M I N AP C A PIN NA G I D A NN ’ S OVA O C TI E A ON NS
THE ULTIMATE GEOGRAPHY QUIZ: MAP EDITION
How we can save
CARIBOU ADAM SHOALTS TRACKS
A LABRADOR LEGEND TOMSON HIGHWAY PENS
NORTHERN MEMOIR CHRIS HADFIELD’S
SPACE THRILLER
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KEYS TO BEATING SEASONAL FLU, UNDER THE ARCTIC ICE, PAINTING THE SUBLIME BEAUTY OF THE FAR NORTH, MAKING A GAME OF THE GOLD RUSH AND MUCH MORE!
CONTENTS
SEPTEMBER/ OCTOBER
2021 ON THE COVER The photographer used light to best advantage for this striking portrait of a male from the Porcupine herd.
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Photo by Peter Mather
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AN EMPTY LANDSCAPE
After more than a million years on Earth, caribou are under threat of global extinction. The precipitous decline of once mighty herds is hard to watch — and even harder to reverse. By Alanna Mitchell with photography by Peter Mather
TOP: PETER MATHER/CAN GEO; BOTTOM: ASHLEY MACKENZIE/CAN GEO
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THE ULTIMATE CANADIAN GEOGRAPHY QUIZ
It’s the map edition! 27 questions to challenge your cartographic comprehension. By Abi Hayward, Chris Brackley and Austin Westphal
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‘TIS THE SEASON
How the pandemic has affected the spread of flu — and why this is not the year to blow off your flu shot By Brian Owens
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OFF THE SHELF
A collection of exclusive teasers for new fall books by four writers who truly define adventure through their work: explorer Adam Shoalts, playwright Tomson Highway, astronaut Chris Hadfield and artist Cory Trépanier
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D E PA R T M E N T S
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: JILL HEINERTH/CAN GEO; BILL HESS; MICAELA DAWN/CAN GEO; CHRIS BRACKLEY/CAN GEO; SEN YANG/CAN GEO PHOTO CLUB; CHELSEY ARMSTRONG
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DISCOVERY
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17 INTERVIEW The Inuit Circumpolar Council’s Dalee Sambo Dorough on the international voice of Inuit
20 WILDLIFE Pigs on the loose, detecting polar bear dens, Indigenous forest gardens and more
12 BIG PICTURE Celebrating Canada’s grandeur
77 YOUR SOCIETY News from the Royal Canadian Geographical Society
14 EXPOSURE Showcasing our photo community
15 IN A SNAP Sharing Can Geo via Instagram
30 ON THE MAP Canada’s Ocean Supercluster chases smart solutions for a more sustainable marine future
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80 COMING UP Exploring the hype around kelp, noteworthy Canadian anniversaries and a new quiz magazine that will keep you guessing
23 PLACE Regina’s Wascana Park showcases one of the biggest accessibility projects in North America
26 HISTORY A fanciful game from 1897 takes players on a tour of the gold fields of Yukon and Alaska
82 OUR COUNTRY Reporter and author Robyn Doolittle on her nostalgia for her hometown movie theatre
CANADIAN GEOGRAPHIC SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2021
28 INFOGRAPHIC Insights about life under the Arctic ice
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DIGITAL CONTENTS
WAT C H
RETURNING HOME Canadian Geographic Films’ first feature-length documentary, Returning Home, is scheduled for a cross-Canada festival release this fall. Directed by Sean Stiller, the film intertwines parallel narratives — the story of Phyllis Webstad (pictured), a survivor of St. Joseph’s Mission residential school in Williams Lake, B.C., and creator of Orange Shirt Day, and the story of the steady decline of wild Pacific salmon.
COMMENT ON GENERAL AWESOMENESS (MAY/JUNE) I am so pleased with my decision to subscribe to Canadian Geographic a few months ago. For the first time, I have found a magazine where I can enjoy reading every word of every article ... all 100 pages. Great job. Joe MacDonald Repentigny, Que.
ON ‘EDMONTON’ (MAY/JUNE) Again, the city of Edmonton is being stereotyped as a “one-horse town,” with the Edmonton Oilers the only feature mentioned to visit in our great city. There is certainly more to experience than the “Ice District.” I am a huge fan of both our professional sports teams, but there is so much more to discover. The largest urban park 8
CANADIAN GEOGRAPHIC SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2021
system in North America is home to myriad wildlife and is great for biking, hiking and cross-country skiing. Hawrelak Park, created in the 1960s from a former gravel pit operation, hosts everything from festivals to international triathlons to Shakespeare in the Park. Old Strathcona hosts the world’s second-largest fringe festival. The Telus World of Science, the Citadel Theatre, the Winspear Concert Hall and the Royal Alberta Museum are world-class venues. Canadian Geographic missed a wonderful opportunity to tell an amazing story that is non-concrete and non-hockey! Andrew Hopkyns Edmonton Editor’s note: Want more Edmonton variety? Visit cangeo.ca and search “Edmonton.” You’ll find stories about the city’s renowned park system, festivals and much, much more.
CORRECTION In the July/August “On the map” marking the signing of Treaty 1 and Treaty 2, we misspelled Upper Fort Garry and Lower Fort Garry. Treaty 1 was signed at Lower Fort Garry.
LISTEN EXPLORE: A CANADIAN GEOGRAPHIC PODCAST Listen in on season three of Canadian Geographic’s Explore podcast, featuring host David McGuffin in conversation with intrepid explorers, award-winning writers and ground-breaking scientists. Debuts biweekly starting Sept. 6, 2021, (with astronaut Chris Hadfield!) on your favourite podcasting platforms.
TRAVEL SPOTLIGHT: BUCKET LISTED WITH ROBIN ESROCK An award-winning travel journalist, popular speaker and author of the smash bestselling The Great Canadian Bucket List, Robin Esrock is uniquely positioned to provide context, authority and trademark wit to the future of Canadian tourism. Esrock’s new biweekly blog exploring the best Canada has to offer launched this past June. Check out his latest entry at:
cangeo.ca/topic/explore-podcast
cangeotravel.ca/category/bucket-listed
COVER VOTE It’s not often we get such an overwhelmingly definitive response to our cover vote, but clearly option one — a regal-looking caribou in profile against a blue background — struck a chord. It was also the clear favourite of our internal team, including Can Geo’s newsstand advisor Scott Bullock, who said simply, “Obviously, it’s Number 1. It’s perfect.” Here’s hoping it also inspires more conservation action for the globally threatened species.
SOCIAL
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#CAPTIONTHIS Your comments on this fox kit summed up the cute but guilty vibe. Here are three of our favourite comments from Instagram. Photo by Christine Hess (@christinehessphotography)
CONNECT WITH US ONLINE @CanGeo
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“Missed him by that much.” — @wendy_kzam “I do not recall a henhouse, and I would like to speak to my attorney.” — @maryjanezigzag “Oops, I did it again!” — @jewel.xox5
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CLOCKWISE FROM OPPOSITE, TOP: SEAN STILLER; COURTESY ROBIN ESROCK
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EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK A bull caribou is almost perfectly camouflaged as it stands amid snow-covered boughs.
VANISHING ACT
O PETER MATHER
ONE OF CANADA’S ICONIC land mammals is quickly disappearing, and it seems many of us don’t realize — or don’t care. During the last century, millions of caribou roamed across the country. Today, there are about a million, the species having declined by a dramatic 40 per cent over the last 25 years. And while most of us have never seen a caribou in the wild, we’ve essentially got virtual ringside seats to a species extinction. I highlighted the plight of Canada’s caribou populations briefly in this space in our January/February 2019 issue in connection with a phenomenal map cartographer Chris Brackley created to compare the species’ historic population highs with its then current lows. It was an impactful snapshot of how dire the situation is. See the caribou map at cangeo.ca/so21/caribou.
The circumstances haven’t improved much since. But perhaps there’s hope. One of the country's largest herds, the Porcupine caribou (barren-ground caribou that range between Yukon and Alaska), has seen record population numbers in recent years — as high as 235,000. The herd’s previous peak population was about 178,000 in 1989. Photographer Peter Mather documented the herd in and around Alaska’s National Arctic Wildlife Refuge, and we tapped contributing editor Alanna Mitchell to explore the species’ alarming decline overall, while briefly considering if there are lessons to tease out from the Porcupine caribou's success (see “An empty landscape,” page 34). Let’s hope our armchair caribou view can turn into a great comeback story. —Aaron Kylie To comment, please email editor@canadiangeographic.ca or visit cangeo.ca.
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For inside details on the magazine and other news, follow editor Aaron Kylie on Twitter and Instagram (@aaronkylie).
CELEBRATE CANADIAN
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The Royal Canadian Geographical Society and Canadian Geographic magazine play a critical role in communicating the importance of geospatial literacy, empowering Canadians to get out there and explore this vast, beautiful and often remote and underexplored country. As a Fellow of the Society, it is an honour for me to play a small role in this effort.” —Gordon Osinski, RCGS Fellow Director of Western University’s Institute for Earth and Space Exploration
Your subscription to Canadian Geographic magazine makes you a Member of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society and supports educational programming, expedition funding, research grants and many other Society-led geographical initiatives. Learn more at rcgs.org/member
BIG PICTURE Celebrating Canada‘s Grandeur
PHOTO BY JILL HEINERTH Cave diver Jill Heinerth made her way into the labyrinths beneath the surface of the Ottawa River to document the native freshwater mussels thriving in the Gervais and Three Island cave systems. There she observed this female plain pocketbook using its lure to attract fish — mainly smallmouth bass. When a juvenile fish gets close, the mussel expels its microscopic larvae, which snap onto the fish’s gills. The parasitic mussel babies are carried around and nourished by the host until they mature enough to emerge and bury themselves in the sandy river bottom. Jill Heinerth is an Explorer-in-Residence of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. Follow her @jillheinerth on and read more about her work with freshwater mussels at cangeo.ca/so21/heinerth.
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CANADIAN GEOGRAPHIC SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2021
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EXPOSURE Showcasing our photo community
PHOTO BY SEN YANG A short-eared owl captured in all its aerodynamic glory just before sunset in a field near New Westminster, B.C. Small mammals are the owl’s preferred prey, and Yang noted that this field has a healthy vole population. When hunting, the owl flies low over the ground then drops suddenly to capture its dinner. Join the Canadian Geographic Photo Club at photoclub.cangeo.ca and upload your best shots for a chance to be featured online or in the magazine!
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IN A SNAP Sharing Can Geo via Instagram
@eyeforthis Christian Leger Grand Manan Island, N.B.
@anthony_urso Anthony Urso
@stevehardilloutdoors Steve Hardill
Near Killarney, Man.
Canada goose, Burlington, Ont.
@Colton.Mckee Colton McKee
@patburilliphotos Patricia Burilli Fencz
Blackshale Suspension Bridge, Peter Lougheed Provincial Park, Alta.
National Gallery and Notre-Dame Cathedral, Ottawa.
Find us @CanGeo and share your best photos with us using the hashtag #ShareCanGeo.
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DISCOVERY
INTERVIEW
Dalee Sambo Dorough speaks at the Inuit Circumpolar Council’s General Assembly after being elected as chair in 2018.
Dalee Sambo Dorough The Inuit Circumpolar Council’s chair on how Inuit are speaking up about climate change with a global voice
BILL HESS
INTERVIEW BY ABI HAYWARD
Read an extended version of this Q&A online at cangeo.ca/so21/ICC.
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When Inuit politician Eben Hopson founded the Inuit Circumpolar Council in 1977, he wanted to bring Inuit together, transcending borders and boundaries, to create an organization that would advocate for their interests on a global stage. That was crucial, says Dalee Sambo Dorough, the organization’s current chair, who started working for Hopson while still in high school in Alaska. And it remains crucial to this day, as the Inuit Circumpolar Council engages in international discussions with bodies such as the UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties and the Arctic Council, which turns 25 this fall. Sambo Dorough spoke with Canadian Geographic about her organization’s role on the Arctic Council, Inuit perspectives on climate change and having the right to a seat at the table. On the role of the Inuit Circumpolar Council in the Arctic Council The Inuit Circumpolar Council was instrumental in shaping the Arctic Council [an intergovernmental forum that facilitates cooperation among Arctic states and Arctic Indigenous Peoples] as a regional intergovernmental stage for Arctic environmental protection. It was originally conceived to focus on an Arctic environmental protection CANGEO.CA
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On how the impacts of climate change are interconnected I would say that food security would be at the top of the list in terms of the adverse impacts of climate change.
knew that and had the extraordinary foresight to work to pull the organization together, knowing that these external forces would become dayto-day challenges for us at the international level.
But I have to also underscore that all of these issues are intimately related. They’re interrelated — like how human rights are interrelated, interdependent, indivisible and interconnected. Food security is related to many other elements of our way of life: social relations and protocol, the role of men, the role of women, cultural dynamics, spiritual dynamics, as well as the traditional economies around food, hunting, fishing and harvesting. We know climate change can be devastating to our way of life.
On changing attitudes toward Inuit The Arctic and ice and snow — it’s universal. I suppose to some extent it’s almost like a calling card. You know — you’re from the Arctic, you’re an Inuk — you can go almost anywhere in the world and people know that, “oh, you’re the people that live in the ice and snow.” But I think that having the corridors of international relations lined by developments like the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and other elements, has been extremely helpful. That we, as a matter of the right of self-determination, have the right to a seat at the table.
‘THE HEART OF THE PURPOSE OF THE ORGANIZATION HAS BEEN TO ENSURE THAT INUIT WILL
On the importance of having an international voice For so many of our people, the value of engaging at the international level is often questioned. I think it’s the same for every Indigenous nation or community across the globe — when we have such urgent issues facing us right here at home and we need the resources to plug the holes that exist. Why? When we first organized in June of 1977, in Utqiaġvik, Alaska, one of the issues that was facing Iñupiat in Alaska was a pending ban on Aboriginal subsistence whaling by the International Whaling Commission. So, we knew we had to have a voice at the international level. We had to amplify our voice within the IWC to ensure that there wasn’t a ban on the way of life of the Iñupiat whaling communities. Eben Hopson, the founder of the organization,
HAVE A PLACE WITHIN ARCTIC DIALOGUE.’ And by virtue of that, we have the ability, the capacity — indeed, the responsibility — to share our views and perspectives in favour of our people with the objective of ensuring that we’re always going to be here. I really do think that we’ve come to a point in time where we’re starting to turn the corner to ensure that we do have a place in this space. I see and feel a level of support for what we’re doing, what we’re seeking to gain in every forum that we’re involved in — a level of respect and recognition that I think the subject matter deserves. Even though there are problems all around us, I’m absolutely optimistic.
MAP: CHRIS BRACKLEY/CAN GEO
strategy, then it blossomed into a much more comprehensive entity. The Inuit Circumpolar Council, on behalf of Inuit throughout Chukotka, Alaska, Canada and Greenland, were intent on ensuring that our voices were heard within the Arctic Council as permanent participants; we have inherent or pre-existing rights to the Arctic as our traditional territory, both the lands and the coastal seas in the Arctic region. We’ve carved out an important intellectual and political space on behalf of our people and as advocates for our people. Since its formation in Ottawa in 1996, the heart of the purpose of this organization has been to ensure that Inuit will have a place within Arctic dialogue.
DISCOVERY
WILDLIFE
150 YEARS LATER INDIGENOUS FOREST GARDENS planted more than a century and a half ago on the Pacific coast are still boosting plant diversity. At archeological villages along B.C.’s northwest coast, Simon Fraser University historical ecologists found native fruit and nut trees such as crabapple, hazelnut, wild plum and wild cherry; medicinal plants like wild ginger; and food crops like wild rice. The forest management practised by Coast Salish and Ts’msyen peoples created diverse habitats for animals and pollinators — habitats that remain to this day.
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From Genghis Khan to polar bears TECHNOLOGY USED TO SEEK the Mongolian emperor’s final resting place has been repurposed to aid in polar bear research. Synthetic-aperture radar — a specialized kind of high-resolution, remote-sensing radar — is being tested to see whether it can detect polar bear dens. In trials in Utah (where there are no polar bears), Brigham Young University students crawled into mock dens under the snow to see whether the SAR device, fitted to a plane that flew 900 metres above, would detect them through the snow. So far, testing looks positive. The next step will be to test on real polar bear dens.
OPPOSITE PAGE: CHELSEY ARMSTRONG. THIS PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: GARY MORGAN/CAN GEO PHOTO CLUB; TORONTO ZOO; ISTOCK/R6381380; ISTOCK/ GLOBALP
Sex-sorted sperm: sorted RESEARCHERS FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF SASKATCHEWAN and the Toronto Zoo have successfully impregnated a female wood bison with sex-sorted sperm. To do this, they teamed up with Texas-based STgenetics to isolate sperm that carried the X chromosome (if you remember from biology class, females have two X chromosomes, while males have an X and a Y). A female wood bison was then artificially inseminated with the sorted sperm — 30 days later, the team was able to confirm that the female was expecting a baby girl. Conservationists hope that boosting the number of females will help increase the overall population.
OCEAN COMMOTION
Hog wild THESE LITTLE PIGGIES are making Ontario wildlife officials nervous. If wild pigs — defined as “any pig that is not contained or under the physical control of any person or is otherwise roaming freely” — were to establish themselves in the province, it would be an “ecological train wreck,” according to government officials. These porcine pests have already caused significant damage to the natural environment and crops on the Prairies: they’re smart and mobile, they eat anything, and they can be aggressive. That’s why the Ontario government has drafted a strategy to nip this in the bud — and to list them as an invasive species. That’ll do, pig.
THE SOUNDSCAPE OF THE OCEAN is a noisy one. But listen hard enough, and you can hear whale song. That is, you can now — thanks to technology developed by researchers at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England. Using machine learning methods, the scientists were able to “denoise” recordings so they could distinguish between right whales and the surrounding cacophony of ocean commotion. They hope this technique will be used to develop an automated system to detect North Atlantic right whales, so tankers and trawlers can move out of the way before they get too close to the endangered cetacean, whose populations have been devastated by vessel strikes and entanglement in fishing gear. In other right whale news, not only are their populations shrinking, but so are the whales themselves. Scientists with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association found that fully grown right whales today are on average about a metre shorter than they were 40 years ago — a decline of about seven per cent of their body length.
Read Canadian Geographic‘s latest wildlife stories at cangeo.ca/topic/wildlife
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DISCOVERY
PLACE
Wayfinding in Wascana How a Regina park became one of the biggest accessibility projects in North America BY ASHLEY NEMETH
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WITH MORE THAN 10 kilometres of paved pathways winding around a 120-hectare lake, Regina’s Wascana Park is a destination for family walks and canoeing or kayaking adventures. Though not nearly as famous, it’s larger than Vancouver’s Stanley Park and New York’s Central Park combined — and it’s right in the centre of the city. Set on 930 hectares, this urban paradise is home to more than 300 species of trees and shrubs, 270 species of
birds and 36 species of mammals. It’s also criss-crossed by multi-use pathways that make it difficult to navigate for individuals like me, who are blind or partially sighted and use a guide dog or a white cane. But as of the summer of 2020, that began to change. That’s because the Canadian National Institute for the Blind is using an app to make Regina more accessible for a 10-kilometre navigable radius around its offices. That
radius around the CNIB offices includes Wascana Park. BlindSquare is a GPS app that speaks to the user as they move around, providing key details about their surroundings. The CNIB dropped more than 230 GPS pins (called “beacons” in the app) along Wascana Park’s pathways. These pins act as markers, pointing out objects that can be used to wayfind the location of entrances and exits, as well as landmarks like CANGEO.CA
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MYSTICENERGY/ISTOCK
Waskana Centre Park, with the Saskatchewan Legislative Building across the lake.
AS MORE SPACES BECOME ACCESSIBLE, OUR CITIES OPEN UP TO THE WHOLE
gazebos, the outdoor pool, monuments and bridges. It also points out where there are stairs and benches. Blind or partially sighted park users now find it easier to orient themselves and interact with the different amenities within the park, from the Boy Scout Monument to Wascana Pool. As an individual who is totally blind, I was excited to use this app. I had heard for many years about features like the Wascana Pool and Willow Island, but I was unable to enjoy these spots because traditional GPS would tell me only that I was in an “open area”; I had no way of knowing which paths would take me to these specific destinations. And so, I tended to avoid Wascana Park because it was not a place I could navigate on my own. Now, using the many beacons scattered throughout the park, I have been able to locate the amenities I had heard so much about. I can enjoy the flower gardens and the serenity of this huge park in the heart of Regina. Wascana Park is overseen by the Provincial Capital Commission with a board that approves what is allowed in the park. The CNIB approached the commission to suggest ways to make the park more accessible for those who are blind and partially sighted. The commission approved the app for Wascana Park and went a step further, installing beacons at its Wascana Place offices to provide information to app users on where the doorways, tables and bathrooms are positioned within the building. Local businesses in the vicinity have 24
Blind and visually impaired people can now navigate independently to spots such as the Wascana Bandstand (above), the playground and the popular Honouring Tree public art installation.
followed suit, with a number of restaurants, bars and coffee shops also installing beacons on the app. As more spaces become accessible, our cities open up to the whole community to enjoy — no matter their lived experiences. Indeed, Wascana Park is just the latest addition to the app that has made more of Regina’s green spaces navigable for all. BlindSquare is
CANADIAN GEOGRAPHIC SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2021
already enabled in the smaller Victoria Park and Central Park.
Ashley Nemeth is a writer, blogger and motivational speaker living in Regina. She is the manager of programs and operations for Saskatchewan and the manager of programs for Manitoba with the CNIB. Find her blog at ashleynemeth.com.
WASCANA CENTRE; MAPS: CHRIS BRACKLEY/CAN GEO. BLINDSQUARE DATA: BLINDSQUARE.COM. BASEMAP DATA © OPENSTREETMAP CONTRIBUTORS.
COMMUNITY TO ENJOY.
DISCOVERY
HISTORY
Going to Klondyke 125 years after the Klondike gold rush, a look at the game that brought it into American homes BY MARK STACHIEW
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, GEOGRAPHY AND MAP DIVISION
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IN BETWEEN STORIES about reading a chimpanzee’s palm, scientific proof of how Sodom and Gomorrah were really destroyed and promos for the serialization of H.G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds, readers of the Dec. 12, 1897, issue of the New York Journal would have found a game about gold prospecting in the Yukon. Published during the height of the Klondike gold rush, Going to Klondyke was printed in the Sunday paper as a fanciful fullpage map illustrating the gold fields of Yukon and Alaska. Much like the real-life hunt for gold, winning the game is pure luck, and a quick examination of the rules reveals that it resembles the classic children’s birthday party game Pin the Tail on the Donkey. After affixing the page to the wall, players are blindfolded, spun around and tasked with placing a pin on the map, hoping it lands on one of the region’s gold fields. Each field has a different value, and players take turns placing pins until one of them collects an agreed upon amount to win the game. But beware: if you land on the British Northwest Territory, you have to pay a 20 per cent tax to the Canadian government, and if you land in Siberia, you lose everything as “the government is supposed to appropriate all mineral wealth to its use.” Worse yet, if you land on dangerous spots like the Chilkoot Pass or stretches of the Yukon River, you’re out of the game because you never made it to Dawson, the heart of the gold rush. Closer scrutiny of the map, created by May Bloom for The Klondyke Game Company, reveals that it not only illustrates the region’s geography; it features numerous whimsical drawings, including Inuit hunting seals, dog sleds, prospectors panning for gold and a plethora of animals — even some lost penguins. Elsewhere in that day’s paper, readers would have found other stories about the gold rush to further stoke their dreams of heading north to seek their fortunes. In one story, a Pennsylvania man spoke about his plans to bring a boat to the region to provision prospectors, while another told of a California man who claimed he was going to hit it big: “The man or men who strike on just but a spur of that mother lode — and it certainly exists — will be possessed of wealth beside which the millions of the Klondyke will pale,” he said. While Going to Klondyke may be lost to time, knowing that you can play a game like Klondike: The Lost Expedition on your smartphone today shows that the allure of gold — and our dreams of quick riches — will never go out of style. Read more stories about historic maps at cangeo.ca/topic/map-archive.
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DISCOVERY
INFOGRAPHIC
Under the ice Until the last decade, we knew little about what lay beneath the Arctic ice. Now scientists and explorers are shedding light on this vanishing world. BY ABI HAYWARD WITH ILLUSTRATION BY KAT BARQUEIRO
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The watery world beneath the Arctic ice cap is one that few have seen or studied. It’s expensive and difficult to get to, it requires specialized equipment — and, perhaps obviously, it’s extremely cold. More than a decade ago in 2010, a multidisciplinary team of explorers led by Ghislain Bardout sought to learn more about this unique ecosystem and share it with the world through the Deepsea Under the Pole by Rolex expedition. The explorer remembers searching for photographs showing the seascape underneath the Pole, but no one had yet dived under the ice with a camera to record the icy structures that meet the crystal blue water. His team surfaced not just with stunning images of, and data about, a little known world — they also brought a warning. “The ice cap is melting right before our eyes and it isn’t recovering,” Bardout said at the time. “What we saw and filmed on the expedition was that a lot of that melting occurs on the bottom of the ice sheet, not on top where most people are looking.” In the decade since, scientists have started to understand more about this submarine interface between ice and water — from microscopic life in the ice to underwater topography to the ocean processes occurring beneath the ice cap, as highlighted in this infographic. Something that makes the Arctic Ocean unique among oceans is that the water is colder, and less salty, toward the surface and gets warmer and saltier farther down — this cool protective layer of water helps keep the Arctic ice frozen from below. But with ocean warming this is changing. Already, in the Eurasian region in the Barents Sea north of Scandinavia, the Arctic Ocean’s water layers are flipping upside down and starting to more closely resemble those of the Atlantic. This socalled “Atlantification” in the Arctic has resulted in warmer waters rising to the top and reducing the boundary between the colder water and warmer water. Without this cool protective layer, the ice melts from the bottom. The depletion of sea ice creates a positive feedback loop causing more ocean mixing, higher temperatures and more melting. While this influx of Atlantic water isn’t happening in the Canadian Arctic, chances are it will in the future as sea ice decreases. “We’re used to thinking about air temperatures causing the sea ice to melt,” says John Iacozza, a sea ice scientist at the University of Manitoba, “but bottom warming could be really accelerating our sea ice loss in the Arctic.” As the ice melts, researchers continue to study and document this underwater world before it disappears. For more fascinating Arctic research, read Q&As with palaeoclimatologist Gina Moseley, Rolex Awards for Enterprise 2021 laureate, and Joseph Cook, 2016 laureate and glacial microbiologist, at cangeo.ca. 28
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PHYTOPLANKTON filaments extending down from the ice are an important part of Arctic food webs. The tiny green algae are a key food source and habitat for fish, which in turn feed seals, which feed polar bears. But the importance of under-ice algal blooms was widely accepted by the Arctic scientific community only in the last decade — and research is ongoing to discover more about this phenomenon.
WARMING surface water melts the ice from the bottom, a process only set to intensify as sea ice disappears, further altering the ocean processes.
BACTERIA AND VIRUSES, the smallest and most abundant members of the Arctic community, have been found living within the ice matrix, which consists of ice, water and air pockets. These tiny organisms are specialized for their icy Arctic environment, and the interactions between them may be vital for the functioning of the marine ecosystem.
COLLECTING DATA from under the ice is
THE UNDERWATER TOPOGRAPHY of the ice is not a flat surface — it undulates in jagged and smooth underwater ridges, large and small, in a dynamic ice environment. Where the water is shallow, those underwater ridges can actually erode the bottom of the ocean. The topography also affects how the ice melts: if the ice is thickened into ridges, it will take longer to melt than the thinner ice near the surface.
difficult and costly. It’s possible to glean a sense of the underwater topography from above, using laser technology such as lidar to give a broad sense of what underwater ice looks like. Autonomous underwater vehicles are another option, but because they’re tethered, they are limited to areas ships can reach. Specialized divers get the most precise picture of this underwater world.
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ON THE MAP Exploring Cartography
Sea change Canada’s Ocean Supercluster chases smart solutions for a more sustainable future BY CHRIS BRACKLEY WITH TEXT BY ALANNA MITCHELL
MAP DATA: SMARTQAMUTIK AND SMARTBUOY DATA PROVIDED BY SMARTICE
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Call it the Catch-22 of the ocean. Humans need the ocean. Yet we harm the ocean. And even as our dependency on the marine world grows, our assault intensifies. The problems show up in three main areas. The first is food. Billions of us — and more each day — rely on fish and shellfish. But we are catching too much, putting a main source of protein at risk. The second is carbon. As we burn fossil fuels, we put carbonbased gases in the atmosphere. Like a sponge, the ocean soaks some of them up. That kicks off a chemical chain reaction that makes the ocean more acidic, in turn making it tough for marine creatures to use calcium to make bones, teeth and shells. At the same time, carbon in the atmosphere traps heat, and the ocean absorbs that, too. It adds up to a marine environment that is becoming less hospitable to sea life. The third is biodiversity. As we deplete the seas, scrape away living space for marine plants and animals, and warm up and acidify the water, the ocean’s tapestry of life is unravelling. And with it, its capacity to regulate the planet’s life-support systems. But Canada’s Ocean Supercluster, an industry-led, government-sponsored not-for-profit set up in 2018, is finding smart solutions. With more than 400 members across the country, it is a catalyst for businesses of all sizes to join forces. By linking people, ideas and money, it speeds up innovations that will allow us to make smarter, more efficient and ultimately longerlasting use of the sea. With a promise of $153 million in federal 30
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funds, to be matched by industry, these inventions are hitting the lab sooner, meaning they can also be brought to market sooner. Among them: safer ice travel, cleaner energy, more sustainable seas, all briefly detailed on three maps over the next four pages. Many are world firsts. And while the primary aim is to grow sustainable Canadian marine businesses, these new ideas are drawing international attention too, with the potential to help solve problems across the global ocean.
ICE DATA As climate disruption makes sea ice thinner, sparser and less predictable, Inuit are marrying traditional knowledge with technology to make travel safer. SmartICE’s SmartBUOY sensors planted in the ice beam information about ice thickness to satellites. SmartQAMUTIK sensors, pulled on sleds along main travel routes, collect even more information. Snowmobilers can access the ice safety data on their smartphones or through regularly updated community Facebook posts.
ON THE MAP
MAP DATA: CONTAINS INFORMATION LICENSED UNDER THE OPEN GOVERNMENT LICENCE – BRITISH COLUMBIA
Exploring Cartography
CUTTING CARBON So far, just one fully electrified Seaspan commercial goods ferry is operating as part of a field trial that Corvus Energy Inc. is running with support from the Supercluster to test its new lithium-ion marine-grade batteries. Corvus has its systems on a total of six ferries along the West Coast — two with Seaspan and four with BC Ferries. It’s part of a grander electrification plan. BC Ferries has six hybrid vessels in its fleet of 37, with two in use now and four more set to sail in 2022 on shorter routes. Battery-operated and designed for full electric operation, the hybrid system bridges the gap until shorecharging infrastructure becomes more common. Eventually, the new lithium-ion batteries could be used more widely, including on cruise ships and freighters when they sail near shore. In all, tens of thousands of ships globally will be eligible for electrification, a move that stands to cut megatonnes of carbon, as well as other airborne pollutants. 32
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As the ocean warms, fish are changing where they go and what they do, becoming harder than ever to track. The Ocean Aware project, with aquatic technologies company Innovasea, is solving some of the mysteries. Optical sensors are being used to monitor the impacts of hydroelectric sites and tidal energy projects on marine life, while along the coast, the company is checking the health of farmed fish by assessing metrics like temperature and ocean chemistry. In the open ocean, the project wants to track the whereabouts of vanishing wild Atlantic salmon, implanting individual fish with small devices that provide a constant stream of data. Most of these innovations are still under development — from optical sensors to ocean chemistry assessors, and from acoustic tracking devices to autonomous gliders. They all add up to a future where we understand the ocean better so we can keep it healthier. CANGEO.CA
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MAP DATA: AQUACULTURE SITES: N.L. DEPT. OF FISHERIES AND LAND RESOURCES; N.S. DEPT. FISHERIES & AQUACULTURE; N.B. DEPT. AGRICULTURE, AQUACULTURE AND FISHERIES; DEPARTMENT OF FISHERIES AND OCEANS HYDROELECTRIC SITES: HYDRO.CANADIANGEOGRAPHIC.CA
EYES AND EARS IN THE SEA
AN EMPTY
LANDSCAPE AFTER MORE THAN A MILLION YEARS ON EARTH, CARIBOU ARE UNDER THREAT OF GLOBAL EXTINCTION. THE PRECIPITOUS DECLINE OF THE ONCE MIGHTY HERDS IS A TRAGEDY THAT IS HARD TO WATCH — AND EVEN HARDER TO REVERSE. BY ALANNA MITCHELL WITH PHOTOGRAPHY BY PETER MATHER
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CARIBOU MAKE DO. They use as little as possible, often what nobody else wants. They perfected this impulse over tens of thousands of years, chasing north after retreating ice sheets while most other hooved animals stayed further south, or spreading themselves thinly across scraps of land in forests and valleys and on mountaintops. They even learned how to survive the privations of winter by subsisting on lichen. Platter-sized hooves — ersatz snowshoes — support them on the snow to reach it on high. Shovelshaped antlers help some of them dig snow craters to find it down low. But getting to the lichen is only part of the survival trick. Caribou also need to squeeze every last bit of nutrition out of the protein-poor food, which means they had to figure out how to reuse their own urea, a chemical byproduct of metabolism, a little like us being able to drink the same cup of coffee twice to get every smidgen of caffeine out 36
of it. The feat continues to impress evolutionary biologists. Suffice it to say that Rangifer tarandus is built for survival. Females even limit themselves to the birth of a single calf each year, the better to husband resources. Yet today, after more than a million years on Earth, the caribou, also known as the reindeer, is under threat of global extinction. In Canada, where the animal is such a national icon that it graces our quarter coin, the species is in ominous shape. Of a dozen ecologically distinct populations (called “designatable units” by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada), one is extinct, six are endangered, three are threatened and two are of special concern. It’s not just a bleak picture; it’s also getting worse. That’s despite huge efforts by conservationists and Indigenous Peoples, streams of scientific analysis, dozens of provincial and federal legal instruments designed to protect caribou, plus lots of money,
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brainpower and passion. It’s like watching a boulder roll down a hill. Only one designatable unit, the little white Peary caribou of the Arctic islands, has improved recently, going from endangered to threatened in the committee’s rating system. “I haven’t given up on caribou, but it’s hard to watch,” says Chris Johnson, a wildlife ecologist at the University of Northern British Columbia in Prince George. He is co-chair of COSEWIC’s terrestrial mammal subcommittee. “We’ve been ringing the alarm for years.” Take, for example, the barrenground caribou, one of the two main types (the other is woodland caribou). These are the vast Arctic herds that still
Alanna Mitchell ( @amitchelltweets) is a Canadian Geographic contributing editor and a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. Peter Mather ( @matherpeter) is a freelance photojournalist and LUMIX ambassador based out of Whitehorse.
opening page: Pregnant caribou on the open coastal plain of Alaska’s North Slope. facing page: Caribou on the Dempster Highway, Yukon. left: A young bull has the beginnings of antlers.
make the longest land migration in North America, pounding their way across the tundra to get to their calving grounds in the North, where females give birth within a few days of each other. The mass trek and group maternity ward is a strategy to keep wolves at bay through the power of congregation. In the mid-1990s, Canada had about 1.8 million barren-ground caribou. By the time the committee assessed them in 2016, a solid million had vanished. “The magnitude of the decline is breathtaking and irrefutable,” says Johnson. “We’re just not finding caribou like we did back in the ’80s and ’90s.” Is it climate disruption, which fiddles with so many of the systems caribou rely on for their delicate dance of survival? Is it too much hunting? Too many wolves? All those roads, seismic lines, mines, oil and gas drilling? The clearcutting? The general creep of human reach? Our insouciance? Our greed? More important, can it be stopped in time to keep caribou on the land?
The answer is simply unclear. The worst prophecies are already coming to pass. Earlier this year, John Krebs, a provincial biologist who is director of resource management for the Kootenay boundary region in southeast B.C., bore witness to the bitter end of the South Purcell herd, one of the 14 remaining isolated populations in the endangered southern mountain designatable unit. Krebs had been watching the herd decline for nearly three decades, starting in the ’90s when he was a wildlife biologist working for the province’s electric utility. Back then, there were about 80 caribou tucked away in the forests of the South Purcell Mountain just north of the United States and west of Alberta. That was already considered too few for a healthy herd. Biologists radio-collared some to track their movements. Provincial policy-makers enacted a cascade of attempts to protect the herd’s core habitat, including restricting road building and snowmobiling. But the
herd’s numbers dropped like a stone anyway, reaching perhaps a couple of dozen in the late 1990s. “It was surprising how quickly it happened,” says Krebs. “Sometimes we felt, did we miss the herd in our survey?” By 2012, the South Purcell herd was in such tough shape that Krebs and other biologists organized a transplant of animals from another herd to bolster numbers. It was an abject failure. Within a couple of years, all the transplants were dead. By 2019, the South Purcell caribou were down to just five animals. That’s when Krebs and his team took four of the remaining animals to a maternity pen near Revelstoke, B.C., in the hope that they would eventually have the chance to join a new herd further north. A single caribou remained in the South Purcell Mountains, an old bull who was far too big and ornery to move. “The viability of the herd has been gone for a while, but the last marker was this bull,” says Krebs. Krebs tracked him, following signals from the animal’s radio collar, encouraged that he kept going. This past April, Krebs got the sign that the collar had stopped moving. On the last day of that month, fearing the worst, he and a colleague did a threehour bush-crash trek into the forest to find out what had happened. They found the bull caribou, dead and partly eaten. He had been jumped by two wolves and had made a final, messy dash through the forest before the wolves killed him. Later, a bear scavenged what was left. “This was not only an animal’s last stand, and last moments, but it was the last of the herd that’s been on that CANGEO.CA
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landscape for thousands of years and was in First Nation oral history,” says Krebs, hesitating as he searches for words to describe the depth of his emotions. “It was profound to me, and I took a moment to take it in, in the bush there.”
to recognize all the interplay among the factors.” Watching one herd die out in real time is hard enough. But the South Purcell caribou are the seventh herd to disappear in southern Alberta and B.C. since 2003 alone, says Melanie
WHEN THE CARIBOU ARE GONE, WHAT’S LEFT IS ‘CASCADING ECOLOGICAL GRIEF.’ The extirpation of the South Purcell herd was all the harder to understand because the area still has lots of prime caribou habitat, says Krebs. Timehonoured conservation approaches of saving landscape and limiting human activity just didn’t work to save the herd, or even its last bull. “I felt not that we betrayed him but that we failed,” says Krebs. “We failed 38
Dickie, research co-ordinator at the caribou monitoring unit of the Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute, who is in the throes of PhD research on the species. She ticks off the names of the other six herds like a mantra of loss: Banff, Purcell Centre, Burnt Pine, South Selkirk, Maligne, George Mountain. “We’ve been talking about doing something for the species for longer
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than I’ve been working on them,” she says.
IT’S NOT JUST the southernmost caribou populations that are vanishing. Many are also in baffling decline across the planet’s northernmost reaches. Globally, numbers have crashed 40 per cent in just three caribou generations, from 4.8 million to 2.9 million, according to the assessment led by Canadian caribou biologist Anne Gunn for the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s red list of endangered species. The findings resulted in the species being listed as vulnerable to extinction in 2015, a first. Some of the declines are happening because of changes to the land. Human activities sever migration routes and destroy habitat. “Caribou
Members of the Fortymile herd cross a creek in Alaska during the postcalving aggregation, when caribou collect together in large groups to avoid predators.
hunting of the Bathurst herd continued until 2010. By 2016, even the tiny Indigenous subsistence hunt of 300 animals had to be cancelled. There just weren’t enough caribou. “I’m glad I’m not a biologist up there,” says Gunn. “It would be a heartbreak to see an empty landscape.”
are creatures of space,” Gunn tells me. “They need that landscape.” They’re also used to using those landscapes to get away, a prime evolutionary survival strategy. Now, human and other predators can get right to where they are, through roads and other conduits. But other mechanisms for the drops in population are not perfectly clear. Climate heating could ramp up disease and parasites. Insect harassment of caribou, already a dangerous plague to mothers trying to rear calves on the tundra, is increasing along with the warmth. Caribou have been known to plunge panicked into the Arctic Ocean to escape the bites of warble flies and nose botflies, or to run non-stop for hours in a frantic struggle to keep bugs at bay. Unregulated hunting in some parts of the world and slow government
responses aren’t helping. And the trends are all going the wrong way, a signal that the declines could keep deepening, Gunn’s red list assessment concludes. Gunn witnessed the problem in microcosm during the three decades she worked as a government biologist in the Northwest Territories. She resigned in 2007 and is now a B.C.based consultant. In 1986, the Bathurst herd, which once spanned the Northwest Territories, Nunavut and northern Saskatchewan and Alberta, numbered nearly half a million, abundant enough that Indigenous Tłį cho hunters alone could depend on taking 14,000 animals a year for food security. By 2018, the herd’s total population had crashed to about 8,000. Despite the trend, which scientists first described in 2003, sport and resident
LOSING CARIBOU is about a lot more than losing a species. Caribou are known as an “umbrella” species, which means that when they are present, so is living space for thousands of other creatures, says wildlife ecologist Robert Serrouya, director of the caribou monitoring unit at the University of Alberta. Watching the disappearance of caribou therefore also comes with the understanding that their loss is linked to the unravelling of a complex, interconnected web of other possible losses, big and small. What about lichens, and the 250-year-old trees they grow on? Mosses? Tiny insects? When one piece of the puzzle goes missing, the effects ripple across the ecosystem. The loss is ineffably personal as well as ecological. “There’s a spiritual connection to knowing we have something that’s history, that’s not changed and not modernized for thousands of years,” says Serrouya. And then there’s the bigger scientific picture. Caribou are not the only species on the brink. As they vanish, they serve as a reminder of the planet’s extraordinary ongoing pulse of extinction. A comprehensive report in 2019 by an international team of CANGEO.CA
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scientists with the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, known as IPBES, found that a million species are in danger of going extinct, more than at any other time in human history. And the rate of extinctions is speeding up. But for Indigenous Peoples who have relied on caribou for generations, the loss is far more than personal or metaphoric or scientific. Caribou reach across culture, identity, spiritual practice, family traditions and psychological health, say the authors of a new Inuitled study on the loss. “This is more than just about caribou as meat,” says Jamie Snook, executive director of the Torngat wildlife, plants and fisheries secretariat in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Labrador and one of the report’s co-authors. “A lot of Inuit feel their time on the land is a determinant of well-being. It’s a protective factor for people.” 40
Snook recalls watching years ago as hundreds of caribou cavorted around a pond right in front of his cabin on Cape Caribou River in Labrador. They were everywhere, wild and unrestrained. “It’s just so holistic to the patterns people have experienced over their lifetimes and generations. Once that all of a sudden disappears or is at risk, it really questions your identity,” he says. When the caribou are gone, what’s left is “cascading ecological grief,” says Ashlee Cunsolo, dean of the school of Arctic and Subarctic studies at the Labrador Institute of Memorial University and another of the study’s co-authors. “When you think about something as keystone as caribou, the tragedy is beyond comprehension,” she says. Cunsolo and Snook had a first-hand look at the depth of the mourning during their study. As part of it, their colleague David Borish, now a postdoctoral student at the Labrador
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Institute, interviewed 84 people in the Nunatsiavut and NunatuKavut regions of Labrador. The work will be released this year as a documentary provisionally called Herd. People from the community agreed to tell their stories after the George River herd’s numbers plummeted and governments imposed a ban on hunting in 2013. The ban didn’t halt the decline. The migratory woodland herd, once among the largest in the world with a recorded peak of 780,000 animals in 1993, shrank to 8,900 in 2016, a drop of 99 per cent, before sliding even further to about 5,200 and recovering slightly this year to 8,300. The stories were harrowing. Not only have some young Labrador Inuit never tasted caribou meat, the staple food of their ancestors, but they also couldn’t distinguish a caribou from a moose. Older hunters grieved at not being able to teach young generations how to hunt and prepare skins and
‘THEY ARE NOT JUST ANIMALS TO US. THEY ARE OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS, OUR FRIENDS AND ANCESTORS.’ meat. They missed the conviviality of being out on the land tracking caribou, savouring the spiritual connection between hunter and prey. “They had deep cravings for this meat and for this experience,” Borish says. “It was much more than just physical craving. It was an emotional craving to interact with this source of culture and pride they had had for so long.” One man told Borish that the loss of caribou was hurting people all over, both body and mind, an acknowledgment of the psychological toll. Some wept during the interviews. They worry that the caribou are gone forever. So do Borish, Snook and Cunsolo. They fear that they have assembled final testimony about the Inuit relationship with caribou. “What if there are no more? What if in 20 years, that’s it, we’ve witnessed the decline of something so important?” asks Cunsolo.
CAN THE CARIBOU BE SAVED? It’s like a three-dimensional puzzle whose pieces keep moving. And there are different answers for animals in different parts of the country. Consider the Arctic’s Bathurst herd. Gunn and her colleagues at the international caribou group called CARMA (for the CircumArctic Rangifer Monitoring and Assessment Network) cite a dizzying range of assaults over the years that may have played a role in the herd’s collapse. For one thing, the animals seem to have abandoned their former fall and winter ranges in the boreal forest, moving to the tundra instead. That
means migration distances doubled, using extra energy. At the same time, mining exploration ramped up across the herd’s tundra home and five diamond mines opened. In the horrible hot summer of 2014, fire destroyed 11 per cent of their preferred winter range. The summers are warmer and droughts are more common, both characteristic of climate heating. These are ill omens for a creature so superbly adapted to the cold. It adds up to more deaths — calves, mothers and bulls — and fewer births. And while caribou numbers have their own mysterious and often vast fluctuations, the CARMA group found that the herd’s cyclical decline was exacerbated by too much hunting and wolf predation. The balance of births and deaths went badly out of whack. Repairing it requires killing wolves as well as restricting hunting for food, says Gunn. She is convinced that if communities near the Bathurst herd had begun killing wolves in 2010 when she recommended the practice, the herd would not have lost as many
opposite: Caribou move to their wintering grounds in the Yukon. below: More roads allow wolves to move through caribou territories.
members and the food harvest would not have had to be reduced to zero. In fact, the wolf kill in that area began only last year. The practice is hotly controversial. The Łutsël K’é Dene First Nation opposes it, for example, saying it is inhumane. But caribou herds have thresholds, says Gunn. Once the herds become too sparse, the animals’ social network is fractured beyond repair. When the animals can’t learn from each other, they become yet more vulnerable. It’s a recipe for extirpation. Industrial activity likely plays a role in the fate of the Bathurst herd, too. To protect the caribou, roads need to be “permeable,” which means relying on convoys and interrupting traffic with daily road closures so the caribou can get across, says Gunn. But the George River herd in Labrador and Quebec foundered even though there’s been little industrial activity near its habitat, says Snook. “It’s some complex combination of factors,” he adds. Meanwhile, in southern Canada, the dire effects of industry are incontroCANGEO.CA
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vertible. The logging of old-growth forests, oil and gas exploration, seismic lines, mining and even wind-power installations all disrupt caribou. And those disturbances are increasing, despite myriad laws to protect the habitats of woodland caribou. During the dozen years ending in 2012, caribou lost twice as much forest cover as they gained throughout Alberta and B.C., according to a study by Serrouya, Dickie and others published in April. In the northern parts of the provinces, the loss came from forest fires; in the south, logging. And by 2018, those losses had intensified even more. The one bright spot was that landuse regulations hashed out by the B.C. government in the mid-1990s to preserve some caribou landscapes actually helped a bit, the study found. “It made things less worse,” says Serrouya. Still, the woodland caribou are North America’s biggest conservation challenge on land, says Serrouya. A pressing issue is that all that logging opens up terrific habitat for deer, moose and elk, the other common ungulate species. The more other ungulates there are, the more wolves.
“Caribou are like the french fries on the side of a hamburger meal,” says Dickie. “Wolves make their living off other ungulates, but if one bumps into a caribou, it’s going to eat it, because it’s food.” Not only that, but more roads and lengthy seismic lines, which are narrow but ubiquitous corridors used to transport equipment to test for oil and gas deposits, make it easier for wolves to move long distances swiftly. That also increases the likelihood of running into a caribou. “It’s kind of a double whammy there,” says Dickie. The ultimate rescue is to create conditions for woodland caribou herds that allow them to be selfsustaining in the wild without heroics from humans. That means letting the forest grow old again, as well as letting nature once more take over the seismic lines and roads that serve as a handy conveyor belt for wolves. Together, these measures would reduce habitat for moose and deer, which would lead to fewer wolves and more caribou in, say, 50 to 100 years. But right now, the situation is so precarious that taking only those long-
‘IT WOULD BE A HEARTBREAK TO SEE AN EMPTY LANDSCAPE.’ And here’s where the woodland caribou’s canny evolutionary strategy becomes a handicap. They evolved to protect themselves in the woodlands by living either alone or in small clusters, so tracking and hunting them wasn’t worth the energy for wolves. Now that wolves have such excellent access to moose, elk and deer in the same habitats where caribou are found, wolf numbers are up — and they encounter caribou more often even when they’re not specifically looking for them. It’s a numbers game. 42
term measures will condemn many of the most southerly herds. “We need to spend a lot of money and public will and energy on conserving and restoring habitat,” Dickie says, “but we can’t pretend that it will magically solve the problem. We need to do some more drastic measures to make sure these herds are around in the short term.” Maybe corralling pregnant females into maternal pens until they give birth and then releasing them back into the wild. Or perhaps creating a year-round
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Caribou in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska during the post-calving aggregation before they travel to Yukon.
captive breeding facility, although that’s still experimental. Or shooting wolves and culling other ungulates. But the two approaches — habitat restoration and emergency rescue tactics — have to work in tandem, or else you end up with the heartbreak of the Little Smoky herd in Alberta. To preserve its 80 or so caribou, sharpshooters take to the skies in helicopters each winter and shoot as many wolves as they can from the air, explains Mark Boyce, a wildlife ecologist at the University of Alberta. Then they drop strychnine poison onto the land to kill even more wolves. Each year, they kill between 100 and 120 wolves, along with the collateral damage of eagles, fishers, lynx, wolverines and the occasional bear. And they’ve been doing it for the better part of two decades, enough to keep the herd extant if not growing. But at the same time, the provincial government continues to approve oil and gas development in Little Smoky habitat. “It’s a bit of a farce,” says Boyce, adding: “It’s the sort of thing you’re just going to have to keep doing forever because we’ve got a large population of
wolves on the broader landscape, and so you go, whack, 100 wolves, and within weeks, they’ve been backfilled with wolves from an adjacent population.” The most potent tool to protect the future of caribou would be for the federal government to issue an emergency order under the Species at Risk Act. That would allow federal rules to be applied to provincial lands, effectively halting logging and oil and gas development in caribou habitat. Is it merited? “From a caribou ecology perspective, it is long past that time,” says Dickie. But in 2018, when Catherine McKenna, then minister of Environment and Climate Change, recommended making an emergency order for the endangered southern mountain designatable unit (which then still included the South Purcell caribou), her federal colleagues balked, saying they preferred “a collaborative stewardship-based approach.” The 2021 federal budget, for example, proposed $2.3 billion over five years to help set up conservation measures for species at risk including caribou. “We strongly believe that a collaborative approach will provide the best outcomes for species at risk conservation in Canada,” said Environment and
Climate Change Canada’s spokesperson Samantha Bayard in an emailed response for this story.
TWO SUNNY STORIES run alongside the portents of catastrophe. One is an illustration of the new approach the federal government advocates. In 2013, West Moberly First Nations and Saulteau First Nations in central B.C. near the Alberta border embarked on a mission to save their 16 remaining caribou by setting up a mountaintop maternity pen and guarding its occupants from wolves until they can be released back into the wild — with radio collars and tags for monitoring. Since then, the nations have also been mapping caribou habitat and working to restore it, and culling wolves. Caribou biologists often cite the nations’ actions as one of the continent’s lone caribou recovery success stories. By February 2020, the herd, now called Klinse-za, numbered more than 80, and the nations signed a 30-year partnership agreement with the provincial and federal governments resulting in two million acres of land in protected areas. The aim is to restore
caribou habitat and help the herd become self-sustaining. It is the first agreement of its kind in Canada. “They are not just animals to us,” West Moberly Chief Roland Willson said at the time. “They are our brothers and sisters, our friends and ancestors. The caribou have been suffering for decades as their habitat is destroyed piece by piece. They need us now, all of us. This partnership agreement gives us hope. It means that help is on the way.” Up in the Arctic, the Porcupine herd has not had to recover. It is still thriving. It is the continent’s last great caribou herd, one of the legendary, migratory barren-ground populations. Every year, its 200,000 or so members race en masse across northern North America to the Arctic coastal plains to give birth. Part of the herd’s success is that its calving grounds in Yukon and Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge are protected from development, at least for now. (Former U.S. President Donald Trump auctioned off oil and gas leases in the refuge during the final weeks of his tenure, and current U.S. President Joe Biden suspended them shortly after taking office. The leases have been a political football field for 40 years.) Part of it is the geography and climate of the herd’s vast habitat that CANGEO.CA
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So, long before their own herd was in trouble, Tetlichi and his board launched a harvest summit to discuss the issues with the communities. Tenderly, over years, the communities hammered out a blueprint describing how they will alter their hunting practices if the herd’s numbers start to fall. It’s based on a fire risk chart: green, yellow, orange, red. Green means the herd’s numbers are strong and people can hunt however they want. Red means the herd’s down to 45,000 and the harvest has to stop. Today, the herd is green. “Partnership really is the key to our success,” says Tetlichi. “We don’t fight with other parties. We walk together.” And they want the caribou to survive. Even as he speaks, he is tuned into the ageless rhythms of the Porcupine herd. The females are pregnant already, and most of the
CANADIAN GEOGRAPHIC SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2021
herd is three-quarters of the way to the refuge, he says. They’ll arrive by the first week of June, as they always do, and they will give birth in the first few days of that month, as they always do. Tetlichi stops there, immersed in his imagination in the vision of all those caribou on the calving grounds, keeping the herd going. But that’s not the end of the story. Tradition says that by summer, with the new calves in tow, they’ll spread out further into the coastal plain and maybe head east, following the plants that sustain them until the autumn’s snowstorms arrive. And that’s when they make the great journey back south to their winter home, as they always do. See more of Peter Mather’s photos of caribou at cangeo.ca/so21/caribou.
MAP: CHRIS BRACKLEY/CAN GEO. CARIBOU DATA PROVIDED BY COSEWIC AND WCS CANADA.
somehow leads to fewer great longterm fluctuations in numbers. Part of it is that, except for the Dempster Highway — the road that stretches 740 kilometres from Dawson City, Yukon, to Inuvik, N.W.T. — there’s little to interrupt caribou migration. But it’s also how the herd is managed. “It’s certainly a model. It should be an inspiration,” says Catherine Gagnon, an independent caribou researcher and post-doctoral student at the University of Quebec, Rimouski. Since 1985, the herd has had the advice of the Porcupine Caribou Management Board, with representation from five Indigenous groups plus the federal and territorial governments. Joe Tetlichi, the board’s chair, says the board watched carefully as herds in other parts of Canada started faltering. George River. Bathurst.
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THE ULTIMATE
CANA DIAN G E OGRAPHY
QUIZ MAP EDITION!
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CANADIAN GEOGRAPHIC SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2021
BY ABI HAYWARD, CHRIS BRACKLEY AND AUSTIN WESTPHAL
H
HERE AT CANADIAN GEOGRAPHIC, WE talk about maps a lot — as you might expect from a geography magazine! “If a picture is worth a thousand words,” mused editor-inchief and associate publisher Aaron Kylie in an editorial discussion last year, “a map is worth a million.” Maps tell stories about our history, our cultures, and the natural and human forces that shaped our landscape. They can take complicated data and make it beautiful, show the land around us in new and enlightening ways, or expose the biases that our societies hold. To some extent, we can see ourselves in the maps we make. No map is perfect — but they’re all interesting (at least, we think so). So, this year’s Ultimate Canadian Geography Quiz is dedicated to maps, past and present, including a special “Cartographer’s Challenge” from our very own mapmaker Chris Brackley. Do you even know which way is up? Is your cartographic nerdiness off the chart? This quiz is all over the map. Good luck! SEE ANSWERS ON PAGE 54.
CHRIS BRACKLEY/CAN GEO
27 QUESTIONS TO CHALLENGE YOUR CARTOGRAPHIC COMPREHENSION
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1
These are the 10 biggest islands in Canada. Can you identify which is which? • • • • •
Axel Heiberg, Umingmat Nunaat Southampton, Shugliaq Victoria, Kitlineq Newfoundland Baffin, Qikiqtaaluk
• • • • •
Ellesmere, Umingmak Nuna Banks, Ḵaa’al Melville, Iluliaq Prince of Wales Devon, Tallurutit
e.
d. j.
c. i.
b.
a.
g. h.
f.
2 3
a) b)
Prime Meridian Tropic of Capricorn
Which line of latitude defines the border between Canada and the United States — from Lake of the Woods all the way west to the Pacific Ocean? a) b)
48
What is the world’s longest line of latitude?
45th parallel 54th parallel
CANADIAN GEOGRAPHIC SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2021
c) d)
49th parallel Tropic of Cancer
c) d)
Tropic of Cancer Equator
4
Which is the first map ever to appear in the Canadian Geographical Journal (the forerunner to Canadian Geographic magazine)?
a.
5
b.
c.
Can you identify the city from the map?
b.
6
For a map scale of 1:20,000, which of the following is true? a) b)
a.
c) d)
CHRIS BRACKLEY/CAN GEO; CANADIAN GEOGRAPHICAL JOURNAL
d.
7
One metre on the map represents 20,000 metres in the real world. One inch on the map represents 20,000 inches in the real world. One centimetre on the map represents 20,000 centimetres in the real world. All of the above.
Is Hamilton, Ont., closer to the North Pole or the equator? North Pole
c.
8
Which ocean accounts for the longest part of Canada’s coastline? a) b)
Pacific Indian
c) d)
Atlantic Arctic
Hamilton
Equator
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CARTOGRAPHER’S CHALLENGE BRAIN TEASERS FROM CANADIAN GEOGRAPHIC’S RESIDENT MAPMAKER CHRIS BRACKLEY
10
If the dot for Quebec City was placed on the Earth at the size shown, about how large in kilometres would the dot be in circumference?
11
a) 150 b) 50 c) 400 d) 15
TRUE OR FALSE
INDIGENOUS PEOPLES DID NOT use maps before Europeans arrived on the continent.
12
Which of these projections is the best approximation of the true shape of Canada? a) b)
a.
50
Geographic Mercator
c) d)
Mollweide Albers equal area
b.
CANADIAN GEOGRAPHIC SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2021
c.
d.
THIS PAGE: CHRIS BRACKLEY/CAN GEO. OPPOSITE PAGE: CHRIS BRACKLEY/CAN GEO; KATTIGARA/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS CC [BY-SA 3.0] ©THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD
9
Which one of these islands is the wrong shape?
13
Which one of these geographical features was not predominately shaped by the last ice age? a) b) c) d)
Rocky Mountains Great Slave Lake Hudson Bay Oak Ridges Moraine
14 TRUE OR FALSE
MODERN MAPPING TECHNOLOGY has made it possible to get an exact measurement of the perimeter of Ellesmere Island.
15
This map from circa 1536 is widely considered to be the first on which the name “Canada” appears. But the original maps that it was based on were lost. Who made these maps? a) b)
Alberto Cantino Jacques Cartier
c) d)
Nicolas Desliens Samuel de Champlain
16 TRUE OR FALSE
NORTH IS ALWAYS up on a printed map.
17
What of the following is not true about Lake Superior? a) b) c) d)
It has the largest volume of any lake in the world Austria could fit into Lake Superior It is the largest lake in the world by surface area There is enough water in Lake Superior to cover all of North and South America by 30 centimetres CANGEO.CA
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b.
18 • •
MATCH the map projection with its name.
Mercator Waterman butterfly
• •
Dymaxion Goode homolosine
a.
d.
19
Which type of isoline is used to show levels of rainfall on a map? a) b) c) d)
20 21
The Arctic Circle, a line of latitude that marks the border of the Arctic, lies approximately at . a) b) c) d)
Which of these three major rivers is which? •
Churchill
•
Mackenzie
•
Ottawa b.
66° 30’ N 66° 30’ S 65° 30’ N 64° 30’ N
a. c.
22 52
Contour lines Isohyets Isotherms Isobars
CANADIAN GEOGRAPHIC SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2021
What is Canada’s largest province or territory by land area? a) b)
Ontario Northwest Territories
c) d)
Quebec Nunavut
THIS PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: STREBE// WIKIMEDIA COMMONS [CC BY-SA 3.0]; JUSTIN KUNIMUNE/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS [CC BY-SA 4.0]; JUSTIN KUNIMUNE/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS [CC BY-SA 4.0]; CHRIS BRACKLEY/CAN GEO. OPPOSITE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: CHRIS BRACKLEY/CAN GEO. ARCTIC COUNCILS DATA: UNEP/GRID-ARENDAL; CONTOUR LINES: WHITEHOUNE/ISTOCK
c.
a.
c. b.
23
Can you identify the largest lakes in Canada based on their shape? d.
f. e.
24
What type of map uses contour lines to show elevation and shape of Earth’s surface? a) b)
25
Topographic map Cadastral map
c) d)
Weather map Political map
Can you identify which North Pole is which? •
Geographic North Pole
•
Magnetic North Pole
•
Geomagnetic North Pole
•
North Pole of inaccessibility
26
What is the average number of maps to appear in an issue of Canadian Geographic? a) b)
27 13
c) d)
27
10 48
What is the name of this map feature (and Royal Canadian Geographical Society symbol)? a) b) c) d)
Compass star Compass rose Compass point Cartographer’s wheel
a.
c. d.
b.
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QUIZ
ANSWERS
1.
See below
2. d) Equator 3. c) 49th parallel 4. a) This map appears in the very first edition of the Canadian Geographical Journal in 1930, in an article on aerial surveying. 5. a) Toronto, b) Halifax, c) Calgary, d) Winnipeg 6. d) All of the above 7.
The equator
8. Arctic CARTOGRAPHER’S CHALLENGE 9. c) This is the shape of Newfoundland 10. b) 50 11. False: Indigenous map making was a common practice before the arrival of Europeans, though due to the ephemeral nature of most of these maps, few have survived to the present. 12. d) Albers equal area e.
13. a) The Rocky Mountains were spared from significant change during the last glaciation, as they were only covered in ice for a short period of time. The other features owe their existence or their shape directly to the ice. 14. False: Though map data continues to improve, shorelines are infinitely more detailed the closer you get to them — making a precise measure of perimeter a virtual impossibility. Add retreating shorelines and glaciers, and fluctuating water levels, and any perimeter measures of a landform are approximate. 15. b) Jacques Cartier likely made the first maps featuring the name “Canada,” but they were lost. The Harleian map, shown above, was based upon Cartier’s maps. 16. Falls: North can be oriented in any direction on the page, as long as the cartographer shows its direction with a north arrow or compass rose.
If directional cues are not printed on the map, north is up. 17. a) Lake Superior has the third-largest volume of water of any lake in the world. 18. a) Dymaxion, b) Goode homolosine, c) Waterman butterfly, d) Mercator 19. b) Isohyets 20. a) Mackenzie, b) Churchill, c) Ottawa 21. a) 66° 30’ N 22. d) Nunavut 23. a) Lake Superior, b) Lake Winnipeg, c) Great Bear Lake, d) Great Slave Lake, e) Lake Huron, f) Lake Erie 24. a) Topographic map 25. a) Geographic North Pole, b) Geomagnetic North Pole, c) North Pole of inaccessibility, d) Magnetic North Pole 26. b) 13, based on the last year of issues (not including this one, as this quiz would surely drive the average up!) 27. b) Compass rose
Ellesmere Umingmak Nuna
d. Axel Heiberg Umingmat Nunaat j.
Baffin Qikiqtaaluk
ARE YOU A
c. Devon Tallurutit i.
b.
Southampton Shugliaq
MAP GENIUS?
Melville Iluliaq
RANK YOUR SCORE 20-26 Close to True North
Banks Ḵaa’al
11-19 Not all those who wander are lost g. Prince of Wales f.
54
Victoria Kitlineq
CANADIAN GEOGRAPHIC SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2021
h.
Newfoundland
5-10 0-5
Better to use a GPS You are lost
CHRIS BRACKLEY/CAN GEO
27 Do you want a job? a.
Where are Canada’s major pipelines and transmission lines located?
What types of energy facilities are found in my province?
Where does energy in Canada come from and how does it get to me?
HOW DOES THE ENERGY THAT POWERS OUR LIVES GET TO US? Explore Energy IQ’s new Interactive Energy Map to learn all about energy production and transmission in Canada! Visit energyiq.canadiangeographic.ca for more information about Canada’s energy story.
’Tis the
SEASON HOW THE PANDEMIC HAS AFFECTED THE TRANSMISSION OF FLU — AND WHY THIS IS NOT THE YEAR TO BLOW OFF YOUR ANNUAL FLU SHOT
A BY BRIAN OWENS
A FUNNY THING HAPPENED last year just as the COVID-19 pandemic began sweeping across the world — the flu disappeared. What had been a fairly serious flu season in the northern hemisphere ended abruptly, while the southern hemisphere season, which usually ramps up as the northern one winds down, never really got going. “We saw flu essentially go away in our surveillance network,” says Dr. Melissa Andrew, a geriatrician and flu researcher at Dalhousie University in Halifax. “And that was true across Canada and around the world.” It’s not a coincidence — right around that time is when we started taking precautions that we know are effective against infectious diseases such as the flu: washing our hands, wearing masks, keeping our distance from other people in public and spending a lot of time alone or with just our immediate families. 56
“Flu is a respiratory pathogen that is transmitted in many of the same ways as COVID-19, so the public health measures to reduce the transmission of COVID-19 played a role in reducing the rate of influenza transmission as well,” says Dr. Matthew Miller, a virologist at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont. As those public health measures have continued while the pandemic drags on, so too have their effects on the flu. In fact, the 2020-21 flu season essentially never happened, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada. “To date this season, there has been no evidence of community circulation of influenza despite continued testing above seasonal levels. Influenza activity has remained below the threshold required to declare the start of the 2020-21 influenza season,” the agency told Canadian Geographic in April 2021 — a month that would usually mark the
CANADIAN GEOGRAPHIC SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2021
beginning of the end of the flu season in a normal year. The national health agency attributes the missing flu season to both the continuing COVID-19 precautions and the immunity offered by the seasonal flu vaccine. In the 2019-20 flu season, just 42 per cent of Canadians got a flu shot, well below the national target of 80 per cent. But in the fall of 2020, public health authorities dramatically ramped up messaging campaigns encouraging people to get the shot, emphasizing that keeping flu numbers low would be a good way to reduce pressure on health-care systems already stretched by the pandemic. While national numbers on
Brian Owens ( @BL_Owens) is a science writer based in St. Stephen, N.B. His work has also appeared in Nature, New Scientist, the Canadian Medical Association Journal, The Lancet and others.
flu vaccine uptake for the 2020-21 season will not be available until later this year, preliminary impressions suggest the campaign was effective. As of Feb. 8, 2021, New Brunswick had distributed 416,920 vaccines, its highest total ever, up from 320,380 the previous year. And in British Columbia, community pharmacists administered 1,064,769 doses of influenza vaccine in 2020-21, up from 724,256 doses in 2019-20, while physicians, nurse practitioners and registered nurses in community practices administered 259,757 doses in 2020-21, compared with just 42,374 doses in 2019-20. “Anecdotally, it seems there was a lot more interest in getting the flu vaccine this year,” says Dr. Andrew. “There were shortages in Nova Scotia because there was more uptake.” Indeed, a survey in May 2020 of 4,501 Canadians over the age of 50 found that the pandemic had significantly increased older adults’ willingness to receive the flu shot. The study, published in the journal Vaccines, was conceived by a cross-disciplinary research team from three Canadian universities. It reported that some 20 per cent of 1,001 research participants aged 50 to 64 said they had not intended to get a flu shot for the 2020-21 flu season but the COVID-19 pandemic had changed their minds. Of these respondents, 92 per cent had not been vaccinated against influenza the year before. Of the 3,500 participants aged 65 and older, eight per cent had not originally planned to get a flu shot but were now likely to receive it. While the success of flu vaccine campaigns and the low flu numbers are good news for most of us, they are making decision-making trickier for the people tasked with deciding which
kinds of influenza virus to include in future versions of the vaccine. Most flu vaccines contain four different strains of flu virus. The World Health Organization monitors which strains are circulating around the world and uses that information to predict which ones are likely to be most common over the next year, so they can be put in the next season’s vaccine. But over the past year, researchers have had very little information to work with. Despite doing far more tests than usual, there was very little flu to find. “The lack of flu makes an accurate prediction of which strains to include in the vaccine very challenging,” says Dr. Miller. The WHO made its recommendation on which strains to include in the 2021-22 northern hemisphere vaccine back in February, based on what it had seen in the tiny numbers from the
strategies, such as working remotely and wearing a mask when there’s a risk of transmission, have become more normalized and may stick around even after the pandemic has passed. That’s why Dr. Miller says, “We might still see a relatively blunted season in 2021-22.” But that doesn’t make the seasonal flu vaccine any less important. It’s unlikely that we will be completely out of the woods when it comes to COVID-19 this winter, so the rationale for getting a flu shot to help reduce the pressure on hospitals still stands. And even if the numbers of people in hospital due to COVID-19 itself are low, hospitals will still be under more strain than usual as they work through the backlog of postponed surgeries and treatments that has built up during the pandemic. “It’s a high priority to make sure we have high flu vaccine uptake to keep the pressure off hospitals,” says Dr. Miller. It’s also a high priority to build on the momentum for flu vaccines to keep more vulnerable populations safer. There is a danger that a couple of mild flu seasons could lead to a big rebound in future years as our natural population immunity slowly wanes without new infections to replenish it. But the flu is an unpredictable virus at the best of times, so there’s no telling what will happen once we wind down our pandemic precautions. “There’s a saying that if you’ve seen one flu season, you’ve seen one flu season,” says Dr. Andrew. “So there’s not much we can do but continue to protect ouru selves as best we can.”
‘ T HERE‘S A SAYING THAT IF YOU‘VE SEEN ONE FLU SEASON, YOU‘VE SEEN ONE FLU SEASON.‘ southern hemisphere season last summer. Just one of the four strains was changed from the previous version of the vaccine, indicating that the strains in circulation will likely be mostly the same ones that were seen before the pandemic. It’s a reasonable assumption, since the small number of infections means the viruses have not had much opportunity to mutate into new strains. But it’s also a gamble. If a new strain did arise but was missed, the vaccine may not provide as strong protection. Though vaccines for COVID-19 were rolled out quickly over the summer, it’s likely that at least some of the public health measures to control the virus’s spread will remain for the foreseeable future. Many of those
Learn more about the impact of seasonal flu and test your flu knowledge with Can Geo’s digital interactive: influenza.canadiangeographic.ca. CANGEO.CA
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*A limited number of people cannot wear masks for health reasons.
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CANADIAN GEOGRAPHIC SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2021
CANADIAN GEOGRAPHIC PODCASTS
JAVIER FRUTOS/CAN GEO
Veteran broadcast journalist David McGuffin interviews Canada’s greatest explorers about their adventures and what inspires their spirit of discovery
HEAR, HERE cangeo.ca/explore, soundcloud.com/cangeo Available on iTunes, Google Play Music and Spotify
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AN EXPLORER UNRAVELS THE STORY OF AN EARLY 20TH CENTURY HAUNTING IN THE ISOLATED FOOTHILLS OF LABRADOR’S MEALY MOUNTAINS BY ADAM SHOALTS WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY ASHLEY MACKENZIE
S
Since the dawn of time, humans have told stories of strange and scary things that lurk in the darkness, beyond the flicker of the firelight. Our earliest ancestors, huddled in caves or simple shelters, feared the sunset, when darkness descended and most large predators became active. Some of the oldest cave paintings ever found depict nameless monsters that apparently hungered for human flesh. Cultures all over the world held similar beliefs about the darkest depths of the woods, remote mountain passes or inaccessible caves being home to flesh-eating trolls, giants, ogres or other frightening things. In traditional Chinese folklore, Jué yuan were large, hairy monsters said to live deep in the mountains and abduct humans. To the north, in the barren wastes of the Mongolian deserts, local legend spoke of the dreaded olgoi-khorkhoi — the Mongolian death worm, which was supposedly so dangerous that even to touch it meant instant death. Meanwhile, in the steamy swamps of Australia, Aboriginal storytellers told of the fearsome bunyip, a terrifying creature with a call so frightening it struck paralyzing fear into the hearts of all who heard it. Half a world away, among peaks of ice and snow, the Sherpa people believed that the yeti lurked. Scandinavian traditions recount that hideous trolls haunted the northern woods and secluded mountains. In the legends of the Congo rainforest, Mokèlé-mbèmbé was reputed to be a horrifying creature that inhabited remote jungle lakes. In southern Africa, among the Zulu and Xhosa, tales were recited of the fearsome Inkanyamba, a giant river monster that prowled beneath waterfalls. Much has been made of the divide between CANGEO.CA
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different cultures, but at least on the subject of monsters lurking in the darkness, it seems people agreed. Canada, with its vast wilderness of primeval forests and thousands of snow-capped mountains, is particularly rich in this kind of lore. My own passion has long been for quiet, lonely woods and other wild places. It’s a habit I first developed in childhood while exploring the woods that surrounded our family home. I love wandering for months without coming across a road or town. By 2019, my wanderings had taken me to nearly every corner of Canada’s immense wilderness. I’d rambled among the ancient hills of northern Quebec and Ontario, paddled the Subarctic rivers, trudged through the swamps and bogs of the Hudson Bay Lowlands, bounded along ice floes in the High Arctic, explored the western mountains, and crossed nearly 4,000 kilometres of Canada’s North alone. Inevitably, in pursuing such journeys and adventures, I’d heard my share of campfire legends. I’d listened on mountain slopes to rumours of sasquatch tracks and the caves they were said to occupy. In the vast swamps surrounding James Bay, I’d heard about strange tracks found in the moss that no one could identify. But most of these stories seemed intangible. They usually followed a similar pattern — the account is vague and the storyteller often doesn’t claim to have personally seen the thing but knows someone who has. After all, in such remote places, it isn’t easy to corroborate such claims. Most wilderness “monster” stories fall into this category: they were made long ago in isolated locales by a single 64
CANADIAN GEOGRAPHIC SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2021
source, far from any other literate observer and with no possibility of cross-referencing them. To take, for instance, a classic example: in 1811, in the dead of winter, the fur trader David Thompson, considered by some to be the greatest mapmaker who ever lived, was snowshoeing with his men through the windswept Athabasca Pass. The surrounding mountains, according to legend, were home to a dreaded creature that Thompson’s voyageurs called “the Mammoth.” Thompson noted that his party came across the tracks of a large, unknown animal. With characteristic precision, Thompson reported the tracks in detail: “January 7: Continuing on our journey in the afternoon we came on the track of a large animal. … I measured it; four large toes each of four inches in length to each a short claw; the ball of the foot sunk three inches lower than the toes, the hinder part of the foot did not mark well, the length fourteen inches, by eight inches in breadth, walking from north to south, and having passed about six hours. We were in no humour to follow him; the Men and Indians would have it to be a young Mammoth and I held it to be the track of a large old grizzled Bear; yet the shortness of the nails, the ball of the foot, and its great size were not that of a Bear, otherwise that of a very large old Bear, his claws worn away; this the Indians would not allow.”
Thompson further explained of the incident: “As the snow was about six inches in depth the track was well defined, and we could see it for a full one hundred yards from us. … We did not attempt to follow it, we had no time for it, and the Hunters, eager as they are to follow and shoot every animal made no attempt to follow this beast, for what could the balls of our fowling guns do against such an animal. Report from old times had made the head branches of this River, and the Mountains in the vicinity the abode of one, or more, very large animals, to which I never appeared to give credence; for these reports appeared to arise from that fondness for the marvellous so common to mankind; but the sight of the track of that large beast staggered me, and I often thought of it, yet never could bring myself to believe such an animal existed, but thought it might be the track of some monster Bear.”
Although Thompson reiterated his suspicion that this creature “might” have been a “monster” bear of more than ordinary size, doubts about it continued to weigh on his mind. He admitted that while the “circumstantial evidence” was “sufficient,” there was as yet “no direct evidence of its existence. Yet when I think of all I have seen and heard, if put on my oath, I could neither assert, nor deny, it’s [sic] existence.” Thompson added that, when moving through the mountain pass, “we hasten our march as much as possible.” While Thompson’s story from more than two centuries ago is fascinating, skeptics can easily dismiss it as little more than a good campfire story. After all, who’s to say Thompson didn’t simply make it all up? Conversely, it’s equally plausible that what Thompson and his voyageurs encountered were simply grizzly bear tracks — just as Thompson’s skeptical side suggested. No doubt many a wilderness legend could be explained away in similar terms. I never took such legends too seriously as far as my own expeditions went — or at least, at any rate, they didn’t much trouble my sleep in the wild.
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That is, until the one that I stumbled across one cold winter’s evening alone in my study, my desk piled high with old maps and books. I was neck-deep in research to complete a PhD in history from McMaster University, studying some old exploration accounts and fur trade records. My primary focus was on Western Canada, but as frequently happens, one reference led to another, and having strayed in my reading I picked up a curious old volume about Labrador, that wild land of mystery and legend. The story dated back to a time when light came from the flicker of a candle or the blaze of a spruce fire, when a person had to rely on their own strength and wits for survival. In the early 1900s, an isolated homestead near the foothills of the remote Mealy Mountains in central Labrador was the scene of an extraordinary haunting by large creatures none could identify. Strange tracks were found in the woods. Unearthly cries were heard in the night. Sled dogs went missing. Children reported being stalked by a terrifying grinning animal. Families slept with cabin doors barred and axes or guns at their bedsides. The eye-witness accounts were detailed, and those who reported them included no less than three medical doctors and a wildlife biologist. Reading the passages I’d unearthed, my mind fixated on that mysterious place on the old map, and the little66
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known mountains that surrounded it. Gradually, as I accumulated more and more evidence that the skeptical side of me couldn’t quite dismiss, I found myself, almost against my better judgment, leaning toward the possibility that something terrifying really did plague that isolated place. The locals believed the creature that had plagued them was from the netherworld, a supernatural demon. And so, I decided to investigate further. There was only so much I could glean from old accounts. Tracing my fingers across the faded map, I resolved to set off for Labrador to see if I could find any trace of this legend — and, from there, plunge into the surrounding mountains. The story of what I found is told in full in my new book, The Whisper on the Night Wind: The True History of a Wilderness Legend.
Adam Shoalts ( @adam_shoalts) is the Royal Canadian Geographical Society’s Westaway Explorer-in-Residence and the author of the national bestsellers Beyond the Trees, A History of Canada in 10 Maps and Alone Against the North. The Whisper on the Night Wind is on sale Oct. 5. Ashley Mackenzie ( @ashmackenzieillustration) is an artist and illustrator based in Edmonton.
Discover Canada by train
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EXCERPT BY TOMSON HIGHWAY WITH ILLUSTRATION BY KERRY HODGSON
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NATURAL FORCES SUCH AS wind and water betray their own rhythms, their own personalities. Those of sub-Arctic Canada are no different. As with humans, their moods are volatile: friends one day, killers another. In fact, we can never tell which mood they will bless or blast us with from one day to the next. So, what are we to do but roll with the punches? Here’s one mood… The first three weeks of August are known for their beauty. No wind, no rain, no mosquitoes, the temperature exquisite. By its last week, however, the fall winds have come and the temperature plunges. Augurs announcing the advent of autumn, they whip the water into waves so gigantic they look like churches coming to get you for not confessing all your sins to Father Cadeau, they are that scary. On the wide-open stretches of Reindeer Lake where there are no islands to paddle to for 68
refuge or hide behind from such Leviathans, you risk losing your life. As with all cultures that live with water, drownings are as common as is death by car in urban realities. Alfoos Zipper (my mother’s younger brother, one of six), Stanley Kamaa-magoos, Paul Peter Beksaka, John Kipawm, Pierre Fitzgerald, Isidore Hatchet, then 18, and his bride, Marianne, then 16 and pregnant with their first child, the list goes on. Even one September, Dad’s entire team of sled dogs, all eight of them devoured by insatiable, omnivorous Reindeer Lake, their bodies never found. In the case of Stanley Kamaamagoos and Paul Peter Beksaka, who were fishing together this one summer, their bodies were discovered washed up on a beach behind House Point some 15 miles west of Brochet. Stark-naked and frozen rock-solid, they had swum ashore and tried, in vain — in October? in the midst of snow flurries? with no dry matches? — to dry their clothes.
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And to think that, even with such lessons, no one — not us children, not the elderly — wears a life jacket. The life jacket? Lockhart brought it to Reindeer Lake for his Arctic Lodge guests in the summer of 1958. Strictly for Keechimoogoo-maanak (Americans), we don’t even have a word for the object, not in Cree, not in Dene. At camps, on the other hand, such winds have been known to blow tents down. Seasonal family domiciles the size of small houses, the main tent especially — where sleep our parents and, when it rains, where we eat — is sometimes as much as 10 yards long, six yards wide, and six feet high,
Tomson Highway is best-known for the plays The Rez Sisters and Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing, as well as the best-selling novel Kiss of the Fur Queen. Kerry Hodgson ( @kerryannder) is a freelance illustrator, designer and visual artist living in Halifax.
virtually a tent that can accommodate a circus, if a small one. The men out minding the nets on any given day, it is generally just us children and the women there to tend to home fires. Which is what we’re doing when, out of nowhere, a wind appears and, like a starving animal, attacks our tent. Suddenly, the canvas dwelling is trembling to the point where we, its occupants, believe it is perfectly capable of being ripped from its moorings and flying to the barrens. Which is all Mom needs to leap into action. Flinging aside the moccasin she is chewing to make it pointy, she jumps to her feet and grabs, at its middle, the central beam that serves as spine to the structure. An unpeeled spruce log propped up by two other spruce logs standing vertical at the tent’s front and back ends, this beam hovers just short of six feet above ground level. At five foot three and standing on tiptoe, Mom can barely reach it (and Rene and I are as yet too short to help her). At eight inches thick and 10 yards long, the beam has a weight that matches its bulk. For one small woman to withstand its might is one tall order; if it falls, the whole tent collapses, and Mom well knows it. Worse, if that beam falls on someone’s head, especially boys of four and seven, it kills them. To lose her sons to this bastard
of a current of sub-Arctic flatulence? Out of the question. The wind now grown to tornado proportions, it swoops and screams. And that beam shakes and trembles something terrible and the canvas material shakes and trembles something terrible and Balazee Highway shakes and trembles something terrible. Her arms held up above her head, her wiry frame vibrating like a string on a fiddle, she clutches that beam like no beam on Earth has ever been clutched before. And as she does, she shrieks at us, “wathaweek, wathaweek” (“get out, get out!”). Accordingly, Rene and I (and Itchy) go stumbling our way out the one door, our hands held over our heads as protection. Once safely outside, we stand there buffeted and lashed and torn like scraps of paper, clinging to trees, to branches, to whatever object we can get our hands on, the roar infernal. All as we watch our tent engage in a dance that rivals in athletic virility the one danced by Satan and the archangel Michael on that dreadful day. Fortunately, the stakes of willow that anchor its borders are sunk so deeply into the soil that they don’t budge. We watch that structure shake and shake and shake and shake. Until, like a punctured balloon, it all comes
down, tent, beam, and mother. And the whole structure lies there with the stove (unlit, thank God) and bed and grub box and, yes, Balazee Highway betraying their shapes like lumps in pudding, those shapes, for now, eerily inanimate. All that moves is the canvas of the tent, which flaps and ripples in a wind that will not stop. What now? Is Mom dead? Killed by the beam she has fought so bravely? But no, there is movement. Like Sylvester the Cat (I will think later) crawling under a carpet to sneak up on lunch, the songbird Tweety, Mom’s cat-like form comes snaking and weaving its way through the crumple of flapping and rippling canvas until her head pops out the only door. Alive, unbowed, her hairdo a mess, she looks at us with an expression that says, “Cheest?” (“You see?”) “I told you I could do it.” Her eyes crossed slightly, she is seeing chickadees flying little circles around her head (she tells us later). Excerpted from Permanent Astonishment by Tomson Highway. Copyright ©2021 Tomson Highway. Published by Doubleday Canada, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited. Reproduced by arrangement with the Publisher. All rights reserved. Permanent Astonishment is on sale Sept. 28. CANGEO.CA
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SPACE CASE INTERVIEW BY DAVID MCGUFFIN
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Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield launches his first novel The Apollo Murders, a thriller set in 1973 against the backdrop of the Cold War and the space race. The author shares insights on the process of crafting a novel that borrows heavily from his own space adventures and experiences.
On art imitating life Everybody says write what you know. When you return from having flown to space three times and living off the world for six months, you’re faced with the question of what to do with this human experience. How can you share this? That’s why I teach, do interviews, write about it and do TV series about it. I thought writing a fiction book that would really give people a feel for what spaceflight is like would be an interesting personal challenge — but would also give readers an almost intuitive feel for the extremely rare experiences that I’ve been lucky enough to have.
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On creating Russian characters I lived in Russia for about five years. I was NASA’s director of operations in Russia for a couple of years. I have a good understanding of the Russian space program and, to some degree, Russia and its people. It’s so easy to categorize some other part of the world as one dimensional or maybe just two dimensional. But, of course, every single Russian person is different, and they each have their own desires. And there is no uniform, monolithic definition of what a Soviet or a Russian person is. People are motivated by their own goals and their own dreams, and they’re trying to be good contributors to their own particular part of society. That’s been my experience. In The Apollo Murders, I wanted to show that every single person in the book is imperfect and is motivated by different goals.
On keeping it real It was really important to me as an astronaut and a test pilot that this book be real. Yes, it’s a thriller, but
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probably 95 per cent of the things in the book are real things — things that exist, things that happened, people who were real. Over half of the characters in my book are real people. So that made it a lot of fun to write. The book is completely based on the reality of what was going on at the time — the Russian spy space station, what was happening on the moon. Having the story so closely interwoven with facts about spaceflight adds a layer to the book that most mysteries don’t have.
On channelling the 1970s When I wrote The Apollo Murders, I wanted to truly tell what was going on — how it looked from various individuals’ points of view. What did it look like from [U.S. president Richard] Nixon’s point of view? From [U.S. national security advisor Henry] Kissinger’s? From the head of the Soviet space program at the time? From [KGB head Yuri] Andropov’s? What agendas were they following? That allows for a clearer look at what we’re all doing right
now and recognizing how important it is to establish the rules and laws as we start to leave Earth permanently. Maybe readers will get a little better
had 15 nations, including some that fought each other to the death in the Second World War, who have lived for the last 20 years on a spaceship
THE BOOK IS COMPLETELY BASED ON THE REALITY OF WHAT WAS GOING ON AT THE TIME — THE RUSSIAN SPY SPACE STATION, WHAT WAS HAPPENING ON THE MOON. feel for those issues while they’re hopefully being thrilled and excited by The Apollo Murders.
On keeping space safe Unfortunately, there’s nothing sacred about space. People are going to continue to act like people. Reconciling our differences over issues in space will never be perfect until people are perfect. And that’s not going to happen. And as soon as we start living permanently in space, we’re going to have to have controls in place. You need rules. You need laws. You need a legal system. You need societal norms. You need cultural norms. The International Space Station has
under the international crew code of conduct. That’s not an Earth set of laws; it’s our own set of laws that supersede what’s going on on Earth. And we have lived productively and peacefully and internationally on the space station since the year 2000 despite great varieties of animosity and political and financial troubles on Earth. And so that does bode well for the future.
On the essence of being an explorer It’s fuelled by curiosity initially. But there’s a second piece to it. Curiosity’s fine, but that curiosity is useless without a desire to find out the answer. The
real essence of exploration is to continuously be curious about everything around you — the world and beyond — but also with the unquenchable imperative to try to the best of our abilities to answer that curiosity and then make that answer part of the pyramid of understanding that you stand on. You can then ask even better questions in the future and hopefully, within your life, not just improve your own understanding of what’s around us but maybe also help other people better understand everything around us. That is my version and my understanding of exploration.
Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield served as commander of the International Space Station. His previous non-fiction works are An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth and You Are Here, as well as the children’s book The Darkest Dark. The Apollo Murders is on sale Oct. 12. Listen to the full interview on the Explore podcast, to be released Sept. 6. cangeo.ca/explore.
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INTO THE
ARCTIC CANADIAN PAINTER AND FILMMAKER CORY TRÉPANIER EXPLORES
ASGARD (STUDY), 2019; GLACIER LAKE, TURNER GLACIER, AND MOUNT ASGARD; AKSHAYUK PASS, AUYUITTUQ NATIONAL PARK, BAFFIN ISLAND, NUNAVUT; OIL ON LINEN, 13.5” × 16”
THE SUBLIME AND RAPIDLY CHANGING CANADIAN ARCTIC PAINTINGS AND CAPTIONS BY CORY TRÉPANIER
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FIFTEEN YEARS AGO, Cory Trépanier set off on the first of five expeditions to the Canadian Arctic. His mission? To explore and record the sublime beauty of the remote wilderness of the Far North. The filmmaker and painter would travel more than 60,000 kilometres between 2006 and 2018, using the landscapes he encountered as inspiration for more than 100 oil paintings and three documentary films. Into the Arctic: Painting Canada’s Changing North preserves a changing land in a limited-edition coffee-table book that includes Trépanier’s behind-the-scenes stories about each painting (a selection included here), as well as thoughts from fellow Arctic enthusiasts and experts who evoke the power and magic of the polar region through their words. Contributors include guide Billy Arnaquq of Nunavut Experience Outfitting Services, acclaimed naturalist and painter Robert Bateman, celebrated explorer and cultural anthropologist Wade Davis and Royal Canadian Geographical Society CEO John Geiger. Trépanier has said that through conveying “the sense of wonder and awe I have when I’m out there,” he hopes his work will inspire efforts to preserve and protect the fragile Arctic ecosystem and the way of life of the North’s inhabitants. Into the Arctic can be pre-ordered through Trépanier’s website and is available Sept. 28.
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Asgard (study), 2019 In Norse mythology, Asgard is the dwelling place of the gods. In the Arctic, it’s a spectacular mountain in Auyuittuq National Park on Baffin Island, Nunavut. I first heard about the mountain, known to the Inuit as Sivanitirutinguak, while preparing for my 2007 expedition. I never made it there, as my attention was instead consumed with Thor Peak [also in Auyuittuq National Park]. Eleven years later, a 50-kilometre hike brought me and my daughter Sydney there at last. Camping on the edge of Glacier Lake, we watched Asgard rise into the clouds. I had been searching for a striking view that could lead to a large companion painting for my Thor canvas. Packing up camp under a dusting of fresh snow, I struggled with the idea of leaving this place. Then the sky opened and I disappeared over the rise in search once more. A composition formed unlike any I could have imagined. The light caught the fresh snow on Asgard, streaking intermittently across the surface of Glacier Lake, tied together by the icy tongue of Turner Glacier spilling down the valley. Within half an hour, it was over. The mysterious mood that piqued my euphoria gave way to a different kind of beauty as clouds were replaced by clear skies and a clarity seldom found elsewhere. I sat and took it all in, trying to absorb the experience — to bottle it up inside in hopes it would spill onto a large Asgard canvas back at the studio, so I could share with others the wonder I felt. I cannot help but wonder what will remain of this rapidly receding Turner Glacier if I have the good fortune to return here 30 years from now.
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At Rest, Beechey Island, 2017 (above) The 1845 Franklin Expedition gravesite on Beechey Island [Iluvialuit] is one of the most vivid examples of the history of Arctic exploration by Europeans. I was there with Inuit outfitter Randy Nungaq and his son Sheldon, from Resolute. They watched for polar bears as I approached the graves, headstones bathed in the warm glow of the setting sun. Despite my fascination with history, I found myself caught up in the present, amid the ethereal beauty of this sombre place.
SAM’S WALL, 2015; KANGIQTUALUK UQQUQTI (SAM FORD FIORD), BAFFIN ISLAND, NORTH OF CLYDE RIVER, NUNAVUT OIL ON LINEN, 23” × 75”. AT REST, BEECHEY ISLAND, 2017; 1845 FRANKLIN EXPEDITION GRAVESITE, BEECHEY ISLAND, NORTHWEST PASSAGE, NUNAVUT; OIL ON LINEN, 31” × 75”
Sam’s Wall, 2015 (below) At 180 kilometres from the nearest Arctic community of Clyde River [Kangiqtugaapik] and over 3,000 kilometres from my home in Caledon, Ont., Kangiqtualuk Uqquqti (Sam Ford Fiord) defines “remote.” The variety and beauty of countless jagged peaks overwhelmed me as I wielded my brush to document this magical place. I hope this painting conveys the grandeur of this wilderness.
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Ephemeral Beauty, 2020 (left) Gracing the land briefly each summer, the flora carpeting each side of the creek was a sight to behold. In this harsh land so far north, it is always a wonder to witness such delicate beauty surviving against all odds, including a short growing season that plunges into winter darkness and cold for months each year. I also loved the contrast against the raw mountains in the background and the rare opportunity to use such vivid magenta hues in an Arctic painting. This painting was created in Quttinirpaaq National Park on Ellesmere Island [Umingmak Nuna], Nunavut. CANGEO.CA
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WILBERFORCE, 2017; KATTIMANNAP QURLUA (WILBERFORCE FALLS), HOOD RIVER, WEST OF BATHURST INLET, NUNAVUT OIL ON LINEN, 90” × 66”. EPHEMERAL BEAUTY, 2020; TANQUARY FIORD, QUTTINIRPAAQ NATIONAL PARK, ELLESMERE ISLAND, NUNAVUT; OIL ON LINEN, 20” × 60”
Wilberforce, 2017 (right) Painting in the Arctic has offered me a wealth of new experiences: encounters with wildlife, learning about Inuit culture, connecting with history, studying hardy and ephemeral Arctic flora. This is Kattimannap Qurlua (formerly called Wilberforce Falls), Nunavut. Some of the only art I had seen of this hidden gem is an etching from explorer John Franklin’s first expedition, which travelled up the Hood River in 1821. His crew included artists George Back and Robert Hood, from whose sketches an etching was derived. Franklin was so impressed with the falls during his early explorations that he named them after William Wilberforce, a British politician whose life’s work led eventually to the abolition of the slave trade in most of the British Empire. This natural wonder captivated me completely as I tied my easel to a nearby bush at the cliff’s edge. I revelled in the roar of the water, was mesmerized by the colourful, shifting prism in the mist and was awed by the steep, red-walled cliffs. Here, I felt the exhilaration of painting in a truly wild place, one that I hope will remain so forever.
YOUR ADVENTURE STARTS
HERE
[CAPE BRETON HIGHLANDS NATIONAL PARK, N.S.]
CURTIS WATSON/CANGEO PHOTO CLUB
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Check out amazing stories and adventures to inspire your next trip at cangeotravel.ca
YOUR
SOCIETY
NEWS FROM THE ROYAL CANADIAN GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY
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oming soon to a screen near you! The Royal Canadian Geographical Society, which has championed exploration since its inception, recently embarked on a new journey of discovery. The Exploration Film Grant Program sees the Society team up with Mountain Equipment Co-op to provide a launch pad for the next generation of filmmakers intent on telling the stories that will change our world for the better. The collaboration affirms both organizations’ commitment to supporting emerging visions that inform, inspire, capture or reveal a personal journey through Canada’s majestic landscapes. This new grant program will encourage the next generation of explorers to tell stories from the field: stories that explore adventure and scientific discovery, diversity and inclusion, truth and reconciliation. The grant program is open to submissions from independent filmmakers, production companies or groups. “Through this grant program, we will provide a launch pad for emerging
filmmakers who are rethinking how we tell stories about Canada and the greater world,” says Gilles Gagnier, the Society’s chief operating officer. There are two types of grants: the E x p l o r a t i o n Fe a t u r e a n d t h e Exploration Short. Under the Exploration Feature, a documentary production grant, the Society will dispense three grants of $5,000 on behalf of MEC to independent producers, production companies or groups looking to create a film of 40 minutes or more during their expedition. The Exploration Short, a post-production grant, will offer five $2,500 contributions for shorter films that entered post-production in the first six months of 2021. The Exploration Film Grant Program underscores the Society’s commitment to the importance of the power of filmmaking to showcase modern exploration and discovery. —Canadian Geographic staff Learn more about the Exploration Film
SOCIETY BRIEFS RESEARCHER EMILY CHOY, who studies the effects of environmental change on Arctic marine predators, has been appointed an RCGS Explorer-in-Residence. “I hope to inspire youth from diverse backgrounds to develop an interest in wildlife issues in the North,” said Choy, who is best known for her expeditions to Coats Island to study thickbilled murre populations. GURDEEP PANDHER received the 2021 Louie Kamookak Medal this past July for the national impact he has had by bridging cross-cultural divides, promoting inclusivity and spreading optimism and joy during the dark days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using the natural and geographic splendour of the Yukon as a backdrop, Pandher dances Bhangra — a traditional dance from Punjab — to spread positivity and showcase multiculturalism in Canada.
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: ROWAN JORDAN/ISTOCK; ROBERT CARTER/CAN GEO; BEN POWLESS/CAN GEO
NEW EXPLORATION FILM GRANTS SUPPORT EMERGING FILMMAKERS
THE HEART GARDEN at RCGS headquarters was removed on July 2 in a moving ceremony presided over by Elder Albert Dumont, the poet, storyteller and Algonquin traditional teacher. The hearts from the garden, established by Society employees and local volunteers to honour children who died at residential schools, will be transferred to the Shingwauk Residential Schools Centre in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.
Grant Program at rcgs.org.
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Y O U R S O CIE TY | F EL L OWS
FEATURED FELLOW: RICHARD WIESE
Richard Wiese, shown here filming a BBC special in Ethiopia, was the youngest president of the Explorers Club.
On his mentors and role models Growing up, I had two really great mentors who pointed me in the direction of science. The first was my father, Richard, who was the first man to fly solo over the Pacific Ocean in an airplane. My fondest memories as a kid were standing on our lawn talking 78
with him about celestial navigation or weather patterns in the sky. When I was 11, he took me to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, which kicked in the exploration bug. My other mentor was my uncle, Richard Lanza, who is a nuclear engineer at MIT. When I was a little kid playing with dinosaur toys, he would talk to me about everything and anything about our planet. To this day, both men are still strong advisers in my life and I owe so much to them.
On discovering the Explorers Club One of the things I liked about living in New York as a young man was going to really great lectures on all sorts of cool topics. Sometime in the 1980s, I wandered into the Explorers Club. The lecture was on the black bears of northern New Jersey and I remember thinking, “Wow, I’ve found my people.” Speakers talked about Mount Everest and the bottoms of our oceans and other fantastical things that seemed so magical.
On his television travel series Born to Explore Born to Explore has the goal of bridging cultural gaps and teaching people the importance of stewardship of the land. There are so many great stories
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and so many cultures that didn’t have a wider platform available to them previously, but this show has allowed them to speak. I think it’s made me a better person to have worked in that kind of environment.
On past explorations and expeditions in Canada I’ve been lucky to have been invited on a lot of terrific cutting-edge expeditions. I have been to the Yukon, filmed in the Torngat Mountains, tracked polar bears in Arviat and explored B.C.’s Rainbow Range, to name a few. With all these experiences, the most memorable aspect has always been the people I have met along the way.
On becoming a Society Fellow Society president John Geiger is a member of the Explorers Club, and we are really lucky to have him. When I was made a Fellow, I was really touched and honoured and I tried to absorb as much of the experience as possible. There’s a trust and respect between John and me, where we can speak openly with one another and give each other advice on how to make our organizations better. —Interview by Samantha Pope Read more Featured Fellow interviews at cangeo.ca/featuredfellow.
BORN TO EXPLORE
he Explorers Club, an international society dedicated to promoting scientific exploration and field study, has welcomed many famous explorers over its 116-year history. A look through its membership reads like a who’s who of adventurers — Roald Amundsen, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, Jane Goodall, Sylvia Earle, Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong, to name a few. The most recent past president of this storied club is Richard Wiese, a world-renowned American explorer and scientist best known for the television series Born to Explore. In 2002 at age 41, Wiese was the youngest person to become president of the Explorers Club. It was his accomplishments and dedication to the environment, wildlife, exploration and Indigenous Peoples that also led him to be named a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society in 2019. Canadian Geographic spoke to him about his life of exploration.
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COMING UP QUIZ ME! The Ultimate Canadian Geography Quiz is here, a special collector’s edition that will test your knowledge of Canada’s geology and weather, wildlife and place names. Are you a geo genius, a certified geographer or perhaps just a little lost? Embrace the challenge and find out! On newsstands in early October.
INTO THE WEEDS
MÉTIS STORIES Watch for it. Canadian Geographic and the Métis Nation of Ontario explore the unique culture and deep historical roots of the province’s Métis through an upcoming feature and a fold-out poster map.
CELEBRATING HERSTORY November marks 75 years since Viola Desmond challenged racial segregation in Nova Scotia, while December is the 100th anniversary of the election of Agnes Macphail (shown), Canada’s first female member of Parliament. Canadian Geographic celebrates these women who have shaped our nation’s history through Commemorate Canada, a collaboration with Canadian Heritage to recognize Canadian anniversaries of significance. 80
CANADIAN GEOGRAPHIC SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2021
Subscribe or renew today at canadiangeographic.ca/subscribe or by calling 1-800-267-0824. The November/December 2021 issue hits newsstands on Oct. 18, 2021.
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: MAXWEL HOHN; MATT LEMAY; KELSEY STUDIOS. AGNES MACPHAIL FONDS. LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA, C006908
This tasty bounty from the sea is good for both you and the environment. Kelp is a fast-growing seaweed that’s being billed as the next wonder food, with the World Bank predicting that seaweed farming could supply almost 10 per cent of the world’s food by 2050. A look at Canada’s kelp future.
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Kleskun Hill Natural Area near Grande Prairie, Alta., shot under a full moon.
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OUR COUNTRY Revealing Canada
The reporter and author on her nostalgia for the independent theatre in her hometown of Forest, Ont.
What’s your favourite Canadian place? Tell us on Twitter (@CanGeo) using the hashtag #ShareCanGeo. Or share it with us on Facebook (facebook.com/cangeo).
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I grew up in Forest, Ont. It’s a tiny town with two stoplights. You wouldn’t think much of it passing by, but there is something really special in Forest that gives me a rush of feel-good nostalgia — the Kineto Theatre. Established in 1917, the theatre is among the oldest continuously operating movie theatres in the world. There was a little concession where you could get buttery popcorn. And old, slumpy red seats I’d plop down onto and then wait eagerly for the lights to dim and the film to start rolling. It’s a beautiful little building that was a big part of my childhood and youth. It’s not that common for very small towns to have movie theatres, so I always felt lucky we had one. It was so nice to meet up with a bunch of friends, get some ice cream and then go watch the big blockbuster that had just come out. Working at the concession stand was a coveted job in high school. My parents took me to see my first movie at the Kineto: Snow White. I don’t think I made it past the first 10 minutes because I was terrified by one of the opening scenes where she was running through the woods. But it’s memories like these that have such a nostalgic impact. I have young kids of my own now and I’m excited to take them to Forest and the theatre when they’re older. It’s such an exciting feeling the first time your parents drop you off at the Kineto to watch a movie, and you get to go out on your own. You really get that special taste of independence. —As told to Samantha Pope
CANADIAN GEOGRAPHIC SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2021
MICAELA DAWN/CAN GEO
Robyn Doolittle
ROYAL CANADIAN GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY
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