maid’s House in Perth, home of the RSGS).

It takes the RCGS – which has always done a great deal to promote geographical literacy and educate Canadians about their country, its people and its physical landscapes – to another level altogether, fulfilling the ambition of its founders to be a unifying influence upon the life of the country.

John Geiger (right of photo) is the international bestselling author of seven books, including Frozen in Time: The Fate of the Franklin Expedition, and The Third Man Factor: Surviving the Impossible. He is Senior Fellow at Massey College in the University of Toronto. He sits on the National Advisory Council of the Walrus Foundation, and the Advisory Board for the Philip J Currie Dinosaur Museum, and is a Trans Canada Trail National Champion. In 2015 he received the Polar Medal.

In March 2018, John will be speaking to RSGS audiences in Dumfries, Galashiels, Ayr and Helensburgh, about The Third Man Factor.

18 Winter 2017

Trout River, Newfoundland and Labrador. © Yi Jiang

Vancouver. © Spencer Finlay Photography

© Brendan Kelly

© Chelsey Lawrence Photography

© Keeler Photographic

Watty Brook, New Brunswick. © Tom Mason

© Susanne Weissenberger

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© Lisa Nixon Photos

Peyto Lake, Alberta. © Jennifer Sander

New London Bay, Prince Edward Island. © Nick Tardif

Prairie Sunrise, Manitoba. © Hamish Mitchel

St Lawrence River, Quebec. © Nunzio Guerrera

O Canada!

20 Winter 2017

Canada’s commitment to the Paris Climate Change Accord Nikita Lopoukhine, Chair Emeritus, World Commission on Protected Areas, International Union for the Conservation of Nature

The Government of Canada was an active participant at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Paris meeting in 2015. This was in contrast to previous meetings where Canada was repeatedly voted “climate fossil” of the year. The newly appointed Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Catherine McKenna, led a bipartisan delegation and took on a prominent facilitator role at the conference, appointed by French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius. Justin Trudeau, Canada’s Prime Minister, announced at the meeting that Canada was “back” and committed to meet the obligations under the UNFCC. Then, to show good faith, Trudeau subsequently announced a $2.65 billion contribution to the Green Climate Fund, from the previous ceiling of $300 million.

Houston, Texas is undergoing reviews and opposition in the United States (despite President Trump’s support). A recent change in government in British Columbia puts into question the announced Kinder Morgan pipeline which is vigorously opposed by most West Coast First Nations and local residents. Also with declines in demand and price of oil and gas, oil sands development is stagnating. As an example, Suncor, a major investor in the oil sands, is putting on hold investments for the next ten years. To date, the development of the oil sands has caused significant environmental degradation on the landscape. Down river, indigenous communities are experiencing high rates of cancer, fish are poisoned, and one estimate is that there are 170km2 of toxic lakes in Alberta.

Canada’s delegation had then to set emission targets and ways to meet them. While the federal government negotiates internationally, it depends on its ten Provinces and three Territories to deliver on international goals and objectives. After a protracted series of meetings, most Provinces and the federal government agreed to a national carbon pricing plan that would see carbon priced at $50 a ton by 2022, starting at $10 in 2018. Each Province develops its own approach to meeting this target, with some using a cap and trade approach, while others apply a carbon price. Revenues are to stay with each Province and will be either returned to taxpayers or invested in green energy infrastructure.

Yet, given that the oil sands represent one third of the world’s oil reserves, the likelihood of their not being exploited is remote. Indeed, the cost of production is dropping and while some companies have backed away (Shell, Exxon and ConocoPhillips), others continue to operate. The Alberta Government for decades has depended on revenues from oil and gas. To compensate for that industry’s emissions, Alberta’s climate change mitigation steps include closing down coal operations and reducing methane gas sources.

“Given that the oil sands represent one third of the world’s oil reserves, the likelihood of their not being exploited is remote.”

Two Provinces as yet have not agreed to the approach. Of significance, the Government of Canada will provide a pricing system for Provinces and Territories that do not adopt one of the two systems by 2018.

Canada is now committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 200 Metric Tons by 2030 from the current 730MT. The recently-announced United States withdrawal from the Paris Accord, coupled with the fact that Canada is rich with fossil fuel deposits, has brought negative reactions from some sectors of the business community and from the Government`s official opposition. There are concerns about moving forward too quickly, loss of competitive advantages and employment.

While championing the Paris Accord, Trudeau has been openly supporting the building of pipelines to help Alberta move their oil and gas to markets. Since his government’s election, it is not clear if the pipelines will ever be built and whether investors are indeed interested. The planned Liquefied Natural Gas Plant to be built on the coast of British Columbia is now defunct.

The Keystone Pipeline intended to move tar sands bitumen to

Alberta is hopeful that its main economic engine, oil sands development, can return to its previous levels when oil was around $100 a barrel and access to markets will then be enhanced. The claim is that future development can be accommodated within climate change reduction targets if the extraction process is less intense. Presently, it takes approximately the equivalent of one barrel of natural gas to extract three barrels of oil sands bitumen. Some tout the use of hydro-produced power, claiming it as a green source of energy, though it is not benign as mercury and methane production are by-products. Current hydro-power projects in Canada are under scrutiny because of cost overruns and lack of demand, and may not materialise.

The Federal Department of Environment and Climate Change has raised a red flag in its recent report about Canada meeting its emission targets. This report was issued before the recently announced Canadian Framework was in place.

Despite public good will, the Trudeau Government continues to face many challenges and opposition critiques in meeting climate change targets.

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Canada, a climate leader?

David Miller, President and CEO, World Wildlife Fund Canada

Canada’s Minister of the Environment and Climate Change burst on to the world stage during the Paris Accord negotiations in December 2015. Charismatic, articulate, and newly-elected, she was given credit for unexpectedly pushing the world to an aspirational goal of holding planetary temperature rises to 1.5 degrees – a significant and scientifically necessary threshold. She was a refreshing change from the previous government, which had notoriously blocked progress at previous COPs and G20 meetings, being so difficult that they won the ‘fossil of the day’ award at COP15 each day for being the most regressive country at the table. As Mayor of Toronto, I was at Copenhagen, and was embarrassed to be Canadian. I was also in Paris, in a different role, and the feeling was one of pride.

reduction in emissions from the geographic area between 2007 and 2012, a world-leading achievement.

But for me, the biggest reason isn’t the actions of governments: it is the actions and beliefs of Canadians.

Environmental values are close to the hearts of Canadians, and they want and expect real action on climate. In that context, we can be confident that the government will have the courage of its convictions; and be proud, as an oil producing country, that Canada can lead the way.

“Environmental values are close to the hearts of Canadians, and they want and expect real action on climate.”

How has Canada fared since the Minister’s triumphant Paris visit? Has Canada been able to build on the goodwill and momentum of Paris? It’s a fair question, given controversies here over carbon pricing, pipelines, fracking, oil drilling in the Arctic, and other related issues.

As a former politician, it is hard not to have sympathy with the difficult position Canada’s government is in, as an environmentally aware government running a country whose economy in part relies on natural resource extraction, including fossil fuels. Under the previous government, the debate became so poisoned that referring to bitumen deposits as ‘tar sands’ or ‘oil sands’ marked you as a supporter or opponent of the industry and the jobs existing there. But despite the challenges, it is my experience that when you stick to your stated principles and produce real action, the people will be with you: but if you prevaricate, you are lost.

For the most part, the government has navigated this challenge well. But the real test will be in the next year, as its commendable efforts to implement a nationwide carbon reduction strategy, support for a carbon price, and spending on low-carbon infrastructure move from plans to action.

An early indicator of the challenge is the debate over the Trans Mountain Pipeline: the doubling of an existing line from Alberta’s bitumen deposits to Vancouver, designed to ship diluted bitumen to Asia. It’s an article of faith in the oil industry that they need access to ports, but residents of Vancouver, environmentalists and conservationists are furious over local environmental issues; like the risk to the endangered southern resident killer whales, and the potential for significant carbon emissions associated with the increased production of bitumen.

Can Minister McKenna stay the course? There are many signs that the answer is yes. The government is clear and unequivocal in its position, and has already undertaken the political challenges of announcing a price on carbon. They are building on real progress by provinces and cities: the Alberta government brokered an unprecedented agreement between the oil industry and environmental NGOs to cap emissions; Ontario, Québec and British Columbia have a price on carbon; and cities have been leading the way for years. For example, Toronto’s carbon reduction strategy resulted in a 15%

© Erika E Squires

Scotland’s climate targets Mike Robinson, Chief Executive, Royal Scottish Geographical Society In 2009 the Scottish Parliament voted for the most stringent climate targets of any country in the world. The Climate Change (Scotland) Act was backed by all the main religious leaders, humanitarian bodies, environmental charities, and many unions, communities and institutions.

It was encouraged by most business leaders and informed by large numbers of academics, and it was supported by every political party. It followed the largest civil society campaign yet run in Scotland, involving organisations with two million collective supporters, in a country with a population of just over five million.

It was in part because of a lack of local ownership of oil, but a country reliant on the North Sea challenged itself to set targets it thought at the time were too stretching and to establish the first Climate Justice Fund. The headline target was to reduce emissions (based on 1990 levels) by 42% by 2020. Last year, on the final publication of 2014 results, the Scottish Government announced that this target had been exceeded six years early. The targets are now being revised to better account for the 1.5°C threshold highlighted by the Paris Agreement. These look like they will be set at 55% by 2020 and 100% by 2050.

It is the people of Scotland that have driven this change, and although this has created the space for politicians to enshrine future targets, it will fall to the people of Scotland to help achieve them.

22 Winter 2017

Canadian sovereignty in the High Arctic Professor Philip Steinberg, Department of Geography, Durham University

In Canada, “the Arctic” may alternately refer to land north of 66° 33’ (the Arctic Circle), land north of 60° (the southern limit of the three northern territories), or the Canadian Arctic archipelago.

territory of Nunavut in 1999. As a result of this unique history, the Inuit generally have a higher profile in Canadian domestic and international arenas than do the First Nations of the South.

Although Canada’s overall sovereignty in the North is not challenged, the Canadian Arctic remains the site of several ongoing international disputes. Some of this is due to mixed messages from Canadian officials regarding whether Canada claims the islands of the archipelago (which would be permissible under international law) or whether its claim includes the entire sector of the Arctic north of Canadian territory, reaching to the North Pole. Although the Canadian government officially claims only land in the North (in which case the North Pole, which is located in the Arctic Ocean, would lie well beyond Canada’s sovereign territory), frequent statements by Canadian officials, from the 1940s through the present, have suggested otherwise.

“Despite its late entry into the Confederation and its sparse population, the Arctic has an outsized role in the Canadian national imagination.”

Regardless of precise definition, however, what today is considered the Canadian Arctic was not part of Canada at the time of Confederation.

Until 1870, the bulk of today’s Canadian Arctic was controlled by the Hudson’s Bay Company. In 1880, ten years after these lands were surrendered to the Crown, the region was placed under the administration of the Canadian Confederation. Today, Canadians typically refer to this region as ‘The North’, an area that frequently encompasses northern areas of Québec and Labrador (and sometimes the northern extremes of other provinces as well), in addition to the northern territories of Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut.

Despite its late entry into the Confederation and its sparse population, the Arctic has an outsized role in the Canadian national imagination. As a country whose national anthem boasts of its status as “The True North, Strong and Free,” nothing could be more “North” than the Arctic. Indeed, there is a long history of Canada using its status as an Arctic nation to distinguish itself from both Europe and the United States.

The North has thus become something of a lightning rod in Canadian politics, with a succession of Canadian ministers since the early 20th century affirming Canada’s sovereignty there, even though, in fact, this sovereignty is not under threat. In addition to serving as a rallying point for patriotic Canadians, promotion of Canada’s sovereignty in the North legitimises Canada’s position as a key player in Arctic politics, resource extraction, transport, science, and militarisation, all of which are attracting increasing attention amidst climate change and globalisation.

The North is also a rallying point for Canada’s First Peoples.

Because early explorers, trappers, and traders in the North did not seek to settle the land, treaties were never signed with the Inuit. The status of Inuit land and water claims were only finalised in the 1990s, through a number of agreements that, among other things, led to the establishment of the majority Inuit

Tensions over Canadian claims at the northern reaches of its Arctic archipelago are paralleled by tensions at the archipelago’s eastern and western extremes. In the east, Canada is party to the one remaining territorial dispute in the Arctic: Hans Island, a half square mile rock located between Greenland (Denmark) and Ellesmere Island (Canada). In the west, Canada and the United States disagree over their maritime boundary in the Beaufort Sea, leading to an 8,000 square mile disputed wedge of water off the coasts of Yukon and Alaska.

Perhaps the most active dispute, however, has been in the centre of the archipelago: the fabled Northwest Passage. Although Canada’s authority in these waters is undisputed by virtue of its sovereignty over intervening islands, its power to regulate transit by other nations’ vessels is greatly restricted if the waters are classified as an international strait that connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and this status seems increasingly tenable as climate change reduces sea ice cover. Canada, however, takes the position that its North – including its water and ice, as well as its land – is integral to the essence of the Canadian nation. As Foreign Minister Peter MacKay proclaimed in 2007, “The question of sovereignty of the Arctic is not a question. It’s clear. It’s our country. It’s our property. It’s our water….The Arctic is Canadian.”

The Northern Lights dazzle in the late summer sky in Fort Smith, Northwest Territories. © Erika E Squires|Can Geo Photo Club

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Dancing in Nunavut: a national celebration?

Jackie Price

How Inuit experience and identity is shaped within the broader Canadian identity is a hugely sensitive issue, particularly this year. Whenever Canadian nationalism finds expression in public celebrations, such as Canada’s 150th birthday, it is an opportunity to observe how Inuit identity is discussed. As an Inuk person living in Nunavut, I appreciate it when Nunavut and Inuit are recognized at a national scale, but often I do not agree with its tone. Nunavut’s identity within Canada is structured around Inuit symbols: the igloo, dog team, Inuksuk or amauti. While these are practical expressions of Inuit experience, they do not tell a full story of Nunavut or Inuit. I wish for Canada, and the world, to see Nunavut, and more specifically Inuit, in a different way; as a small population that is made up of diverse, complicated and contradictory individuals whose kinship ties connect them to a landscape that is awesome, intimidating and powerful.

“I wish for Canada, and the world, to see Nunavut, and more specifically Inuit, in a different way.”

The dramatic changes to the lives of people in Nunavut brought about by western institutions have been well documented: for example, satellite communications, schools, health services, and devolved government. However, there is much more to be shared. What is unseen is often more important than the most visible symbols of change. For those looking to understand this slightly complicated offering, I recommend watching the documentary Dancing towards the light. It offers viewers a glimpse into the changes in Inuit life through the experience of dance.

Readers with some knowledge of Inuit culture will understandably think of Inuit drum dancing, a rhythmic expression of emotion that is collectively supported and witnessed through chanting, songs and drumming. The dancing in this video is vastly different. At first glance, it may seem like ‘just’ another expression of popular culture, but in watching this video, one can also appreciate how it is a vehicle to express emotion. While the central focus of this documentary is the annual Sila Rainbow Dance Competition, the larger story explores suicide, healing, mental health and survival in an Arctic community in 2016. When I watch this film, I am moved by the intimacy of the messages brought forward by the youth: “keep going and going and not give up”; “when I’m angry or I’m sad I just dance it off”; and “dancing as a tool for my emotions”. These are powerful expressions of mutual support and encouragement.

The emotion in this video is palpable. During the dance competition, the microphone is passed to a father who shares that he lost his daughter to suicide earlier that year.

He speaks to all youth, including everyone at the dance competition. He encourages them always to remember their

The cliffs lining Buchan Gulf, a long fjord on the northeastern coast of Nunavut’s Baffin Island. © Michelle Valberg|Can Geo Photo Club

family and friends, to reach out if they need someone to talk to, and most importantly to remember that they are loved.

This strong affirmation of life is followed by more dancing which is of course also good fun.

Readers may feel that contemporary music and dance veer too far away from past traditional symbols to speak to national identity. But it is in hearing the life experiences of the people themselves, and learning about the context in which their stories emerge, that the kernel of identity is revealed. It is the sharing of motivations and fears, and the commitment to addressing one’s emotions in positive and active ways, that are true testimonies to a collective identity.

This is how identity in Nunavut continues to change and grow; through the willingness to bare intimate thoughts and experiences so that others can understand. Perhaps by being more attentive to identity through people’s life experiences, instead of focusing on symbols, national identity and the 150th celebrations, Canada could move forward on a more meaningful footing.

Dancing towards the light, produced by Kitra Cahana and Ed Ou, was aired on the Canadian Broadcasting Channel.

See www.cbc.ca/player/play/944104003771 for the full video, and www.cbc.ca/news2/interactives/dancingtowards-the-light-nunavut-youth for an interactive website.

24 Winter 2017

Long-term multiple stressors affecting lake ecology Professor John P Smol, Paleoecological Environmental Assessment and Research Laboratory (PEARL), Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario Like Scotland, Canada is blessed with abundant freshwater resources that play key roles in our ecological, economic, and social fabric. Although many of our lakes and rivers appear, at first glance, to be largely unaffected by the direct impacts of human disturbances, we now know that all water bodies are, to some degree, being influenced by various anthropogenic stressors. Because many of these changes are occurring slowly, over long timescales, their ecological effects can only be discerned with decades of monitoring data, which unfortunately are rarely available. For these reasons, many lake managers have been supplementing their observations with palaeolimnological information archived in dated lake sediment profiles, in an effort to reconstruct these missing data sets.

Palaeolimnology uses the physical, chemical, and biological information (proxy data) archived in dated lake sediment profiles to reconstruct past changes in lake systems. Often, only with these indirect approaches can we discern if what we are recording today in our lakes is truly unprecedented and linked to human activities.

An early example of how applied palaeolimnology was used in both Canada and Scotland was in tracking changes associated with cultural eutrophication and acidification.

By analysing lake sediment data, and reconstructing past diatom (single-celled algae) communities, we could determine how past nutrient inputs, such as from agriculture and sewage, have affected lake ecosystems, or how industrial emissions had acidified lakes.

underlain by Precambrian granitic bedrock, easily leached Ca supplies were soon depleted, and so lakewater Ca concentrations eventually began to decline. The export of Ca was further reduced with the implementation of acid rain controls. A second factor affecting Ca supply to lakes is timber harvesting, as trees contain large amounts of Ca, and so removing forests for use in, for example, our houses is another form of Ca export from a lake’s catchment, making this essential element no longer available for lake organisms.

Although the slow decline in Ca concentrations can be measured as part of long-term aquatic monitoring programmes (although few such programmes exist), a clearer understanding of the ecological effects were facilitated using palaeolimnological approaches. The key indicators were the chitinous remains of Cladocera (water fleas).

Early analyses showed that certain large-bodied cladocerans (eg, some Daphnia species) have relatively high Ca requirements, with some taxa unable to persist when ambient lakewater Ca concentrations fall below ~1.5 mg/litre – a minimum threshold that has already been crossed in many softwater lakes in Canada and elsewhere. Researchers recorded major shifts in fossil invertebrate assemblages that could be linked to declining Ca levels, independent of changing pH and other ongoing environmental stressors. Subsequent studies showed that declining Ca levels may also impact other freshwater biota with high Ca requirements, such as crayfish.

“Human activities have disrupted the calcium cycle of many softwater lakes.”

Work on eutrophication and acidification continues, but many new problems have recently surfaced that also require long temporal perspectives.

One example is the growing concern of declining calcium (Ca) levels in many regions that are situated on low carbonate systems (ie, Precambrian Shield bedrock) and that were affected by acidic deposition and/or logging. In contrast to most environmental problems that deal with excesses of pollutants, here we are examining the ecological effects of diminishing supplies of a nutrient that is an essential element to all living organisms.

The issues surrounding Ca decline are not fully understood, but palaeolimnological perspectives have played a key role in elucidating some of the ecological effects. The Ca sources to lakes are fairly well understood: Ca-rich dust may be a significant factor in some areas, but the main source is typically the slow weathering of bedrock that supplies the calcium pool in catchment soils, which is then potentially available for export to surface waters. However, human activities have disrupted the Ca cycle of many softwater lakes. First, acid rain in the past would have accelerated the leaching of Ca; therefore, during previous periods of high acidic deposition, lakewater Ca concentrations were likely elevated. However, in regions of low Ca, such as those

The ecological repercussions of declines in many large-bodied Daphnia species may be far-reaching, as they are key components of the overall food web. For example, Daphnia are efficient algal grazers, and subsequent studies suggested that the recent increase in algal blooms in some currently low-Ca lakes may be due to decreased grazing on algal biomass. Equally, Daphnia are key prey items for other animals, including small fish. Not surprisingly, the ecological niche left open by declining large-bodied Daphnia appears to be being filled by other cladocerans, such as Holopedium glacialis, a jelly-clad competitor with low Ca requirements. The latter taxon has lower nutrient content than daphniids (and is therefore a likely lower quality prey item). In addition to the ecological consequences, high populations of the jelly-clad Holopedium are also known to block water filtration equipment.

The problems associated with the Ca decline in lakes are classic examples of ‘unintended consequences’ when it comes to assessing environmental issues. Unfortunately, at the present time, there are no simple solutions to alleviate this growing problem.

Freshwater map of Canada by Chris Brackley|Can Geo.

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There are strange things done in the midnight sun Sandra Angers-Blondin and Haydn Thomas, PhD students, University of Edinburgh

Sandra had left her zoom lens behind so we were bound to see some wildlife. We parked the dusty car on the gravelly side of the Alaska Highway. Balancing heavy bags on our backs, we clambered up the dried-out riverbed, underneath the dead tree where a bald eagle was majestically sunning her wings, and squeezed through the gap in the trees where our four-hour hike up the Kluane Plateau would begin.

We are a group of ecologists studying how tundra plants respond to climate change. Our headquarters is the School of GeoSciences at the University of Edinburgh, but our playground is the Canadian Arctic. Like tundra swans, our chattering, Gore-Tex-clad flock of cheerful researchers takes to the skies every year to reach the Yukon Territory at the first flush of the short Arctic summer.

This is a typical day of fieldwork at one of our research sites: the mountains of Kluane in southwestern Yukon.

Onwards, we climb among straggly spruce trees, through the sweet-scented air that is today heavy with glacial dust from the nearby icefields. A few weeks ago, the Slims River dried up as a new channel was formed, draining meltwater to the opposite side of the watershed. We already see the effects of this ‘river piracy’ down at our base camp, where the level of Kluane Lake is at an all-time low. More space for beach rugby, but a dramatic and slightly worrying change nonetheless.

that bring us here with our battered boots and field books, stumbling and sweating our way along the trail.

Past the treeline, we push on through dense thickets of shrubs, which soon start thinning and shrinking with every step. We now have a clear view of the expanse of the Plateau, with its rocky outcrops and jagged backdrop of snow-capped peaks. Movement on the closest ridge immediately catches our eye. Two grizzly bears, reared on hind legs, are jawing and pawing at each other to win the favours of a watchful female. Captivated, we stop and watch for a while before navigating our way to a less furry part of the mountain. We catch our breath from the climb and excitement, and get ready to start our day’s work.

“There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold.”

Thus begins Robert Service’s most famous poem, known to every Yukoner.

But stranger things, perhaps, are done by the scientists who toil for understanding. Today, we will be burying tea bags, to be dug up next year, to measure the speed of decomposition in the tundra.

Tomorrow, armed with spoons and secateurs, we will excavate gnarled stems and roots of willows in which life stories are written in narrow annual rings – stories of survival and hardships, of battling against the elements, of competing for scarce resources. We will collect cuttings to be replanted under warmer, more gentle climes; leaves of delicate alpine flowers; fluffy catkins with seeds trailing behind us in the breeze: all to understand how, and how fast, these plants at the cold extremes of life on Earth will respond in a warming world.

“These regions are warming at twice the rate of the rest of the planet.”

Over 40% of Canada’s landmass lies in sub-Arctic and Arctic regions, covered in boreal forest or treeless tundra. These regions are warming at twice the rate of the rest of the planet: here, environmental change can be detected from year to year. In a warmer tundra, plants grow taller and faster, and colonise places where they could not previously survive.

Woody plants are especially responsive to warming, so we like to call this phenomenon ‘shrubification’. Shrubs interact with snow, soil, and solar radiation in complex ways that we are only starting to unpick. The overall balance could be a (welcome) intake of greenhouse gases by the plants, or a (not so welcome) release of carbon previously locked in cold and frozen ground. And as tundra plants change, so does the foundation that supports native wildlife and the people whose livelihoods rely on traditional knowledge of an increasingly unfamiliar landscape. These are, in a nutshell, the reasons

Haydn’s radio suddenly crackles to life: “Sleeping Willow, it’s dinner time, do you copy?” With the sun still burning high in the nightless sky, our watches – and stomachs – tell us it is time to set up camp. One hundred and fifty years from now, this high ground might be warm enough for the treeline to have crept up, sapling after sapling, to cover the mountainside with forest. But tonight, we will pitch the tents, huddle together in our thick jackets, and gaze over the vast expanse of the alpine tundra where we, feeling incredibly small, are still the tallest living things.

See teamshrub.wordpress.com or follow @TeamShrub for more information.

26 Winter 2017

Snorkelling the Northwest Passage Susan R Eaton FRCGS, Founder and Leader, Sedna Epic Expedition

Bank to the left; bank to the right. Tethered to a diver propulsion vehicle, I flew through emerald-green Arctic waters at six kilometres per hour, dodging sculpted ice formations off the northern coast of Labrador, Canada.

I soon discovered that snorkelling in pack ice – which exhibits distinctly different profiles above and below the water line – is a contact sport.

During the summers of 2014 and 2016, I led two all-female, proof-of-concept snorkelling and scuba diving expeditions to the Arctic, as part of the Sedna Epic Expedition, conducting sea trials and snorkel relays, and collecting scientific data in a harsh and unforgiving marine environment.

The expeditions unfolded in the icy waters of Labrador, the Davis Strait, Greenland, Baffin Island and Iceland, and included a total of 40 participants: ocean explorers, scientists, artists, journalists, educators, and medical and scuba diving professionals. Ranging in age from 25 to 58, Sedna’s sea women hailed from Canada, the United States, Mexico and New Zealand.

On 23rd July 2014, when the MV Cape Race’s captain threatened to throw Team Sedna overboard during the Arctic Circle Crossing ceremony off the western coast of Greenland, the sea women donned their Arctic-rated dry suits and jumped, willingly, overboard. Under the midnight sun, the ten-woman team snorkelled across the Arctic Circle, achieving a world first!

In July to August 2016, Team Sedna

collaborated with Inuit advisors and community leaders, delivering a hands-on ocean outreach programme for the largely non-swimming Inuit youth, girls and Elders of Iqaluit, Nunavut.

Called “bringing the ocean to eye level,” Sedna’s ocean outreach programme involved showcasing sea critters temporarily housed in aquariums, running workshops for youth to build and fly underwater robots equipped with video-cameras, and leading snorkel safaris in Frobisher Bay. In short, if you’re going to mount an epic, 3,000km snorkel relay of the Northwest Passage – a ‘world first’ undertaking by many metrics – to bring global attention to disappearing sea ice, planning for success involves investing years in logistics and team-building exercises in the North. Planning for Sedna’s success also includes developing strategic partnerships with outfitters, scuba diving equipment manufacturers, scientific organizations, the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, and Inuit community leaders and groups.

“The Sedna Epic Expedition is an exciting vision,” said Graham Dickson FRCGS, the owner of Arctic Kingdom, an expedition partner and Arctic dive outfitter. As a Master Dive Instructor, he has led land- and water-based expeditions and tourist excursions across the Arctic hemisphere for the past 20 years. “Sailing through the Northwest Passage is a challenge, much less swimming through it. Without proper support, some teams barely make it out the front door. It’s always nice to say you’ve done a ‘dry’ run, oxymoron noted… Spending time in the Arctic and raising the bar of all team members is important.”

The Sedna Epic Born out of a ‘eureka’ moment that I experienced in the fall of 2010 – yet another sailboat had traversed the Northwest Passage in one season – I surmised that snorkelling the Northwest Passage would be an elegant metaphor for disappearing sea ice in the Arctic, not to mention a world-first attempt.

Ten years ago, a scuba diving incident landed me in a hyperbaric

Images © Jill Heinerth, courtesy of Susan R Eaton, Sedna Epic Expedition

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chamber in Belize. I emerged from the chamber, three days later, as a non-diver. But my lifelong relationship with the ocean didn’t end in the hyperbaric chamber. Today I explore the world’s oceans, from Antarctica to the Arctic, in the snorkel zone, a magical land-sea-ice-air interface where swimmers interact with large pelagic fishes and charismatic air-breathing mammals.

The Sedna Epic Expedition will go where no man has gone before, scouting, documenting and recording the impacts of climate change in the Arctic. Assisted by diver propulsion vehicles, the sea women will mount a 100-day snorkel relay during two backto-back summer seasons, travelling from Pond Inlet, Nunavut, to Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories.

En route, Team Sedna will conduct oceanographic research, and will deliver its innovative ocean outreach program to Inuit and Inuvialuit communities situated along the Northwest Passage, with a special focus on empowering girls and young women to investigate ocean careers. Inuit and Inuvialuit societies are matrilineal in structure, and women are the natural leaders. Team Sedna hopes to inspire the next generation of northern leaders to think big, equipping them with the tools and skills to mitigate the impacts of climate change, ocean change and societal change in their remote northern communities.

From Greenland to Alaska, according to Inuit legend, Sedna is the Inuit goddess of the sea, and she’s the mother of all marine mammals. The sea goddess will snorkel with the sea women as they swim the Northwest Passage: one day, she’ll take the form of a narwhal or a beluga; the next day, she’ll be a ringed seal or a 200-year-old bowhead whale that witnessed Sir John Franklin’s HMS Erebus and HMS Terror sail by in pursuit of the elusive Northwest Passage route.

Inuit key to success Johnny Issaluk, a community leader and skilled hunter from Iqaluit, Nunavut, is one of Sedna’s two esteemed Inuit advisors. A recipient of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012, for his contributions towards improving Inuit health and community wellbeing, he has won numerous medals in traditional Inuit games.

A tropical scuba diver before joining Team Sedna, he described the Sedna Epic as an ‘eye opener’, saying “I learned a lot about diving in cold water and team work. It was very interesting to dive at home, and to encounter marine life I’d never seen before.”

“From the very beginning, the Inuit were explorers,” he said. In the winter, the Inuit crossed the frozen ocean via dog sled, and in the summer, they explored the Arctic via kayak. “It just so happens that the Government of Canada put us in one place, and wanted us to stay put. But, that’s never going to happen.”

Selected as a Canada 150 Ambassador by the Government of Canada, Issaluk proudly wears the logo which celebrates 150 years of confederation in Canada. While describing himself as “pro-Canadian,” he nonetheless acknowledges how colonialization adversely impacted many generations of Inuit, including his

parents and older siblings. “For me, Canada 150 is more about the next 150 years,” explained Issaluk, who acknowledges educational opportunities that he’s received. “Anything that helps Inuit with getting tools under their belt is a form of reconciliation.

Sedna was involved in teaching self-worth and self-healing within the community. We need role models to come into the communities. Sedna made a difference to a lot of kids.” Issaluk named the Sedna Epic’s 2016 expedition ‘Katujjiqatigit’, an Inuktitut word that means ‘fighting together/working together’.

Mary Ellen Gucciardi, an educator from Toronto, Ontario, is also one of Sedna’s advisors. A consultant in alternative education and First Nations, Métis and Inuit studies, she has led several educational exchanges to Nunavut, developing community partnerships and immersing teachers and students alike in environmental stewardship and Inuit culture in the Arctic. “One of the imperatives, for educators, is to create culturally responsive curriculum for First Nations, Métis and Inuit,” she said. “We mentored Inuit girls and young women, and they became part of Team Sedna. Team Sedna delivered experiential learning activities that were physically engaging.”

Pointing to Sedna’s ‘multiplier effect’, Gucciardi said, “Sedna’s sea women returned home with a new understanding and perspective of the Arctic and of the Inuit. Every woman on the team left Nunavut changed – that’s what relationship does. None of this can take place with emails.”

Northwest Passage within the Sedna Epic’s grasp

“I explore the world’s oceans, from Antarctica to the Arctic, in the snorkel zone, a magical land-sea-ice-air interface.”

During Sedna’s July 2014 proofof-concept snorkel expedition, we sailed up the northern Labrador coast, across the Davis Strait, and up the western coast of Greenland to Ilulissat. Using diver propulsion vehicles, we demonstrated that snorkellers can successfully mount long-distance relays, covering distances of up to 35km in 12 hours, in the 9,000-foot deep waters of the Davis Strait and in coastal waters strewn with pack ice and bergy bits.

Given these performance metrics and the Arctic’s extended hours of sunlight during summer months, a 24/7 snorkel relay of the 3,000km Northwest Passage is clearly within our grasp.

The Sedna Epic is currently scouring the world for an expedition vessel suitable to transit the Northwest Passage during the summers of 2019 and 2020. Sedna’s sea women will reunite, in the summer of 2018, to continue their cold-water immersion training somewhere in northern Canada.

28 Winter 2017

Old Scotia and Nova Scotia David F Woolnough

Before the Hudson’s Bay Company started recruiting young Orcadian men as factors in their expanding Western Canadian empire, and long before the economist J K Galbraith had reason to write his book The Scotch based on his experiences and upbringing in a Scottish community in rural southern Ontario, a small group of intrepid Scots, led by Sir William Alexander, began colonisation in a fort near Port Royal, as it then was, in Nova Scotia. Alexander and his group were acting to implement a grant given to his father, the Earl of Stirling, in 1629 by King James I. They lasted three years before they were repatriated, but in that time they gave Nova Scotia its name, its flag, and its coat of arms. You can find a monument to their endeavours in a plaque on the stone wall of the moat in Edinburgh Castle, a mere 4,500km away.

When my father visited Canada, he described it as a country of trees with a few people in between, and that indeed was what it must have looked like to Alexander, and his later fellow Scots who arrived aboard the Hector in Pictou Harbour in 1773. Yet it was a land that was an Eden compared with the Scotland of the Clearances. And Nova Scotia (the only province in Canada with a Latin name) became a place that Scots could recognise easily – an economy based on fishing, forestry and coal-mining, and nowadays tourism. It even has its own failed heavy water plant, and a declining offshore oil resource.

Nova Scotia is just over two-thirds the size of Scotland (55,283km2 compared with 80,077km2) and while both places are touched by the Gulf Stream, the ‘Cfb’ Köppen climate in Scotland gives way to a ‘Dfb’ one in Nova Scotia, due largely to the latitudinal differences. But while the physical differences may be large, it is the societal similarities that strike a visitor. Nova Scotia is essentially rural, mirroring those parts of Scotland above the highland line. Everywhere, one cannot help but be struck by the links to the ‘Auld Country’. While its flag may seem to be an inverted colour version of the saltire, you can still wander the streets of Pugwash and puzzle at the Gaelic names.

If you are from Lanarkshire (as your author is), you see a striking similarity in the spoil tips of the New Glasgow area to the bings of Central Scotland – and the coal industry in both places has suffered not only the disasters of cave-ins and explosions, but the 20th-century decline in production as well. Both places have ‘Royal’ tattoos (in Edinburgh and in Halifax) and you cannot go through Antigonish without realising that here is a town that takes pride in its Highland Games. Remember, it was the 78th Fraser Highlanders Pipe Band (albeit from Toronto) who became the first non-Scottish band to win the World Pipe Band championships in 1987.

But to really get the feel of what North Americans envision Scotland to be, you must travel to the northern extremity of the province, to Cape Breton Island, the island that the Condé

Peggy’s Cove, Nova Scotia. © Kim Elliott

Nast travel guide has rated as one of the world’s best island destinations. While it is well known for its Scottish fiddle music, and is the location of The Royal Cape Breton Gaelic College (Colaisde Rìoghail na Gàidhlig), it really is a Scotland in miniature.

It has its own fjord (Bras d’Or Lake); many championship golf courses; the appropriate scattering of famous scientists (Alexander Graham Bell lived there, while Guglielmo Marconi worked there); weekly or even nightly céilidhs; a declined and struggling coal industry; a steel industry that really is no longer; and the Glen Breton Distillery – the first single malt whisky distillery in North America. Despite the fact that Cape Breton is overwhelmingly Roman Catholic (shades of the Highlands), you can still attend a Sunday service in a Covenanter’s church in parts of the province. And if you really want a modern, up-todate comparison between Cape Breton and Scotland, look no further than those who want independence for the Island, based upon the feeling of being ignored and lost in the rooms of power in the capital of Halifax.

“While the physical differences may be large, it is the societal similarities that strike a visitor.”

As we celebrate Canada’s 150th birthday, I have felt at home in this country, having come here to graduate school, and stayed on after marrying a Canadian (albeit of English and Irish descent!).

I am forever reminded of home as I drive around this province. It has been said that Montreal is a North American Paris – Nova Scotia is a North American Scotland.

David F Woolnough graduated from Glasgow University in 1969, with a first in Geography. He then completed an MScE and PhD in Photogrammetry at the University of New Brunswick. He is one of only 36 to be granted a commission as a Dominion Topographical Surveyor since 1867, and co-authored the first Canadian book on surveying.

He was principal of the Centre of Geographic Sciences in Lawrencetown, Nova Scotia, and finished his career as the first Director of Applied Research in the Province of Nova Scotia’s Community College system.

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Lancaster Sound wildlife Wade Davis

There are places and moments on Earth where natural phenomena of such stunning magnitude and beauty occur that they shatter all notions of a world of human scale. This is what draws the Inuit families of Arctic Bay north to their summer camp at the tip of Baffin Island each year.

Every winter in the Arctic, however, virtually all of the sea between the islands of the Arctic archipelago lies frozen, a single horizon of ice that joins the polar cap and eventually covers nearly 15 million square kilometres, one and a half times the size of the United States. As temperatures drop to as low as 6 ­ 0°C, of all the marine mammals here only polar bears and ringed seals remain, the latter dependent on breathing holes scratched through the ice. Polar bears survive by stalking the seals throughout the long Arctic night.

established long ago on the rich nutrients of the dead. A ring of flowers around an eider’s nest, a seedling growing out of the droppings of a gull, lichen slowly eating away at rock, an inch of soil taking a century or longer to accumulate.

In the Arctic, one marvels at the art of survival. Bears hunt seals; foxes follow the bears and sometimes feed on their excrement. Inuit women cut open animals to feed on clam siphons found in walrus stomachs, lichens and plants in the guts of caribou, and mother’s milk in the bellies of baby seals.

Most other marine mammals, including belugas, bowhead whales, walruses and narwhals, head out through Lancaster Sound to the open waters of Baffin Bay and Davis Strait, between Canada and Greenland. Only small populations overwinter in rare pockets of open water kept ice-free by the action of winds and currents.

In warmer months, the animals return, wave upon wave, hovering against the retreating ice edge. The winter population of some 100,000 mammals soars in the summer to 17 million.

Foraging in rich waters, they await a chance to disperse to feeding grounds scattered throughout the Arctic.

In the long hours of the midnight sun, brown algae bloom beneath the ice, billions of shrimp and amphipods Beluga whale. © Discover Churchill flourish, and millions of Arctic cod thrive The Inuit do not fear the cold; they on the zooplankton. A quarter of a million harp, bearded take advantage of it. A moist skin left and ring seals feed on fish, as do thousands of belugas and overnight becomes a shovel by dawn. narwhals. A third of the belugas in the world and three of A knife can be forged by the cold from every four narwhals on Earth gather here. They in turn fall human excrement. The runners of sleds prey to roving pods of killer whales. were originally made from fish, three

By June, the waters of Lancaster Sound are free of ice. But Arctic char laid in a row, wrapped in those of Admiralty Inlet, 48 kilometres wide at the mouth, caribou hide and coated with a thin film remain frozen. From the Inuit camp at Cape Crauford, it’s of ice. A sled could be made from the possible to travel along the floe edge, where the ice meets the carcass of a caribou, with crossbars of sea, and listen as the breath of whales mingles with the wind. frozen char and walrus meat cut to the right size. If things got tough you could always eat your sled.

There is no night and no morning, only the ceaseless sun.

In what passes as evening, one can scramble up a high Along the floe edge one morning, I watched as a young hunter escarpment that leads to a promontory overlooking all of knelt over a dead seal, dripping fresh water into its mouth to Lancaster Sound. The sense of isolation and wonder is placate its spirit, even as he hummed a song in praise of the overwhelming. Every horizon shimmers with mirages. Low animal. If animals are not properly treated, they will not allow islands seem like towering cliffs, ice floes appear as crystal themselves to be taken. But if they are not hunted, the Inuit spires. The land seduces with its strange beauty. believe, they will suffer, and their numbers will decrease. The

“The winter population of some 100,000 mammals soars in the summer to 17 million.”

Upon the ground are ancient graves, human bones covered in lichen and moss. Around the bones is a circle of life, purple gentians and dwarf willows, small plant communities

hunt is a reflection of balance. Blood on ice in the Arctic is not a sign of death, but an affirmation of life itself.

30 Winter 2017

The Great Trail Fraser Los

Think about nation-building projects in Canada, and one of your first thoughts is likely the transcontinental railway completed less than two decades after the country was born – a monumental effort that connected growing communities and industries across the nation.

When Canada turned 125, another ambitious project sought to further knit the country together. This time, a trail that would link our three oceans and celebrate the historic waterways, protected ecosystems and bustling towns and cities.

It may have seemed fanciful then, but today, as that dream turns 25 and the nation turns 150, the trail is about to be fully connected from coast to coast to coast – an achievement that’s being touted as one of the greatest gifts Canadians could share with each other and the rest of the world.

Back in 1992, it was the Trans Canada Trail, a name still carried by the non-profit organization that co-ordinated efforts to connect the trail from the beginning. Now, it’s called the Great Trail, reflecting its evolution from bold dream to physical reality. It’s already the world’s longest recreational trail network, and it will stretch nearly 24,000 kilometres when fully connected by the end of 2017.

“It’s a tangible link and a tie that binds us together,” says Deborah Apps, Trans Canada Trail CEO and president. “What better gift can we give to each other than a national trail that connects us all?”

While the railway facilitated Canada’s economic ambitions, the Great Trail celebrates its natural splendour.

Spanning every province and territory, it links nearly 430 separate trail sections, each an ecological and cultural gem in its own right – from urban to wilderness, waterway to roadway. It passes through historic settlements that grew from collisions

of cultures; it showcases the railway’s legacy of trestles and tunnels; it follows paddling routes that supported First Nations for generations and spurred the fur trade long before Canada was Canada.

The trail network can be appreciated by anyone, and its multi-use trails can be accessed by foot, bicycle, horseback, canoe or kayak, skis or snowmobile. You’d be hard-pressed to find a better way to explore the country.

“The world’s longest recreational trail network will stretch nearly 24,000km when fully connected by the end of 2017.”

Although connecting the trail is a national endeavour, the individual sections are owned and maintained by local groups, driven by the passion of volunteers. They are gearing up to celebrate linking the trail’s full length in 2017, and also busy writing the Great Trail’s next chapter. “Connecting it is one thing, but we’ve really only scratched the surface,” says Apps, who adds that the organization’s next step will be engaging Canada’s youth to get them even more involved – not just to explore the trail, but to shape its future. “We hope to explore this ‘living lab’ concept of using the trails to teach our youth about nature and the environment.”

Apps says people from as far away as the United Kingdom and New Zealand want to emulate the trail concept in their own countries, and that each day more Canadians inquire about getting their communities involved. “Who would have thought we’d be able to do this in 25 years, but we have,” she says. “It’s just going to get better. To be able to stand on the trail anywhere in Canada and know you’re connected to everyone else along it – that’s a pretty good feeling.”

Land trail

Water trail

Tuktoyaktuk

Inuvik

Tsiigehtchic

Dawson

Land trail

Norman Wells

Whitehorse

Tuktoyaktuk

Inuvik

Dawson

Water trail

Iqaluit

Tsiigehtchic

Kimmirut

Yellowknife Fort Providence

Fort Nelson

Norman Wells

Iqaluit

Whitehorse

Fort St. John

Kimmirut

Fort McMurray Yellowknife

Edmonton Athabasca

St. John’s

Fort Providence

Fort Nelson

Nanaimo

Victoria

Channel-Port aux Basques

Vancouver Nelson

FortCalgary St. John

Nanaimo

Victoria

Charlottetown

Saskatoon

Rivière-du-Loup

Fort McMurray Regina Winnipeg Kenora Edmonton Athabasca

Vancouver Nelson

Calgary

Map by Chris Brackley|Can Geo. Data provided by Trans Canada Trail.

Quebec City

Sydney

St. John’s Fredericton Halifax

Wawa Maniwaki Sherbrooke Thunder Bay Montreal Sault Ste. Marie Ottawa Huntsville Saskatoon Charlottetown Peterborough Rivière-du-Loup Toronto

Regina Winnipeg

Kenora Windsor

Wawa

Thunder Bay Sault Ste. Marie

Quebec City

Maniwaki

Huntsville

Channel-Port aux Basques Sydney

Fredericton Halifax

Sherbrooke

Montreal Ottawa

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Lentils Omar Mouallem

Bob Copeland was a teenager the first time he saw one: a smooth, convex green seed packed with protein. He was raised on a southern Saskatchewan farm where his parents, Bill and Alma, grew cereals and cleaned others’ seeds, and so lentils were neither a part of his meat-and-potatoes diet nor that of anyone else he knew. But his family was promised by an upstart exporter that this dried legume, or pulse, was a staple of one-quarter of the world’s population – across North Africa, the Middle East and especially India, where the Hindi idiom dal nahin gali, or “the lentils didn’t cook,” means a wasted attempt.

they worked with scientists to adapt the plant’s architecture so that it could be processed by existing machinery. Today, Canada has innovated not just the pulse’s growth and processing but the ingredient itself. The Saskatchewan Pulse Growers board alone has commercialized 48 varieties, including the largest red lentil on the market, King Red. Kofi Agblor, managing director of the Crop Development Centre at the University of Saskatchewan, says no other jurisdiction has taken a bigger and faster leap with one crop. “Here we have a crop that didn’t come with a manual, and yet it made it.”

The Copelands wouldn’t let this opportunity go to waste. Almost 40 years later, the farm grows more than a million kilograms of lentils and processes another 30 million. “It’s brought a new way of life for a lot of families,” says Copeland, who now heads Copeland Seeds. His company’s contribution is but a grain of Saskatchewan’s multi-billion-dollar pulse industry, which exports to more than 150 countries and grows more than half of the world’s lentils. In just one generation, pulses have come to cover a tenth of the cropland in Canada’s breadbasket.

It also got a lot of help from entrepreneurs who sold Canadian lentils to the world. Namely, Regina’s Murad al-Katib. Unlike many Canadian farmers, the son of Turkish immigrants was well acquainted with lentil soup. In 2001, al-Katib, then a 24-year-old trade commissioner, met Huseyin and Mahmut Arslan, brothers who owned a lentil company, while on a trade mission to Turkey.

After they complained about Canada’s improperly cleaned lentils, al-Katib quit his job with the Government of Saskatchewan and began to develop a business plan to improve the crop’s quality.

One of his first stops was Copeland Seeds. Fifteen years later, al-Katib’s business, AGT Foods and Ingredients, is a multinational with $1.7 billion in revenues in 2015. It even bought out the Arslans and now runs 42 processing facilities on five continents – but the heart of the operation remains in Regina.

The success is owed to a confluence of environmental and industrial factors putting pressure on the traditional family farm.

Pulses were not only an unregulated market that let farmers set their own prices, but the crop also naturally replenished the soil with nitrogen. Instead of leaving the fields fallow for a summer, farmers could follow a three-crop rotation: a cereal, canola and a pulse, most likely lentils. As luck would have it, the plant is well adapted to short, hot summers, growing fast and maturing its seeds just in time for cooler temperatures in August.

But the uptake was slow. Growers didn’t understand this foreign crop and made many mistakes along the way, especially by initially investing heavily in green lentils – the preferred variety is red, which are easier to split and peel and thus cook faster.

Moreover, Canada didn’t manufacture equipment for lentils, so while farmers busily converted their seeds from green to red,

The timing couldn’t be better. With mass urbanization overtaking agricultural land in Asia, turmoil in the Arab world threatening supply and India’s population growing by half the size of Canada’s every year, our meat-and-potatoes nation has become the world’s primary supplier of lentils. Yet few at home are drenching lentils in maple syrup or baking Nanaimo bars with pulse flour. “It’s still a generation or two away from being one of our staple foods,” says Copeland. Then again, hummus has become a mainstay of many Western households in little under a decade, so anything is possible for the humble lentil.

Thanks to a confluence of environmental and industrial factors, Saskatchewan now produces more than half of the world’s lentils.

“The plant is well adapted to short, hot summers, growing fast and maturing its seeds just in time for cooler temperatures in August.”

32 Winter 2017

Canada C3: an epic journey to inspire Canadians Mike Wong, Regional Vice-Chair North America, IUCN World Commission of Protected Areas

On 1st June 2017, the Canadian-built icebreaker Polar Prince sailed on a 150-day, 23,000km journey that took it from Toronto, Ontario, through the Atlantic, Arctic and Pacific Oceans, to Victoria, British Columbia. The expedition visited 50 cities and towns, 13 national parks and 20 wildlife reserves, six UNESCO World Heritage Sites, and 36 indigenous communities. It was called the ‘C3’ to signify its travel along Canada’s three coasts, with the world’s longest coastline of 202,080km. The C3 expedition was a journey of discovery both to honour Canada’s 150-year history and to discuss its future as a country, with four themes: Environment, Diversity and Inclusion, Youth Engagement, and Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples.

In each of the 15 legs of the journey, a mixed group of Canadians were invited – writers and musicians, scientists, artists, youth, journalists, community leaders, and indigenous elders. Nearly 5,000 applications from every province and territory of Canada were received. Those selected had diverse knowledge, experience and stories to help celebrate the country’s past and contribute to the dialogue on how to build a better Canada.

for the last half a century. Such dramatic demographic changes will influence the socioeconomic, education, political and religious systems of the country in the coming years.

Exchange of the diversity of perspectives from the C3 participants helped to spark discussions on what the future cultural norms of the country could be.

Youth Engagement Youth of today, not just in Canada, are facing a world of rapid change, whether it is technology, urbanization, rapid resource use, or disconnection from the natural environment.

The C3 expedition also recognized the ingenuity, the almost limitless energy, and optimistic outlook of the new generation.

Blending this inspiring, original insight from young people into the dialogue on the future of Canada is critical, as it is theirs to inherit. Thirty-five C3 Youth Ambassadors, reflecting the diversity of Canada, have already demonstrated dedication to their communities, passionately contributed to discussions through songs, laughter and tears on what their country can be in the 21st century and how they can help positively shape its identity.

Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples

The Polar Prince at Sirmilik National Park, Qikiqtaaluk, Nunavut. © Michelle Valberg

Environment The Canada C3 expedition had a full scientific research programme to study the environment. As the second-largest country in the world (9,984,670km2), the collection of environmental information is a major challenge, especially in remote locations. The route took in previously unknown sites, recording data on species ranging from microalgae, benthic invertebrates, plants and lichens, to information on the ‘pizzly’, the hybrid between the polar bear and the grizzly bear. In addition, the scientists collected samples for the presence of invasive alien species in the water, as well as the occurrence and distribution of microplastics.

A pan-Canadian survey of coastal marine biodiversity was carried out using the relatively novel and sensitive analytical technology for environmental DNA. The filtered seawater samples will expose the existence and distribution of a long list of species, ranging from bacteria to fish and whales. The information gathered will be invaluable for future research.

Diversity and Inclusion One out of five Canadian citizens is born in another country and by 2031, according to Statistics Canada, this figure will increase to one out of four. This reflects Canada’s open immigration policy

As a country, Canada has much to celebrate regarding its past 150 years. There are, however, some shadowy secrets on the treatment of its First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples, much of which is revealed by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s reports in 2015.

The government policy of the day, with the support of the four major religious institutions, was to establish a residential school system to separate indigenous children from their families and to break their cultural connections. The Commission reports highlighted numerous instances of physical and sexual abuse, and even death, while the children were in the care of the residential schools. The Commission concluded that without truth, justice and healing, there can be no reconciliation. The revelation of these historical injustices, including personal stories from indigenous elders, raised awareness and facilitated uncomfortable and tearful conversations amongst C3 participants on ways the country can move towards reconciliation.

The Canada C3 expedition was special in so many ways. Perhaps its greatest contribution to the year that Canada turned 150 years old was to provide a stage for Canadians to share personal stories and have meaningful discussions of the country’s past and how it can be even better in the future. Many of the interactions amongst C3 participants and their exchanges with Canadians in the many communities the Polar Prince had visited were captured in photos and videos as well as blogs and songs (see canadac3. ca/en/news-or-media). To better recognize Canada as a country, they are well worth a glance.

The

33 Geographer14-

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“The C3 expedition was a journey of discovery both to honour Canada’s 150-year history and to discuss its future as a country.”

The Polar Prince parked off the coast of Torngat Mountains National Park, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. © Jackie Dives The Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, celebrated Canada’s 150th birthday with the Canada C3 participants on 1st July 2017, on the Polar Prince, in its brief stop in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. The C3 expedition leader, Geoff Green, is standing second from the right.

FURTHER READING

Canada C3 website (canadac3.ca) Truth and Reconciliation Commission (2015) TRC Reports and Findings (http://nctr.ca/reports.php)

34 Winter 2017

The 2017 US hurricane season Dr Adrian Champion, Research Fellow, University of Exeter

Hurricane Irma left devastating destruction across Florida, followed by Maria which caused widespread damage to Puerto Rico, leaving the island without power. There have also been other hurricanes which have posed a threat or caused damage this season, such as Harvey which preceded Irma.

Cyclones are areas of low pressure caused by warm, moist air rising from the ocean combined with atmospheric instability at higher levels. This results in air from the surrounding areas moving in to reduce the pressure difference. As this air warms and rises, the surrounding air spirals in towards the centre to take the place of this rising air. As the moist air rises, it cools, forming clouds and releasing energy into the cyclone. This supply of warm, moist air is crucial to the continued development of a cyclone.

The term ‘hurricane’ is used for those cyclones that hit the Americas. In Asia they’re called ‘typhoons’ and elsewhere the generic term ‘cyclone’ is used. These are all tropical cyclones – they form and their impact is in the tropics, between 30N and 30S. Extra-tropical cyclones are those that occur between 30N/S and 60N/S and are the types of storms we typically experience during winter in the UK. Some of these may originate in the Tropics, although predominantly they are caused by atmospheric instabilities over north America.

It first hit Cuba as a category 5, at which point it weakened to a category 4. It then turned north and crossed over the length of Florida initially as a category 4/3, slowly weakening due to the lack of warm ocean to provide the energy. However, the moisture content of the cyclone was very high, and as the cyclone weakened this resulted in torrential amounts of rain, leading to extensive flooding.

Hurricane Maria also developed whilst in the Atlantic; however, it did not make hurricane strength until much closer to Martinique in mid-September.

Maria was unusual in that there was a rapid deepening in the pressure system, resulting in Maria reaching category 5 status very quickly.

Unlike Irma, Maria made landfall at Puerto Rico, as a category 4. It weakened as it passed over Puerto Rico although remaining as a 3/2 and then was tracked over the ocean and classed as an extratropical storm.

There are many reasons, which are difficult to examine at this stage, as to why Irma and Maria took different paths. It is dependent on the prevailing atmospheric and surface conditions, with the passage of cyclones immediately prior having an effect. It is unlikely that two cyclones, close together, would have exactly the same path. The presence of other cyclones would result in subsequent cyclones being ‘deflected’ or ‘pushed’ elsewhere.

“It is likely for the global frequency of tropical cyclones to decrease or remain about the same, but for the intensity, both wind and precipitation, to increase.”

The classification of the category of hurricanes uses the Saffir-Sampson Hurricane Wind Scale and is based on the sustained windspeeds within the hurricane. A category 5 hurricane, the most severe, is when sustained windspeeds of 157mph or higher are observed, with the expected damage to be catastrophic. A category 1 hurricane is for sustained winds of between 74 and 95mph. Below 74mph they are referred to as ‘tropical storms’; below 39mph they are not given a label.

The first hurricane ‘of note’ in 2017 was Harvey in mid to late August, which reached a category 4 just before making landfall around San Antonio / Houston. As it made landfall it quickly weakened to a category 1 and then to a tropical storm as the moisture supply for it disappeared. Hurricane Irma first gained hurricane classification in early September whilst still quite far out in the Atlantic, compared to Harvey that did not make hurricane status until in the Gulf of Mexico. As a result, Irma had a much greater fetch, the distance a cyclone is over warm water, thus allowing for the continual development of the cyclone.

Irma became a category 5 hurricane whilst close to Montserrat and the surrounding islands. It remained as a category 5 moving along the coasts of Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.

The 2005 season experienced a number of category 5 hurricanes, eg Emily, Rita, Wilma and notably Katrina. The 2005 and 2017 hurricane seasons are two of the most severe seasons on record, with a few months remaining of the 2017 season. The climate change projections from the latest IPCC report show that it is likely for the global frequency of tropical cyclones to decrease or remain about the same, but for the intensity, both wind and precipitation, to increase.

Atlantic tropical storms have been named since 1953, originally by the US National Hurricane Centre but now maintained by an international committee of the World Meteorological Organization. There are six lists with names beginning with the letters A-W, excluding Q and U, that are used in rotation and recycled every six years. Names are only taken off these lists if it would be inappropriate to reuse a name for reasons of sensitivity. Many of these named storms either do not make landfall, or are not of interest because they are not very intense and do not pose a threat.

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The caring majority within reach Naomi Klein

“The hour calls for optimism; we’ll save pessimism for better times.”

Jean-Claude Servais I opened this book with the word shock, since that’s what a great many people said they felt on [the 2016 US Presidential] Election Day and after. But as I’ve reflected on the word during the past months of writing, I started to question its accuracy in this context.

A state of shock is produced when a story is ruptured, when we have no idea what’s going on. But in so many ways explored in these pages, Trump is not a rupture at all, but rather the culmination – the logical end point – of a great many dangerous stories our culture has been telling for a very long time. That greed is good. That the market rules. That money is what matters in life. That white men are better than the rest. That the natural world is there for us to pillage. That the vulnerable deserve their fate and the one percent deserve their golden towers. That anything public or commonly held is sinister and not worth protecting. That we are surrounded by danger and should only look after our own. That there is no alternative to any of this.

billionaire saviours, philanthrocapitalists. The same values that have been playing out in destroyed safety nets, exploding prison numbers, normalized rape culture, democracydestroying trade deals, in rising seas and privatized disaster response, in a world of Green Zones and Red Zones.

At the same time, perhaps it’s okay – healthy even – for us to be just a little bit shocked by Trump. Here’s why: those stories that produced him were always contested. There were always other stories, ones that insisted that money is not all that’s valuable, and that all of our fates are intertwined with one another and with the health of the rest of the natural world. The forces Trump represents have always had to suppress those other, older, and self-evidently true stories, so that theirs could dominate against so much intuition and evidence.

“We also need to fiercely protect some space to dream and plan for a better world.”

Given these stories are, for many of us, part of the very air we breathe, Trump really shouldn’t come as a shock. A billionaire president who boasts he can grab women by their genitals while calling Mexicans “rapists” and jeering at the disabled is the logical expression of a culture that grants indecent levels of impunity to the ultra-rich, that is consumed with winnertake-all competition, and that is grounded in dominancebased logic at every level. We should have been expecting him. And indeed, many of those most directly touched by the underbelly of Western racism and misogyny had been expecting him for a long time.

The persistence of these other stories should remind us that while Trump is the logical culmination of the current neoliberal system, the current neoliberal system is not the only logical culmination of the human story. Which is why part of our work now – a key part – is not just resistance. Not just saying no. We have to do that, of course. But we also need to fiercely protect some space to dream and plan for a better world. This isn’t an indulgence. It’s an essential part of how we defeat Trumpism.

This article is extracted with permission from Naomi Klein’s book, No Is Not Enough.

See www.noisnotenough.org for more information.

So maybe the emotion beneath what some have been calling shock is really, more accurately, horror. Specifically, the horror of recognition that we feel when we read effective dystopian fiction or watch good dystopian films. All stories of this genre take current trends and follow them to their obvious conclusion – and then use that conclusion to hold up a mirror and ask: Do you like what you see? Do you really want to continue down this road? These nightmare futures are horrifying precisely because they’re not shocking – not a break with our underlying stories, but their fulfilment. I’ve come to believe that we should see America’s first nucleararmed reality TV president in a similar fashion, as dystopian fiction come to life. Trump is a mirror, held up not only to the United States but to the world. If we don’t like what we see – and throngs of us clearly do not – then it is clear what we need to do.

We have to question not only Trump but the stories that ineluctably produced him. It’s not enough to superficially challenge him as an individual, foul and alarmingly ignorant though he may be. We have to confront the deep-seated trends that rewarded him and exalted him until he became the most powerful person in the world. The values that have been sold to us through reality TV, get-rich-quick books,

A windswept pine clings to the rocky shore of Georgian Bay, Ontario. © Darlene Munro|Can Geo Photo Club

36 Winter 2017

HMS Erebus Alanna Mitchell

HMS Erebus was born in Wales in 1826, crafted from thick oak planks, embossed with the insignia of the Royal Navy and then fitted out with mortars and guns, a three-masted barque destined for battle.

Conceived for war, Erebus found fame instead in polar exploration, first Antarctica, then the Arctic. But her greatest renown came when she vanished along with Sir John Franklin and his men – 129 souls in all – in their Victorian quest for the Northwest Passage about 20 years before Canada was born. The mystery has enthralled generations of Britons and Canadians since.

Erebus was found in 2014. Canada’s crack marine archaeology team found her submerged in 11 metres of water, upright and mainly intact in the chilly Arctic waters of Nunavut’s Queen Maud Gulf.

And when Inuit testimony collected a few years after Erebus’s disappearance described mortally sick British men, disgorged from their stuck ships, stumbling along the ice of King William Island in their scraps of clothing and eventually butchering each other for food, it was the Inuit who were fingered as the immoral parties. Charles Dickens himself publicly dismissed the claims in a volley of racial slurs, dubbing the Inuit “uncivilized.”

“Inuit wisdom was the secret weapon in the bid to find the lost ship.”

But if the seaworthy Erebus was Canada’s past, the submerged Erebus is its present and future.

By 2014, Inuit wisdom was the secret weapon in the bid to find the lost ship. Inuit oral historian Louie Kamookak, whose ancestors found Franklin artefacts and corpses on the tundra, painstakingly collected stories again from his elders and reinterpreted earlier testimonies, seeing them through Inuit eyes.

That information helped archaeologists pinpoint which areas to search – not where the dying sailors’ stashed note said they had abandoned the ships, but farther south where Inuit hunters said they saw a ship, stories that were discounted for generations.

The more southerly spot is where Erebus was found.

Where once the Inuit way of life was misunderstood The first image of the wreck of HMS Erebus, obtained by Parks Canada’s side-scan sonar in September 2014. © Parks Canada and even disparaged, today it’s seen as a critical component of the Canadian identity.

When she sailed for the Northwest Passage in 1845, she was King William Island is part of Nunavut, Canada’s newest forbidding, a coal-black sailing ship fortified against the grip territory, created for Inuit to govern as part of a land claims of Arctic ice. By 2014, underwater for more than 150 years, settlement, and Inuit knowledge and values are knitted into she was terrifying, rising up from the seabed like an avenging governing structures. behemoth, girt in yellow kelp, guarding her secrets and those of her doomed sailors with all the ferocity of a ghost.

Archaeologists are still diving on Erebus, trying to understand With Franklin at the helm, she was a symbol of the urge to colonize. By sailing the last uncharted piece of the Northwest Passage, Franklin would find a shorter trade route to the Orient. More than that, though, he would be cementing the British hold over world trade, industry and foreign territories, sanctifying its starring role in the geopolitical theatre of the day. That same impulse was what gave birth to Canada.

Then, it was not a case of exploring to learn about new places and people. It was about imposing a Victorian British sensibility onto them, bending them to Britain’s will. To that end, Erebus and her sister ship HMS Terror, which was discovered in September, carried British books, food, frippery and footwear. Her officers, none of whom spoke the local languages, declined to consult the Inuit inhabitants on how to survive in the ice-fast wilds. Cultural disdain was the dish of the day.

what she has to say about the tragedies she witnessed. Was it hubris? Illness? Insanity? Rotten luck? They’ll be parsing her answers for years. And the Inuit, forestalled from offering help when she floated, will have a say in where her sunken wreck ends up.

But now the Arctic holds a new mystery to confound Canadians. The age of exploration has given way to the age of climate change, the carbonic residue from all that industry Britain began. Again, the Arctic is at the centre of things, warming faster, changing in yet more baffling ways. The ice that trapped Erebus is nearly gone. Inuit mourn the dying of the cold.

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Winter 2017

Interview with James Cameron Alanna Mitchell

Best known as the Oscar-winning director of Avatar and Titanic, James Cameron is also a famed underwater explorer.

On 26th March 2012, the Canadian-born Cameron became the first person to dive solo in a submersible to the Pacific Ocean’s Challenger Deep, which at almost 11 kilometres underwater is the deepest known place on Earth.

On his fascination with the sea I like to say I loved the ocean before I ever met it. I grew up mostly in Chippawa, Ontario, which at that time was separate from Niagara Falls, so there was a lot of water around. In summer, kids would swim in the local rivers, and the sound of the falls was constantly there, thundering away in the background. And as far back as I can remember, I loved being under the water. This was in the mid-1960s, when we had Jacques Cousteau bringing us these amazing images, and I got so excited about the idea of ocean exploration that I pestered my father until he enrolled me in a scuba diving program.

On the appeal of being underwater Being underwater is somehow being in a dream state, being in touch with your subconscious in a way. It’s some combination of the actual tactile experience of it and a sense of exploration, the exhilaration of seeing something new, of being in another world, having a solitary experience that’s meaningful in a deep psychological way.

conservation, stewardship and respect. You don’t respect something if you don’t love it and don’t ever think about it.

Exploration is a way to get people to think about and love the ocean, and therefore want to protect it. It’s a doorway into conservation for people that are landlocked and wouldn’t be thinking about the ocean otherwise. We’re killing the world’s oceans, killing their biodiversity. I don’t think we understand the scope of the damage that we’re doing and that we’re capable of doing.

On how his work endows science with narrative force The key thing is not just to do the science, but to tell it as a story to the vast majority of people who are not scientists. It’s not just understanding it, but understanding the importance and meaning of it. I think that’s where the scientific community falls down the most, and I think they need people in the media to act as intermediaries and tell their story.

Hollywood has not been kind to scientists; they’re either hopelessly socially inept nerds or moustache-twirling evil masterminds.

On his dives adding to human knowledge There’s the specific proximal science that was done, which included identifying 68 new species, but there’s also what I call the inspirational dividend. Doing something that was difficult, something that hadn’t been done before, and carrying back the tale reminds people that there’s this vast unexplored frontier here on Earth, in an age when we think we’ve explored everything already.

“Exploration is a way to get people to think about and love the ocean.”

On exploration We’ve got a universe and vast oceans to explore, and there are going to be wonders there. My love of science fiction – the idea that there are other planets, other beings and alien creatures – informed that idea. I was never going to get to do that for real, but I could sure put on some scuba gear and go into another world that’s right here on Earth.

On people knowing about the ocean I believe our relationship with the ocean needs to change a lot. Not just in regard to exploration, but in regard to

© Charlie Arneson

We may be able to use remote sensing to scan the surface of the ocean from orbit, but we don’t have any kind of extensive, real-time reporting for that vast body of water. And we need more data about it. It’s a big part of our life-support system, but it’s also a big engine of climate, temperature and the carbon cycle. These are things upon which our survival might depend. So the exploration focuses on the ocean being this huge, poorly understood and important entity.

BOOK CLUB

38 Winter 2017

O n l y Fifty

The Great Horizon £ 2 4

incredible true stories of some of the people who have shaped our society over the last century or more.

by Jo Woolf

.99

“A delightful insight into some of the greatest characters of the past 150 years… and into the RSGS’s rich heritage.”

Professor Iain Stewart

“Everyone should find something to inspire them in this beautifully written collection of stories.”

Mike Robinson, Chief Executive, RSGS

A great Christmas gift!

RSGS: a better way to see the world Phone 01738 455050 or visit www.rsgs.org to join the RSGS. Lord John Murray House, 15-19 North Port, Perth, PH1 5LU Charity SC015599 Printed by www.jtcp.co.uk on Claro Silk 115gsm paper. 100% FSC certified using vegetable-based inks in a 100% chemistry-free process.

Published

by Sandstone Press and available online and from all good bookshops from 16th November 2017.