WWF

We are nearing the expedition’s end. Our onboard team – or rather, family – begins to collect the pieces and connect the dots between the words and the direct effects of climate change.

By Zoë Caron Two evenings back, I gave an introductory presentation on climate change – the raw basics. The questions from these people are directly hitting the nail on the head, ranging from topics including renewable energy, oil drilling in the high arctic, and climate change impact on the oceans. Read the other Students on […]

Today is ice-free. We are north of 60 and we are clad in t-shirts, windbreakers, and 50 SPF sunscreen. The walruses roll over to expose their deep pink bellies – coloured by their blood rising to the surface of their skin, a sign of the warmest of body temperatures.

The 10-year-old country girl in me has wondered for the past year, “Why in the world do I live in Toronto?” The city is vibrant, deep, wondrous – yet it is still a city. And no matter how hard I try to fully embrace that home, my veins still race with dreams of greenery and fresh breezes and a pure sense of stillness. As we sat on shore amidst mist-grazed grass and crumbled rocky slopes hugging our perimeter, overlooking Douglas Bay, that feeling was once-again revived.

The excitement was palpable in Ottawa’s beautifully restored Museum of Nature. Eighty university and high school students from 5 countries grinned through a “speed dating” session with the 35 authors, artists, elders, media celebrities, polar scientists, educators and researchers accompanying them on an adventure of a lifetime.

WWF is supporting a group of seven young people from the Arctic as they paddle a traditional canoe along the west coast of North America from Vancouver, Canada, to Neah Bay in the United States. As they progress along the coast, they are stopping in communities along the way to share their stories of the impacts of climate change in the homelands.

By Clive Tesar Sitting in a large hotel room in Ottawa, two of the three people who completed a Catlin Arctic Survey trek to the North Pole wore badges of their gruelling trip – frostbite scars on their faces. What kept them going to their polar destination said Ann Daniels, one of the trekkers, was […]

We are all happy to see fair weather in the morning. It is not unusual in coastal areas of Alaska to be stuck for days with fog, wind, and weather. We had heard reports of a brown bear and a cub along the road, but fail to see it on our way to the airstrip. Plenty of caribou and ptarmigan glance our way as we make our drive and there are patches of snow dotting the still brown tundra. Winter has not fully let go of this northern place.

Our last day for flight operations and we are all up early. Well, everyone but Jessica, our dedicated lab whiz, who was up until 3 AM working on the samples from the six bears we brought her late last night.

I stare out into a snowy and partially foggy morning as I work my way through breakfast and my morning coffee. Patchy squalls moving across the tundra and out on the ice – could go either direction today. The change in weather is expected, but we hoped for a couple of more blue sky weather days. The visibility is still fair, and the fixed wing will have no trouble flying, so we’ll push on out and see what we can accomplish today.