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Katujjiqatigit / Working Together: The all-female Sedna Epic Expedition brings a changing ocean to eye level for coastal Inuit communities
Originally published in Water Canada Magazine.
BANK TO THE LEFT, bank to the right. Tethered to diver propulsion vehicles, the women flew through emerald-green waters at six kilometres per hour, dodging sculpted ice formations off the northern coast of Labrador. They soon discovered that snorkelling in pack ice is a contact sport. After several star-inducing head bumps, the team’s dive physician determined that helmets would be standard gear for future expeditions.
Susan R. Eaton
A geoscientist, journalist and explorer, Susan R. Eaton studies the interplay of plate tectonics, oceans, glaciers, climate and life in polar regions.
A Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, Susan explores the world’s oceans—from Antarctica to the Arctic—in the snorkel zone, a unique land-sea-ice-air interface where charismatic animals and snorkelers comingle.
In 2018, Ocean Geographic named Susan one of the “Ocean’s Best” 18 most influential women leaders in ocean conservation.
Twelve years ago, Susan suffered a scuba diving trauma that landed her in a hyperbaric chamber for three days, ending her 30-year diving career. Undaunted, her up-close-and-personal relationship with the ocean—which had included studying marine biology and teaching scuba diving—didn’t end in the hyperbaric chamber…
Redefining her relationship with the ocean, Susan has snorkeled with thousands of chatty belugas Hudson Bay and with docile manatees at Crystal River, Florida. She’s snorkeled in the Galapagos Archipelago where sea turtles, sea lions and nurse sharks outnumber snorkelers. In Haida Gwaii, she’s assisted the Haida Nation, snorkeling northern rivers to count salmon migrating to their ancestral spawning grounds. Susan has come face-to-mask with charging 1,400-pound leopard seals in the Southern Ocean—so close, in fact, that she could count the freckles on their upper palates and inspect their tri-serrated teeth which dispatch 30-pound penguins in mere minutes.
On Canada’s 150th birthday in 2017, Susan was honoured to be included in the book by Paulina Cameron, entitled “Canada 150 Women: Conversations with Leaders, Champions and Luminaries.”
In 2015, the Royal Canadian Geographical Society named Susan one of Canada’s top 100 modern-day explorers and trailblazers. A year later, the same organization named her one of Canada’s 25 greatest female explorers.
Sedna Epic Norway 2019: Women’s Leadership & Winter Snorkel
Please consider supporting a portion of my personal costs to lead the Sedna Epic Expedition’s women’s leadership program and winter snorkel expedition to Norway in November 2019.
Every donation is welcome and accretive to my bottom line.
Warm regards, Susan
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SOCIAL MEDIA
In 10 short weeks, I'll lead the sea women @SednaEpic on a leadership program & winter snorkelling expedition 350 kms above Norway's #ArcticCircle. Please consider supporting my #GoFundMe campaign. Photo of orca © Jens Wikstrom @WaterproofExped #herringrun https://t.co/4Q1CiXFLJI
ᐅᖃᐅᓯᓕᕆᔾᔪᑎᕗᑦ ᐅᓪᓗᒥ
Word of day
ᐃᖃᓗᓕᐊᓗᒃ
Iqalulialuk
I-qa-lu-li-a-luk:
Plenty of fish
(Image: Cee Pootoogook’s Surfacing Bear) @kenojuakcentre
When they're nestlings, Belted Kingfishers have acidic stomachs that help them digest bones, fish scales, and arthropod shells. But their stomach chemistry changes by the time they leave the nest, and they begin regurgitating pellets, similar to owls. https://t.co/pIS3cZQ6ty
For birds, it's been called “Heathrow at the top of the world:" Alaska's National Petroleum Reserve, where millions of birds come to nest and raise their young, is now under threat from petroleum development #SundayStills #NatGeo @NatGeo @NatGeoTravel
Alaska’s last vast wild place is open for drilling. Will the birds survive?
Alaska's National Petroleum Reserve, where millions of birds come to nest and raise their young, is now under threat from petroleum development.
on.natgeo.com
Exhibiting an octahedral symmetry, this stunning anatase crystal is a mineral form of titanium dioxide (TiO2) that's used as a semiconductor. Locality: Cappella San Gregorio, Italy; Field of View: 2.5mm; Photo © Giuseppe Finello /e-rocks. com #geologist #minerals @GeologyPage
In Nov. 2019, Indigenous and non-Indigenous women @SednaEpic will convene in Tromsø, Norway: Please support my costs to lead our women's leadership program and #wintersnorkel expedition with orcas & humpbacks 350 kms above the Arctic Circle #Inuit #Saami https://t.co/4Q1CiXFLJI
Seagrass stores carbon 35 times faster than a tropical forest does: Researchers @SwanseaUni, @WWF and @SkyOceanRescue gather a million seeds of the "wonder plant" from existing #seagrass meadows to start UK's biggest reforestation project #carboncapture
'Wonder plant' to be restored in UK waters
Conservationists say seagrass can store carbon 35 times faster than a tropical forest.
www.bbc.com
In 10 short weeks (yikes!) Susan R. Eaton will lead the Sedna Epic Expedition to Tromso, Norway! Sedna's 15 Indigenous and non-Indigenous sea women will participate in a leadership program followed by a week of exploring northern fjords via a live-aboard vessel. We'll conduct oceanographic research some 350 kliometres above the Arctic Circle, and will snorkel with orcas and humpbacks during the winter herring run.
Susan's GoFundMe campaign has almost reached 30 percent of her targert of $CDN 9,860. Please consider supporting Susan raise 75 percent of her overall expedition costs. This spectacular photo of a spy hopping orca is copyright of Jens Wikström - Wildlife Photography and compliments of our partner, Waterproof Cruises & Expeditions.
Click here to support Sedna Epic Norway: Women's Leadership & Snorkel organized by Susan R. Eaton
Susan R. Eaton Sedna Epic Norway: Women's Leadership & Snorkel COVER: Snorkeling 350 kilometres above the Norway's Arctic Circle during the winter herring run10 weeks... wow!!
Plans for late September in NYC? Come meet #SednaEpic Breezy Grenier & Erica Moulton as they will be hosting the #PVCROV booth at the annual Hudson River Park #Submerge Festival. Hope to sea you there ~ and look forward to sharing #ROVs with all of you, we will have a pool and our ROV kits! 9.28.19 11am - 4pm.
An insightful article, about marine heatwaves impacting coastal peoples, in Phys.org by Eric Oliver of Dalhousie University
"I'm of mixed settler and Indigenous descent. On one side, my roots are in the Inuit of northern Labrador, and as Inuit our relationship with the ocean is of paramount importance. The ocean provides our food, our highways and our connection to nature.
Over the past 40 years, September Arctic sea ice extent has fallen by about half, and this year it is headed for a low that runs close to the record set in 2012. For Labrador Inuit, this means the ice is becoming less predictable. What would a spring without sea ice look like? What would it mean?
It would mean being unable to travel across the sea ice. It would mean being unable to access wild foods, like seals, and being more reliant on over-priced and under-nourishing "store food." It would mean an inability to reach culturally important places that lie far from communities. It would mean a significant change in lifestyle—and one that I would describe as a kind of cultural trauma.
On the other side, I'm linked to settlers and immigrants to Nova Scotia's South Shore, a place economically and culturally linked to the sea. What do warmer water temperatures—as much as 4C in Atlantic Canada's oceans—mean for coastal fishers?
It would mean an uncertain future to say the least. Will the fisheries that support communities there, like the American lobster or the snow crab, remain viable in the decades to come? The answer to that is not clear. Is there a fishery that might replace these in a drastically warmer future climate? We don't yet know."
Ocean warming is changing the relationship coastal communities have with the ocean
Climate change has made record-breaking heatwaves all the more likely, both on land and beneath the ocean's surface. As the world's ocean sucks up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere—as well as most of the additional heat being trapped by global warming—it is undergoing some significant changes.