August 17, 2017
We have some remarkable people on board leg 9 of the C3 journey; with time on board as we travel from one incredible place to the next, there is lots of time for deep conversations as we eat, participate in programming, or hang out in the ‘Knot’, the ship’s lounge. We were lucky to hear from our three youth ambassadors today – Aviaq Johnston, Marta Thorpe, and Ann Makosinski. Each is impressive in her accomplishments – Aviaq is a published author, Marta is an experienced undergrad researcher (who has milked a squirrel!), and Ann already has a few inventions under her belt at 19. (Read more about each of them here.) As one of our themes is youth engagement, I’ve been interested to learn more from these young women what has led them to be fully engaged learners? Each has spoken about the power of having dedicated and skilled teachers – for Ann, it was her parents, for Aviag, a high school teacher, and for Marta, a few of her university professors on the research site near Yellowknife. It’s a good reminder that education can take place is many settings – you don’t need a formal classroom for engaged learning to happen.
This was only reinforced by our visit to Beechey Island tonight. This is one of the documented landing sites of the Franklin Expedition in 1845; the graves of three of the members of their expedition are buried here. With the help of David Grey (an accomplished Arctic researcher and historian), and Tom Zagon (a member of the team that has been searching for the ships of the Franklin Expedition), we got an excellent introduction, in situ, to the early British explorers of the North West Passage. The island is a bleak yet starkly beautiful place, and we were moved by knowing we were treading in the footsteps of these courageous men (some of whom were the age of my sons now.) On the return to our ship (and after a wonderful reception on the Coast Guard’s ship the Henry Larsen), we were reminded of the legacy of the colonial explorers on the Inuit by Jaypooti and Jena, two of the Inuit on this journey. Their honest sharing of the negative effects of these explorations – violence, degradation, domination, and colonialism – was a thoughtful counterbalance to the British perspective that has pervaded the history many of us have been taught about the Arctic. Jaypooti, Jena, and Aviaq are proving to be knowledgeable, generous, and respectful teachers for us all, and we are lucky to have them on this journey with us.
