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Bringing the Ocean to Eye Level for Inuit in the Arctic
Bank to the left; bank to the right: Tethered to a diver propulsion vehicle, I flew through emerald-green arctic waters at six kilometres per hour, dodging sculpted ice formations off the northern coast of Labrador, Canada.
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
VIDEOS
Martial Glacier, Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina
TELUS Spark: Meet an Innovator Susan R. Eaton
Sedna Epic: Seawomen To Snorkel Northwest
SOCIAL MEDIA
ᐅᖃᐅᓯᓕᕆᔾᔪᑎᕗᑦ ᐅᓪᓗᒥ
Word of the day
ᓇᓕᖅᑲᐃᑦᑐᖅ
naliqqaittuq
na-liq-qait-tuq
coldest time of the year
(image: Papiara Tukiki’s Winter) #Inuktitut
We could watch these little guys walk around all day 😍 📹: IG user oceantrivia in Maasin Southern Leyte, Philippines
I can hardly believe what I have just experienced, swimming in a river UNDER the Antarctic ice sheet. Every shade of blue imaginable - it was utterly magnificent, and absolutely terrifying. Antarctica is melting. #Antarctica2020
Honoured to attend the swearing in ceremony and community dinner for Chief Allan and Council in #FortChipewyan, Alberta! The Peace-Athabasca River Delta is the traditional territory of the Athabasca Chipewyan #FirstNation @ACFN_KaiTaile, the “people of the land of the willow”
Meet April Glaicar, circumpolar photographer, jewellery artist and #arctic conservationist! Born and raised in Hay River, Northwest Terrirtories, @aprilglaicar joins Sedna's women's leadership program and winter snorkel expedition to Norway's northern fjords in Nov. 2020 #nwtarts
90,000 years ago, free-diving #Neanderthals collected mollusc shells on the sea floor, shaping them into sharpened tools: Researchers analyze 171 tools from Grotta dei Moscerini in Italy's Latium region, and publish results in journal @PLOSONE @BBCNews https://t.co/I1ePo2XuDu
Forecast for the @TownofFortSmith, Northwest Territories: -40 °C (windchill -48 °C); humidity 70%; light snow. Made for living #Northof60, my beautiful beaded, stroud & moose hide mitts trimmed with beaver were made by Violet Martin, a #Dene artisan from Fort Rae #SpectacularNWT
In solidarity, we salute with Anna Kuhmunen, Sedna's Sami Team Member who resides in Sweden!
The Supreme Court has granted a Sami association in the far north the sole right to manage small-game hunting on its land – and not the Swedish state.
Thursday’s ruling brought to an end a decade long legal battle that pitted Girjas, the small cooperative that organizes reindeer herding in the area, against the state which owns the land.
The verdict means the Sami community in Norrbotten county will control who gets to fish and hunt small game in the group’s reindeer herding area which covers some 5,500 square kilometers in parts of Gällivare and Kiruna municipalities.
That right used to belong to the Swedish state, which managed hunting and fishing through local county administrative boards. Though the court said its ruling only applied to Girjas and not all Sami areas in general.
In response to the ruling, the government says it will need a thorough review of the verdict first before making any decisions on what to do next.
Sami indigenous village wins historic land use case over Swedish state
www.rcinet.ca
The Supreme Court has granted a Sami association in the far north the sole right to manage small-game hunting on its land - and not the Swedish state. Thursday's ruling brought to an end a decade long legal battle that pitted Girjas, the small cooperative that organizes reindeMany tears of joy yesterday ❤️
Björn St. Tapio
ᐅᖃᐅᓯᓕᕆᔾᔪᑎᕗᑦ ᐅᓪᓗᒥ
Word of the day from the Qikiqtani Inuit Assoc.
ᑕᑯᓐᓇᖑᐊᖅᑕᖏᑦ
takunnanguaqtangit (ta-kun-na-nguaq-tan-git)
Vision
(Image: Mialia Jaw's Ancient Vision)
Dr. Nalini Nadkarni didn’t play with Barbies as a girl. She was too busy climbing the maple trees in her front yard in Bethesda, Maryland, USA.
The forest ecologist might seem an unlikely person to help design and promote Barbie dolls. But over the past six months, she has been inspiring girls worldwide to play with dolls that have a magnifying glass and all-terrain boots instead of tiaras and high heels. It’s through new explorer Barbie dolls designed with her input by Mattel and National Geographic.
The line of dolls, which includes an astrophysicist, a conservationist, an entomologist, a marine biologist and a nature photojournalist, are long overdue, said Nadkarni, 65.
Nadkarni is a The University of Utah biology professor who studies rainforest canopies and how plants get their nutrients.
“When I was growing up in Bethesda, we tried to live simply, following Gandhi’s principles,” she said. “My dad was from India, and a Barbie didn’t quite fit in with living a simple life.”
“These explorer Barbies are a big step forward,” she said. “It’s not perfect — Barbie still has that impossible body shape and is made of plastic — but it’s a good start.”
Nadkarni, who received a custom-designed Barbie in her likeness from Mattel as a thank you for her efforts, said she had spent years trying to persuade the toy company to develop a “treetop Barbie,” with no luck.
“In 2003, I’d been thinking of ways to help get girls more interested in science, and I asked myself, ‘What do girls care about when they’re little?’ ” she recalled.
She looked to her young daughter.
“I knew that girls wanted to play with Barbies and look like Barbies,” Nadkarni said. “But what if Barbie had field clothes on and came with a little booklet about canopy plants?”
At the time, Mattel wasn’t interested in her idea (Nadkarni said she was told that a “treetop Barbie” wouldn’t sell), but she persisted.
She finally created her own treetop dolls, retrofitting Barbies bought at thrift stores with sturdy boots, helmets and climbing harnesses. Mattel agreed that she could produce the dolls on a small scale, and Nadkarni sold about 400 by request over 15 years through her website to friends, her students and others who had heard about her efforts to introduce girls to the science-themed dolls.
Last year, Nadkarni was thrilled to learn that National Geographic was working with Mattel to come up with a new line of adventure dolls, and that they wanted her to serve on their advisory committee.
She started climbing trees as a kid. Then this ecologist helped create scientist Barbie.
www.washingtonpost.com
The forest ecologist might seem like an unlikely person to help design and promote Barbie dolls.