Latest / The iAlign Podcast with Flint Mitchell / #30 - Exploring the Polar Regions, Life-Changing Encounters with Nature, and Inspiring Women to Embrace the Wilderness with Polar Expedition Guide Claire Wallace

Transcript

#30 - Exploring the Polar Regions, Life-Changing Encounters with Nature, and Inspiring Women to Embrace the Wilderness with Polar Expedition Guide Claire Wallace · The iAlign Podcast with Flint Mitchell

• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: I remember we kind of approached the whales from a distance and just sort of allowed ourselves to drift, and they got more and more comfortable with us.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: And the whales ended up coming right up to the zodiac, and they were just circling meeting people with us, losing their minds.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know, nobody said a word.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: We were all just completely inaccurate.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: But I remember looking over at this, you know, wonderful, uh kind of middle-aged woman, and um you can just see her glasses are just completely fogged up, and she's got tears streaming down her face, and just looks directly at me as she takes her glasses off, and she says, This is the best moment of my entire life.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: What's up, y'all?
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Seeking Authenticity.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Flint Mitchell, and I get absolutely psyched by having conversations with authentic people that I admire about the things they value.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Their stories and perspectives don't just make me smile, laugh, and think.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: They inspire me to wake up earlier, listen better, focus, and work harder, and help make me a better version of myself.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: And it's my hope that sharing these conversations through this podcast might do the same thing for you.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: In this episode, I talk with Claire Wallace, an outdoor expedition guide and polar law specialist who has been guiding in the polar regions for six years now.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Claire has a fantastic story of finding her passion while actively traveling and searching for a career after college.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: In this conversation, we not only talk about how she became a polar expedition guide, but also what she loves so much about the polar regions, what kind of experiences really change people's lives and perspectives on conservation, and about her desire to motivate and inspire women to explore and work in the outdoors.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: She has some incredible stories and knowledge that I appreciated hearing, and I know you will too.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Enjoy.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for doing this with me, Claire.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate it.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely, no problem.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, it seems like within a relatively short uh career so far, you've amassed a pretty wicked collection of experiences in the outdoors, guiding um traveling in a range of different uh areas and and now kind of focusing, it sounds like in the polar regions.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: I was wondering if you could tell me a bit about maybe the start of this desire to be an outdoor guide or what has led you to that point right now.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: I think if I look back on the thoughts I had when I was younger, nothing really stuck out as wanting to be a professional guide.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't have ambitions as a young girl to grow up and be a professional guide because it didn't really seem like a career that um was sustainable.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's a very physical career.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: You use your body a lot.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: And if you get hurt, it's very difficult to support yourself.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: And there's, you know, the traditional aspect of it being rather underpaid compared to other professions exactly um interests me.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I can't quite place a finger on wanting to be kind of a moment in time of wanting to become an outdoor guide.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I suppose I sort of fell into it by accident.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: I started off guiding quite young, I was 18, and I started in Iceland.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I did that for four summers throughout university as a college job, essentially, a way to keep busy, make a bit of money, travel a bit.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: And after that, I always assumed I would progress into a more respectable career traditional parental standards.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: But I fell into guiding in the polar regions after I had been traveling around the world for a while after my first degree.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: Wasn't sure what I wanted to do with my life, so I traveled to a couple different areas and tried out a bunch of different random jobs like auditing and conservation work and teaching, and nothing really grabbed me.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: And it wasn't until I was traveling around South America that I was standing in a particularly long immigration line.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: And this gentleman in front of me was speaking English, and it was the first time I'd heard English in about five months.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so I just kind of attacked him and please speak English with me.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: And it turns out he was somebody who was in the line of work of polar, polar guiding and the polar expedition industry.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: And that's pretty much how I how I fell into it.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I That's so wild.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, just ever since that's what I've been doing.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: How did you choose?
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think that's a pretty awesome way to go about kind of finding that the next or trying to find what you might want to have a career in, is like going around and trying all these new different types of jobs.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: How did you decide in that time period?
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: First off, what would be next?
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then how did you ever decide, like after having you know a couple months of experience, when did you decide I need this isn't it?
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: I have to move on.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: Probably just a gut feeling for most of it.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: I was always searching for something that maybe want to stop and start and stay in a place and you know, do that job for a period of time.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I would consider myself quite quite a distracted person.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: I get bored easily, unfortunately, is one of my lesser uh qualities.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: And every time I would reach a certain you know, month mark or two-month mark of that job, I would get bored and that wasn't the job for me.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I would just move along until I sort of found something.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: And most of the jobs that I ended up um picking up to try were acquired through people that I knew or through people that I had guided in Iceland.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: So really um taking advantage of some kind of contacts uh that I had around the world.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: And that was amazing because it might not have taught me what I wanted to do, but it definitely taught me what it didn't want to do.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: And that was worth something to me.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think that is one of the most valuable experiences for sure.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: I think the tough one is people get sucked into jobs that that they know, right?
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: The gut feeling they know they shouldn't continue, and then they continue it for like five years.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: But no, that's that's awesome.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: Was there so how long did this kind of uh this period last when you were jumping between different types of careers before you f you met this guy?
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it wasn't I wasn't that long.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I let's see, I finished my first degree in when I was, I think, 20, just turned 22.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I traveled around for about a year and a half, I believe, or year, year and a half.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: And it was I had gone to Asia and then I had done Europe and I was in South America and I was running out of continents.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: And my next plan was to go to Africa and try and work in the outdoor industry within, you know, some of the safari guiding kind of outfitters and things like that.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: But of course you have to be quite specialized, uh, rightly so, in order to be employed in that realm.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I was quickly running out of options.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: And after about a year and a half is when I met this uh fellow who was um uh a first officer for one of the expedition ships that goes down to the Antarctic, which is how a lot of the industry itself uh works, uh they use ships as a platform to kind of get around the polar regions and explore.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so, I mean, what was the result of that conversation?
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: Did he offer you a job on the spot?
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: Or is it just like pretty much um blessed?
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: Such an interesting human, and I owe a lot to him, considering it was such a fleeting moment in time that I even met him and I tried with him.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: But he retired from the industry, and it was one of those kind of ships passing in the night type of moment that someone took a chance on me, and and I I hope I can do the same for someone in the future.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: But we ended up speaking for about two and a half hours because um Ecuadorian immigration lines aren't the speediest of things to endure.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so we had quite a bit of time on our hands and we started talking.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, I didn't even know that was a thing, an industry.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: I can't believe it.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know, tell me more.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I'm sure he's had many people bend his ear about that.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I said that's something I'd be so interested in in becoming a part of.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: And he, you know, to his credit, really listened to my background and I kind of explained a little bit about uh who I was.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I look back on that and I think you're such a lovely, gracious, patient human because here's this little blonde 22-year-old, you know, child saying, Oh, I want to work in Antarctica, please.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and he was the one um after that conversation, he just said, Listen, it sounds like you're qualified enough.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: You just have to um, you know, apply, you know, give me information.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: And he put me in touch with my now boss.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's crazy.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: How long have you been doing so?
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: How long have you been working for that boss then?
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: I've been working for that boss in that company for about six years now.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's pretty outrageous.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: And it's so funny because I assumed it was going to be a rather short-lived career as well.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: I think the industry suffers by kind of fly-by-the-night guides who want to go to the Antarctic but don't necessarily want to make a career out of it.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: But the extremeness of the polar regions and operating in those regions demands a certain level of skill and a capacity to, you know, be a high-level guide.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so they really want guides that are gonna commit committed to being there for a long time or even career polar guides.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I didn't quite understand it when I got into it.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: So the company, when I first started working for them, you said we'd like you to commit to you a minimum of three years, because that's in our opinion, how long it takes you to be a fully fledged guide.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: And after having been down there, I can absolutely agree that a minimum of three years is when you're actually useful as a guide.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought, okay, okay, okay, I'll do three years and then I'll move on.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: And fast forward to six years later, you have that classic story of starting it and then just falling in love with it and never, never leaving.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: No, all right.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I have uh first first question would be Was there a moment then when you when you went down into one of these regions for the first time and you maybe thought either you were like over your head or kind of realized that it was really happening?
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: I think sometimes I still feel a little over my head, depending on the weather down there.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um it can be a bit chaotic.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: Definitely pinch me moment because it all it all happened quite quickly.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: I had exceptional timing in terms of the hiring process.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: It just so happened that when I reached out, they were sort of looking to hire a couple extra guides, and it was rather last minute.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: So a process that would normally take a long period of time was actually very fast.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: So I didn't really have a lot of time to digest what was happening and we were there.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I've been given this laundry list of items to bring, you know, GPS and um seasickness medications, and you know, all these kind of technical gear aspects.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just like, I don't know what I'm getting into here.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, absolutely no idea because you can't prepare to guide in the Antarctic if you've never been to the Antarctic.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the moment that that kind of um sticks with me would be that first morning that I woke up in the Antarctic proper because it takes about two days and two nights to get across the body of water between the tip of South America and the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a very, very long sea crossing, and it was just the roughest weather still today, the roughest storm I'd ever been in.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, I'm used to it now, but I was I was bringing up my boots the entire two days.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: I think I lost like six pounds in two.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I just remember thinking, this is crazy.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think I can do this job if it means being this ill for you know four days every 15 days because you do multiple crossings.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I kind of emerged from the depths of the ship, bleary-eyed and uh malnourished.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: I opened the ship cabin door and I was just met with the most unbelievable scene of sparkling, still calm waters and icebergs and glaciers, mountains in every direction, and penguins.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: And it was so overwhelming that uh, of course, I had a small weep, some of it might have been exhaustion, um, but definitely an emotional component to it as well, where I just have an absolute breakdown thinking this is unbelievable.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: And that's probably what it hit home.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I believe it.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's funny that that was the uh that your first trip is was the the the strongest storm you've been in so far.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's like you're getting tested right off the bat.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: For me, it just felt like the strongest storm, and I've I've uh gained perspective since I guess we'll never also very possible.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: Oh no, that's so cool though.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like emerging from these like two days of of darkness and intense storms into this kind of blissful moment in the Arctic.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's pretty outrageous.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's that's so cool.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: Was it then immediate that you fell in love with the place, or did it pretty instantly?
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: Love at first sight, I think is the term that comes to mind.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh something that you can't ever recreate, or I haven't been able to recreate having traveled to different areas.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: You always have those moments that take your breath away.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: But they're sometimes drowned out by you know the harshness of getting to that area or you know, the the ups and downs of everyday travel.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: And those moments are what we all strive for when we travel, are those kind of aha moments that we have.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I had always grown to love a place, you know, very strongly when I was traveling Vietnam, for example, when I first landed there, I was kind of overwhelmed.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: But the more you understand the culture, the more you understand um what the country's like, the more you love it.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: And it is the same with the polar regions to the to a degree, but I've never experienced an infatuation with an with a region like I do or did with the polar regions.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: And we talk about it amongst us guides, and it's the polar bug, you get bitten, and once you're bitten, it's in your blood for the rest of your life, and you're always going to be chasing the polar regions and uh trips and experiences down there, and they're unlike anything else in the world.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's not really a great way to describe it, but it is absolutely um unlike any other place.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: Honestly, I mean it is, right?
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um no, and I mean I I would push back on that initial statement pretty a little bit, which was um we all have moments of those kind uh like those really intense moments of gratefulness.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: I think that you have to be willing to search for them or be uh open to them happening for that for it to happen.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's a big thing that a lot of people miss out on is being receptive to the mo to those moments instead of just like, you know, you could go onto a guided expedition and just be constantly listening to the guide and never really turn and look at the nature and take it in for a moment, right?
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean a big part of that as well is um, you know, trying to facilitate those moments for people, you know, where we're not inheriting um two people all the time is, you know, maybe instead of you know speaking about the ecology or history or wildlife, you know, after a certain period of time you recognize a really beautiful moment where maybe you just tell everyone to take 10 minutes of silence and for themselves, so kind of facilitating those moments.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: But I I think you have an interesting take on that, in which you know, opportunities don't come along all the time.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: And there is a certain level of um, for lack of a better term, selfishness that you have to, you know, experience and even engage to kind of take the initiative to pursue uh those those moments.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: But I would also say that you know, you have to recognize the level of privilege that um, you know, a lot of people like myself enjoy when we're offered these opportunities that you know very few people in the world ever get to experience.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so um, you know, personally and ethically, I gr I kind of grapple a little bit about that and about you know how um privileged I am in in this situation and you know whether it is right to take that opportunity and what do I do with it.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's important that I don't just take the opportunity and run, but you know, I hopefully give something back or you know make an effort to change someone else's perspective.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: So um the the amount of responsibility definitely isn't isn't lost on me when it comes to those types of opportunities.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't sound like it is.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean that I think that's actually a very uh runs very parallel to what I was saying, which is in order to have these moments of presence, you have to be receptive and open to them happening, right?
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: But also for a person to make a change in any sort of environment or or or situation, you like the way you phrase it is uh I grapple with this, you know, privilege to an extent.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: You have to be aware of that kind of uneasiness, right?
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: Because a person who isn't receptive to, you know, how grateful they are for that place may not realize that they should give something back to it.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, it's uh you know a big, a big part of what we do as guides, and most of it comes from a love of nature in the polar regions, but usually what we try and give back in in a sense is has something to do with the natural world, whether it be education about preservation and conservation, or you know, even just instill kind of better practices into our uh our guests about things as simple as you know climate change initiatives and plastic and things like that.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone finds their own little patch of of dirt to kind of make their stand on.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, each individual guide that I work with, they all have their causes.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's what makes such a great kind of mosaic of you know, work essentially that to be part of it.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: No, one of one of my favorite, probably one of my favorite experiences I've ever had was rafting from Lee's Ferry down to Ghost Ranch, what is it at the uh in the Grand Canyon?
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um so it was like a week and week-long trip, and they were the exactly like you say, so we had it was a guided trip uh with my family and a couple of their families, and each guide kind of had their own thing that they were super stoked about, uh, right.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so one is just nonstop rambling about the uh the geology, right?
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: Just non-stop.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: The next guy is you know, doing something in camp, he's scaring kids with like fake scorpions and whatever.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: But um it was it was like each guide brought in their own kind of perspective of the Grand Canyon, like I'm sure each guide with your tours kind of brings in their own perspective of these polar regions, but also kind of the ways that they want to influence it, like you're saying, the ways they want to give back.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's a pretty fantastic thing to hear, right?
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: It it sounds like the guests coming on your trips probably have a pretty cool, pretty cool experience, probably take a lot out of it.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe we like to think so at least.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: What was one of or some of the maybe the hardest moments of or transitioning into this role as a as a guide down there?
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that that's something that's not often talked about, perhaps as sort of the the downsides even to the type of job that a lot of us, you know, guides have.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, anytime you work outside, you have um you have the potential of you know dangerous accidents.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: You've got a higher level of risk than say if you're at your desk.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and you are technically responsible for not just the enjoyment of your guests, but their health, safety, well-being, and ultimately safe returning to their families back at home.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: So you have to absorb again that level of responsibility and really ensure you know their safety.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: And that was something that struck me in the polar regions way more than it did having guided in Iceland, which is also considered a relatively hostile environment if you're if you're not careful.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: The polar regions themselves are just so remote.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: That's the main thing is help is so far away.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: And we set ourselves up logistically as an expedition that to ensure that we have, you know, basic medical facilities, that we're not taking chances that we don't need to be taking, that you know, we have safety plans and procedures in place, but you know, it's never a guarantee, of course.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: You're operating some of the most hostile environments in the world, and with that comes, you know, a lot more um accidents and a lot more sort of um well, it definitely heightens the way you approach um your own kind of fear and how you uh you know operate as a guide.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: And that was a huge learning curve was learning to be okay or even comfortable with the level of risk by managing your own fear as a guide.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: Because we all have fear, I think, or at least most of the guides I know, we all have fear and it manifests in different ways, and we sure um we can also manage it in different ways.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: But that was the main thing that struck me about transitioning from um my own experiences as uh a person in the wilderness and also professionally as a guide in the wilderness.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: It was just zero to fit like to a It was such an extreme environment, both in the Antarctic and in the Arctic.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: And in my first ever season, we were a part of a rescue that happened down in the Antarctic.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: We were going about our regular expedition routine and we just we'd receive a distress call from a small sailboat that was, you know, relatively close by.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: We were the closest ship by about three hours.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so we steamed over there and you know we had to get into our zodiacs.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: And in this huge gale storm blowing a hundred knots, you know, we had to go and carry out a rescue of people on this on this yacht.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: And that was a huge turning point for me because you understand the risk, you understand the danger, but then you see it and you see it, and you're out there battling the elements, and you're thinking, what the hell have I gotten myself into?
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna die in this icebox down here.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: That was your first season?
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: My first season, I think my third trip or something, and I just think this is chaos.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, we we have a really great structure to Antarctic expeditions in which all the companies that are down there work cohesively together.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: You're never far that far away from help anymore.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: You know, uh now that it's getting busier down there, there's always help on the corner.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: But I remember thinking this is crazy.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's well, yeah.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: Could you put that in perspective then?
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: What is you say, I mean, it makes sense that help is not going to be that near, but uh you know, if you get into it into a dangerous situation, how far away is help really?
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: Or is it sure?
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, compared to other global, um, yeah, I mean, it's it's pretty far away, depending on where you are, even within the Antarctic.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: If you're on one of the research bases, for example, it's far enough away, but you might have access to a runway strip that you could metevac somebody out of.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: In the peninsular region, which is where a lot of uh our companies operate, um, it's kind of one of the more busy places in the Antarctic, but there's no there's not many facilities.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: There's one runway in the area that we can sort of use if we need to to medavac, but it's still a ways away.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, if someone has like a huge kind of cardiac event or you know is has a very you know um big medical incident, it's very hard to get help quickly.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: So your options are to call the the Chilean or the Argentinian authorities and they can send their navy down, and that will take if they're dispatching them from their coastline, you know, it can be up to two days if they have to cross the Drake Passage to get to you.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, or you might start steaming north to meet them.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_01: You might go to the Falklands, which is a couple days away, and get medical help there.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: Or again, because there are a couple of scientific stations along the peninsula region, sometimes you might be able to get, you know, a helicopter to the runway strip or even to the runway strip yourself and get a flight out.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: But we do most of our risk um assessment um with prevention.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's the key, is just to prevent accidents from happening in the first place.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: And you can't always prevent them from happening, and accidents do happen, and you know, there's nothing that much you can do about it once, you know, once it comes about.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: But every single time we operate and carry out expeditions, they're just the the safety level is just to the extent that we're constantly re-jigging and you know, retraining and um ensuring we have the the safest possible tricks, and that's a big part of it, absolutely.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: It makes absolute sense.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: You it it seemed like you or it looked like you studied uh political science in in university.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: Did you come out of that and look at these jobs with the idea that you would be mixing that with conservation or the environment right off the bat?
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: Oh no, never.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: It seemed that was always two separate worlds, kind of within my own life.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: I had my um career aspirations or even my academic aspirations, which were political science or international relations or diplomacy, anything that would allow me to explore, travel, and meet people and exist in other countries.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: And then I had the other side of me, which was um the more personal side, which was you know a love for the outdoors and outdoor activities and sports and wilderness.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I never really thought about marrying the two.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: I always assumed I confused, to be honest.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and political science wasn't necessarily my first choice of degrees, it just was the thing I hated the least.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they say when you're young, you never have to what degree you really want to do.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: You just gotta pick something.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I definitely subscribed to that idea and just kind of said, Well, I liked social sciences the best in high school, I guess I'll do that.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: I I mean, we all knew I wasn't gonna be a mathematician having struggled through grade 12 math to uh a pretty extreme um amount.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: So I again I had to assume I was gonna have to choose.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so when I did fall into a job that stimulated all sides of me, that was such a rarity.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I kind of call it the trifecta, the kinds of jobs you've got, you know, three options, and your options are, you know, emotional stimulation, physical stimulation, and intellectual stimulation.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: And you've, you know, maybe you pick two out of three of the normal job.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe if you're lucky, you can get two out of three.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: But it's very rare to find the three for three.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: And when I started this job, that's what it was.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: It was three for three, and I thought I've found a unicorn here.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so being able to specialize even within the guiding role as a geopolitical specialist for the polar regions, that became something that I kind of carved out for myself, but ended up being really excited about pursuing and eventually implementing.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: What do you mean by you carved it out yourself?
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: I suppose when I first started on um the expedition vessels, both in the Arctic and the Antarctic, we had a certain type of structure to the expedition.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: And you'd have your marine biologist and your geologist and uh your glaciologist and your historian, and those were roles that were always cast well in advance of the expedition, so that you had a designated specialist.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but there was kind of maybe five or six different areas that were that were covered that way for the education portion, and then we also had a lot of other kind of supplementing guides that knew a little bit about all of those, but not maybe you know, an exact um specialist in that field.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: And when I joined the expeditions, I noticed that while the history side of things were being taken care of, um, there was very uh little in terms of the social sciences that was being reflected in the education program.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought it to be something that was really important for people to understand, even to help them contextualize what they're looking at.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: So at the end of the trip, they've been learning about penguins and history, about the explorers and whales.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_01: But then they go, well, what's gonna happen to this place?
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_01: Who protects it?
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: What's the environmental regulation?
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what can I do?
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so um those answers um, or sorry, those questions weren't really being um answered in a formal setting, even though a lot of guides would try and explain how the regime, the legal regimes of those polar regions worked.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I just took kind of started researching and building lectures to sort of try and fill that gap.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_01: And it ended up um being something I really enjoyed and have been doing in kind of a formal lecture capacity now for the six years that I've been working on the ships.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's so cool.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: No, that's so cool that you found uh a niche that wasn't necessarily being answered to and kind of just took the reins.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it sounds really important.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: That was kind of following into the question I really wanted to ask, which is you know, clearly that role is one that's actively trying to pursue the legal ways or to conserve this place that you love so much.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: What I I feel like it's even too it's probably way too complex to say like what are the what are the biggest issues, you know, arising that because obviously you could go into like a lecture about that.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: I guess what are the reasons maybe you find this area so uh important to conserve?
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, yeah.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: As you said, it's a pretty complex, yeah, pretty complex area to uh to look at or even to analyze.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um what interested me most about the polar law or polar kind of realm in terms of politics and legalities was just how complex it is.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you've got two different areas, the Arctic and the Antarctic, which are legally and geographically completely different, even though they have similar qualities in terms of their environment.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I found that they were so unique.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's their uniqueness that makes them as special as they are, is that they're so intertwined and so vulnerable to even small changes that with you know human impacts and human involvement, and even with um, you know, changing climates and that they're so easily thrown out of order and to kind of a cataclysmic, you know, effect that it was so important for me for people to understand just how nuanced and complex even the governing of these areas are because you have people, for example, in the Arctic that have been living there their you know entire you know anthropological existence.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so the idea of even trying to convey the human impact on the Arctic, for example, is intertwined with you know, how do you approach Inuit rights and indigenous rights and what they've been doing in the polar regions or in the Arctic for thousands of years?
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so helping people navigate that and navigate those complexities gives me kind of a real sense of purpose when it comes to understanding the polar regions, because it's not you know what you see is what you get.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_01: There's so much more going on on the other side, and again, they're just so, so, so unique, each in their way.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: No, I mean, it may and you know, it makes sense, right?
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: If you look at any one governing body, right?
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm in the United States, it's there are a billion laws that I don't understand, right?
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: So when you put it to a place where tons of different governing bodies have to kind of agree upon this this area, I can imagine it gets unbelievably convoluted.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely, absolutely, and you have so many different kinds of law.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I think people assume that there's maybe one type of law in the Arctic, for example, but you have all the separate laws of each nation-state that has territory in the Arctic region.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_01: And then on top of that, you have things like fisheries, um, law, maritime law, indigenous rights law, environmental law, international law, treaty law.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_01: You've got so many different kinds of laws and even just legal regimes that understanding how they're all intertwined and even examining the intersectionality, those intersection points between different legal regimes is very, very um interesting and complex, and is always difficult and uh kind of navigate myself, even as a so-called you know, quote unquote expert.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's people there's so many more people that know more about this kind of stuff than I do.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I just try and take a leaf out of their book.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, yeah, I you're right.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's really it's really too complex of a topic to really dive into.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: But I do like your approach, which is so necessary, is the not just creating awareness, but even trying to help other people understand this complexity and so that you know, because i i if people don't even appreciate the complexity, then they might just blow it off as something that's gonna be helped without their initiative, you know.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, absolutely, and and also granting people the um you know opportunity to be overwhelmed.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's an overwhelming concept.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_01: And people say, I don't really understand you, you know, that's okay.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_01: I often don't either, and you know, to say things like I'm not sure how it works, and how do you even pursue working on something without impacting the other?
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_01: And really, there's no right answer to a lot of the questions that I'm asked.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_01: I just usually have to try and illustrate the interconnectivity of those different regimes so that people can at least start to wrap their head around to what they can do and where they can maybe make a difference if they go home after a trip, having been inspired, you know, maybe even to get involved politically or environmentally or in a charitable sense, you know, that's kind of that's kind of what I try and do.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: But I also have to be very cognizant of the fact that, you know, especially when I'm explaining or trying to highlight things like indigenous rights and um, you know, traditional knowledge and uh indigenous history, that I'm very much an outsider commenting on Indigenous rights, and I don't really have much of a right to do that.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so I really try and preface what I say with that disclaimer so that people will seek out proper forms of information from Inuit people themselves so that they can, you know, learn the difficulties and the history and the challenges that Inuit people are facing today from their own you know lips, essentially, rather than me just commenting on it.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_00: I I guess my pushback on that would be though, I wouldn't necessarily don't have the right to have these commentaries.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_00: I would say there's uh I it's a similar thing that I do with any of my opinions.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: I it's I you know it's it's like I preface it with this is my opinion of what's happening, right?
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: Or of how I feel.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's not saying you should do this or you should do that.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like you're saying this isn't my representation, isn't perfect, but I am you know trying to help, right?
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_00: And uh you're connecting them.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think that is uh you know a good perspective to take.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's probably the most important thing that people get out of these kind of trips, whether it's just a hike on a Saturday or an incredible expedition like this, is that that kind of appreciation um and like an appreciation for the region that they're in or or whatever environment they're in, because that is the only thing I think that's capable of convincing people to want to save it.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_01: I couldn't agree with you more.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_01: Honestly, I don't really believe people are as emotionally involved in saving or protecting or even contributing to the protection of a place if they've never seen it or if they don't understand it.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's people that can empathize and they can't even get to the point of making an effort to try and, you know, um help out, but feeling and smelling and seeing and tasting these areas, it has such an emotional impact on people that they often go back home and say, you know, what can I do?
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the golden moment for us as expedition guides that we really try and capitalize on is we try and make sure that you understand the region through the biology and the history and everything, and that you experience it through all the different sights and smells and feelings.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_01: But then as soon as you have those moments of understanding the fragility and the uniqueness and um of that region, that you then start to think what's going to happen.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then that is when we say, This is what you can do.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_01: This is you know, the area that you can, you know, choose to kind of make your stand in.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so we always look out for those moments, especially towards the end of the trip when we start heading back home.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_01: People start, you know, getting back on their email and work emails start coming in, and the reality of going back to normal civilization starts to set in, and we don't want that to be lost on people that they go home, and we kind of have this ability to create this kind of army of people that have been to the Antarctic or to the Arctic with us that will go off on their own respective life journeys and have amazing experiences and memories to then say these places had such a profound impact on me, and I want to see them conserved.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: Are there specific what when you when you speak about that, are there specific moments maybe in the past season where you saw that moment like really occurring?
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, every trip in in some way, form or another, and everyone has that aha moment at different times.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_01: It just depends on what that person's interested in.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_01: But I see it most with wildlife.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_01: If we have an incredible wildlife encounter.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_01: So this last season, for example, I was driving my zodiac of passengers, and you know, we were off on kind of a little um zodiac around the bay, and we found some humpback whales that were feeding, they were bubble netting, catching krill, and then kind of driving up through the middle of that krill with their mouths open.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, we just, I remember we kind of approached the whales from a distance and just sort of allowed ourselves to drift, and they got more and more comfortable with us.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_01: And the whales ended up coming right up to the zodiac, and they were just circling and feeding people with us, losing their minds, you know.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody said a word.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_01: We were all just completely enamored.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_01: But I remember looking over um at this, you know, wonderful, uh, kind of middle-aged woman, and um, you can just see her glasses are just completely fogged up, and she's just got tears streaming down her face, and she just looks directly at me as she takes her glasses off and she says, This is the best moment of my entire life.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, we're so lucky to have moments like that.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's just what makes the job so worth it, that we can facilitate moments like that.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_01: But then later in the trip, you know, she came up to me and she says, I will never forget that that moment I shared with that whale, but and with you for as long as I live and you know, I want to help, and what can I do?
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I'm gonna tell everybody about you know how beautiful this area is and how important it is that we protect it.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I barely had to do anything.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_01: That was just the magic of of the you know polar regions.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_01: And we have moments like that, you know, with polar bears, for example, people will see a bear for the first time and have a really kind of big moment.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_01: And even, you know, with without kind of these amazing animal encounters, there's also people that have that moment when they're sitting in the snow by themselves, just looking out across the Arctic, and it's just quiet and the wind is blowing across the tundra.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you never know when it's gonna be, but you can see it, you can see it in people's eyes, and you can see it smile, and yeah, it's pretty magical.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's so incredible.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_00: No, I love that.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_00: You almost had me in tears.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's an emotional thing.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's really the great thing is people are allowed to be unapologetically emotional, and we encourage it.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_01: So it is kind of sappy at times, but you know, you just gotta steer into the skid and allow people to be weeping.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_00: No, I love it.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_00: I I um not to that scale, but whenever I'm with friends that are visiting the Bay Area, in summer, the bear uh whales are migrating, like half moon bay in that area, and you can always tell because the entire bay will be covered in birds feeding off the stuff that they bring to the surface.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_00: And you just always have to stop on the side of the highway and show them.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um because to that you're right, the first glance it just looks like a bunch of birds, but you're like, no, just wait.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's it's those kind of moments of they're just so unifying.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um especially with whales, I haven't seen them up close, you know, closer than 50 meters or so.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_00: But it I've heard that I don't think human-like is the like their eyes, but I don't think human-like is the right adjective, but it was like uh they're kind of like elephants, you can feel extremely connected to them.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, we kind of say you it's like staring into their soul when they do look at you because they do have quite small eyes proportionate to their body.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_01: And you don't see them often because they're underwater, but sometimes they'll kind of roll over on their side and take a good look at you, or they'll kind of fly hop, which is where they bring their head out of the water and and look at you.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_01: And when you do have those moments, I mean, it's they're so profound.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_01: Anytime you look into the eyes of a you know, a beautiful creature, a beautiful animal.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_01: But I think with whales, and what gets people quite emotional about them is understanding the relationship that humans have had with whales and you know, the really urban history of having hunted them to the brink of extinction and and know that these are animals that sometimes we're looking at are 80 years old and they've seen you know the rise and fall of civilizations and you know, lived, you know, lived through the wars and things like that.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and and yet there's we're still allowed to have these magical experiences with them, you know, kind of devoid of any kind of totally tension or friction or anything like that.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what really tends to push people over the edge when they're looking at whales because they're just so majestic and beautiful.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_01: But there's an inherent kind of trust and gentleness to them despite their size.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_00: Especially when it's not just uh the level of hunting that they've gone through, but the methods of hunting.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_00: When people understand the way that they are brutally hunted, it's a Pretty uh realization.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the industrial scale of whaling, of course.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, a lot of the indigenous communities were subsistence hunting and you know, and you know, that it's something that um I don't really have a problem with in terms of you know that that but the kind of the industrial scale of hunting and you know the the 20s, the 1920s and things like that and onwards and for very quite frivolous uh things like theme and and corset straps and things like that.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, definitely.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, we're kind of they're running out of real estate in terms of all the lanes and everything.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so um to have uh you know we kind of be afforded those moments, we don't we don't take them for granted down there.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_01: They're pretty incredible.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_00: I believe it.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_01: Same in the Arctic.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh something I wanted to get your your perspective on, because it seems like it's something you're pretty passionate about, is providing an atmosphere, atmosphere for women to get involved and go outdoors and and be in the wilderness.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_00: Are there any barriers that you yourself have kind of seen firsthand uh that you feel like are are kind of top priorities?
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's a great question.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'm quite fortunate in that I haven't had any moments that I can point to and say I had a really hard time breaking into the industry because I am a woman.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_01: I think no matter what industry you're in, especially if it's a traditionally male-dominated industry, you're going to have some moments that make it a bit more difficult.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_01: But it wasn't on, you know, the part of the companies that I work for or, you know, people that I work with.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_01: It was just kind of little moments that you might experience.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm quite sure that wouldn't have been an issue if I was, you know, a man, for example.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_01: You you have um sometimes, you know, every once in a while you might have a passenger that's just kind of you know not keen on the idea of you having a rifle and driving a boat and being, you know, their keeper and their guardian because you're a woman, and they might voice that.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_01: But for the most part, I've been incredibly lucky.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_01: And the women that I work with, which are quite a few, they're just the most incredible strong, capable women.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_01: And the industry itself is the amount of women in the industry is is remarkable, you know, 30, 40 percent women.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we have even more than that.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of the expedition leaders that I work with are women, which is such a great experience.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, you want a mix of both men and women on a team because you know each provides something different.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_01: But I've never had to experience um a time where I felt, you know, horror horribly outnumbered or that I wasn't treated the exact same within a team because uh of being a woman.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_01: But that's something that I'm probably you know the most proud of when it comes to my just my personal goals is the the relationships that I've built with a lot of these women, um the friendships that I've built with them, kind of on common ground of being a woman in the outdoors, in kind of a very physical, traditionally male role.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I I kind of take with those, take them with me wherever I go and and find a real strength in them and kind of try and nurture them because it's women lifting women up, really.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_01: So women in the wilderness, you know, professionally and even just for their own enjoyment is something that's always been really quite central to my to my heart.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_01: And especially growing up, I found a real confidence in the outdoors that I couldn't seem to find, you know, at school or it, you know, in cities.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um can you explain what that means?
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, um I always felt like a little bit of an outsider in that way.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't really quite fit the typical female stereotype of um maybe that we've been, you know, used to seeing or pushed to see.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I always felt like I had to compensate for being a bit more maybe masculine in my tendencies.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um so, you know, I would have a hard time at school because I just wanted to run around and play in the dirt and play outside.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I didn't really want to get wrapped up with the sort of social scene.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and that extended through university and and you know, into my adult life.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_01: And and I would always retreat to the outdoors because that's when I felt the most confident.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_01: And there was something about the hard skills that I had in the outdoors, my ability to not just survive in the outdoors, but kind of thrive and find my stride in the outdoors that just gave me a kind of confidence about myself that I just couldn't seem to find uh anywhere else and could you know couldn't find from anyone else either.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_01: It was something that I had to kind of discover personally.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_00: No, I think that's wonderful.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_00: And where that took you seems like it was, you know, it took you to a pretty cool place.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_00: So that's so that's awesome that you kind of embraced that.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_01: Stop fighting it.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_00: You at some point everyone has to, right?
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, for sure.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I and I completely empathize with that point of view.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_00: I think for me, it's something that I've realized is that when I get starting getting start getting caught up in whatever life is throwing at me, the moments that bring me back to like myself are 99% of the time are always something in nature, whether it's a really long hike or you know, backpacking trip or something like that.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_00: The most recent one was uh last year I went for late season hiking in the Sierra's before it started snowing.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so I hiked up this one peak, you know, 14, 15, 16 miles.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_00: And it's October 31st, it's Halloween, so it's below freezing at night and not cold enough, not warm enough for people to like want to go hiking.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so I hiked the entire mountain completely alone.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like an entire day.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it was it was one of those moments where you you get the entire day to kind of sit or walk and reflect and just kind of be there.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and those are the moments that are absolutely like life-changing for me.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have any of those from kind of that high school time or university time when you kind of yeah, I mean, absolutely any time I could really get out into the mountains.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_01: So my hometown in Edmonton, Alberta was about four hours away from the Rocky Mountains, and that's where I did most of my adventuring and where I grew up kind of learning hard skills in the mountains.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I had, you know, very outdoor, very active parents, and I credit them entirely to kind of the upbringing that I had in the wilderness.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_01: So the mountains were definitely where I seemed to get those moments and to recharge and to kind of reset.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I get I used to get them a lot when I was traveling and you know, backpacking around anytime I was in kind of nature, and as much as I liked cities, uh, I just never seemed to find that kind of feeling unless it was climbing up a mountaintop and sitting at the top of it with a mug of tea and chocolate bar.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, definitely.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_01: And and university, I was part of the outdoors club there, and we would, you know, every other weekend we'd be bombing out to the mountains to, you know, smash out a hike or to um, you know, have an overnight camp and somewhere and yeah, any any chance really.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_01: So that was once I found my my tribe and could go out all the time with them.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_01: That was, you know, a great thing to have access to once in university.
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_00: What would you say to women who have not necessarily seen that experience and maybe only seen the experience or the social side that's pushing them away from that kind of classically masculine defined uh adventure?
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, what's your way of convincing them that it's worth it and going out to experience it?
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, I would probably say that no matter what area you want to be involved in, whether that be you know going out to experience the wilderness or maybe it's just for your own enjoyment or professionally, I'd say you're not, you know, you're not defined by you know who you know what you do or what you do it with, but you, you know, you kind of are defined by what you choose to do.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I think once you start understanding that if you just take small steps, one step at a time to choose to do something, whether that be I'm gonna choose to go and push myself and do a little hike outside of my comfort level, that I'm gonna choose to, you know, um maybe not worry so much about what people think, you know, obviously easier said than done.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_01: But sure, it's it's a great question.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_01: I don't really have an exact answer for you, but learn, you know, finding out what's important to you, if that is getting outside and outdoors, and just trying to let go of what's demanded of you.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_01: And it's never easy because there's always going to be people that sure say, you know, that's not ladylike or that's not the right path for you, or what about kids?
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_01: Don't you don't you think that you should be settling down by now?
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, that is something that we do, you know, a lot of us women on the ships still get asked, you know, if what about children who's you know, who's looking after the kids, or you know, that's something that is difficult sometimes to hear, but once you become a lot more comfortable with your own identity, especially once you're in the outdoors, the rest the rest is a bit easier, especially when it comes to getting a bit older, that helps.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_00: No, I I mean uh I completely agree, is is it like you said, it pertains to any sort of facet of society.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just this idea of going out into nature and you know being the odd one out, but it's in you know, being able to take any sort of uh offhanded comment or or blow in any sort of field and not letting it really impact uh your identity.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_01: I mean it's so easy to just say that, of course, as well.
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_01: But every now and then you'll get a comment and it'll just render me into jello for sure.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_01: Take my own advice a little bit more seriously.
• 53:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's never easy, but for the most part, you just have to understand it's always gonna be people like you said that comment on any aspect of your life.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_01: You just have to learn with you know, roll with the punches and decide if it's the hill you want to die on or not.
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's a good way to put it.
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_00: Are you gonna really fight this person?
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_00: No, I love that.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, this is awesome.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for coming on the show.
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_00: I really, I really appreciate your your perspective on on kind of the Arctic regions and hearing your your story of becoming a guide.
• 54:27
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's something that a lot of people kind of aspire to find these more, I don't know if mysterious is the word, but you know, adventurous sides of life.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like you were actually saying, is kind of bonding it was the mental, the physical, and was it the psychological kind of specters of of a work.
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_00: And likewise, I think you have a cool perspective with uh with your work on, like you said, managing fear, um, kind of going into the unknown and tackling these new adventures.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and then in the last kind of part of this conversation, which was more aimed on the love and the the the enjoyment and gratitude you can feel being in these wonderful environments, and how how impactful that is for bringing that or how how impactful it is to feel that, because that's kind of the thing that stimulates people to uh want to make change.
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_00: I my my father grew up hiking on the Sierras, and I made a comment to him once, and I was like, yo, there are so many people on these trails that even like when I was a kid, and he goes, Good.
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, more better.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, the more people hiking on them, as long as they're not, you know, damaging it, the more people there are to protect it, right?
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and then I really appreciate your perspective going into these fields that are predominantly uh dominated mostly by men, um, or maybe historically have been, and kind of hearing your perspective on on what's possible for a win in those fields, because it is you know a field where a field where everyone should be able to adapt and thrive and enjoy.
• 55:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, my last question would just be kind of looking back over this conversation, is there any one message you would take out of it uh or two that you would want a listener to take away?
• 56:07
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, if I had to boil it down, hey question.
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to hate it all.
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_01: No, I mean, you know, yeah, like you said, there's so much to kind of digest.
• 56:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I did kind of, you know, word vomit all over the place for all the different topics that we just covered.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I appreciate you giving me the platform to kind of talk about my passion, projects, and things that I find important.
• 56:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the main takeaway would be to no matter, you know, who you are or where you are or what you're doing, is to just find find the little niche of you know the world that you can kind of exist in and that makes you happy existing in, and just try your best to go after that.
• 56:47
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, again, we're so I'm so lucky to kind of know what I love and know what I want to do, but no matter what it is, you know, don't be afraid to um really take the opportunities to kind of dive into those niche areas.
• 57:02
  SPEAKER_01: And you I think you'll find that if you really enjoy it, you'll be good at it in a way.
• 57:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it'll never be like they said, it'll never be too hard to to work on because you just love doing it.
• 57:13
  SPEAKER_01: So definitely find your your niche.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I would I would say that the second thing that um I would want people to take away from listening to this is just you know, hopefully gain a bit more of an appreciation for our wild places and you know the magic they provide.
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they're so unique and how important it is to conserve them, and you know, whether that be through um, you know, in environmental change or you know, even voting patterns or through charitable contributions, like there's always a way to contribute.
• 57:46
  SPEAKER_01: So if that's something that's important to you, you know, maybe look at a way that you can you know do your own part as well.
• 57:51
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_00: No, I love it.
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_00: Explore, uh, become aware, and then try to make an impact.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, just get out there, really.
• 58:02
  SPEAKER_00: Wait it.
• 58:02
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate it.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's been a pleasure.
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for having me.
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_00: Definitely.
• 58:11
  SPEAKER_00: I want to thank Claire for that conversation.
• 58:14
  SPEAKER_00: Something that stood out to me about Claire and her story were the opportunities that have arisen for her, which I believe come from this adventurous attitude that she has.
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing she said hinted at the idea of waiting for opportunities to pass by at her convenience.
• 58:28
  SPEAKER_00: Claire went out and traveled, working different jobs until she found one that fit.
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_00: And then while pursuing that job with her full interest, she found further opportunities in the form of polar law, which she took upon herself to learn more and start lecturing about.
• 58:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's why this conversation was so fun.
• 58:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just the stories she has from her career so far and her great perspective on conservation and women in the outdoors, but because her perspective appears to have been created by her desire to experience life fully and the world around her.
• 58:58
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, as we talk about in the end, no one is perfect.
• 59:01
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone hesitates or lets the words of others hurt them sometimes.
• 59:05
  SPEAKER_00: But this desire to go out and experience the world with the least amount of hesitation possible, it seems to me, creates the most adventurous lives and opportunities.
• 59:14
  SPEAKER_00: I already know the habits that I use to postpone experiences that I want to happen.
• 59:19
  SPEAKER_00: I know the ways that I procrastinate, and I know the activities that prevent me from going in the direction in life that I want to.
• 59:25
  SPEAKER_00: And this conversation helped me think about the ways that I can build the courage to not be stopped by those habits, so that the next time life knocks at my door, I'll answer immediately.
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe it might help you be a bit more courageous in your life too.
• 59:39
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening.
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_00: If you like this episode of Seeking Authenticity, that's freaking awesome.
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_00: All I want to ask of you, the listener, in return for the time and effort I put into making it, is that you take a deep breath.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean really breathe.
• 59:56
  SPEAKER_00: Breathe so that it stretches out your shoulders and your back and your chest and pushes out your stomach.
• 1:00:02
  SPEAKER_00: No more of these shallow, bullshit breaths.
• 1:00:04
  SPEAKER_00: They're barely keeping you alive, my friend.
• 1:00:06
  SPEAKER_00: And after you exhale, go out and soak up today.
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because in the end, your actions and the way they interact with the world and the people around you right now are all you have in this life.
• 1:00:18
  SPEAKER_00: So be authentic with them.
• 1:00:20
  SPEAKER_00: Peace.