The fin whales were silent but for the wet breaths that sprayed from their spouts, hinting at where Michaela Norgren should look next.
It was a first for the 17-year-old. She’s one of 86 international students — including five from Ottawa — that launched from Canada’s capital en route to Greenland as part of the Students on Ice Arctic Expedition.
Crossing the Labrador Sea in the company of the world’s second-largest whales is a memory Norgren said she’ll cherish.
“I think everyone on the ship was in complete awe. It was so beautiful because these creatures are massive,” she recalled, speaking from the top deck of the ship Saturday night. “To see them coming out of the water with such beauty and grace, it’s really, really special to see.”
Michaela Norgren touches a glacier in Tasermiut Fiord, Greenland. Martin Lipman/Students on Ice
The fin whale has been dubbed the greyhound of the sea, and Norgren said pods of 10 to 20 great grey bodies surrounded the ship all day, rising and falling so that at one moment she’d glimpse the fin and the next a tail would emerge.
“They were feeding,” she said. In the background, a guttural blast from a foghorn muffled her words and signalled the ship’s departure from a small community in southern Greenland. It was one of many stops that included coastal communities and Zodiac cruises past icebergs and glaciers nestled in fiords.
“It’s completely breathtaking,” Norgren said of the scenery on the expedition, now it its 14th year. “The mountains are literally 360 degrees around you.”
But the two-week trip is about more than polar bear sightings and jaw-dropping scenery. Students participate in daily workshops aimed at cultural and environmental education led by one of the 45 experts on board.
“I wanted to learn more about how my actions in Ottawa impact the ecosystem in the Arctic,” said Norgren, whose $10,000 spot was sponsored by the Leacross Foundation. “As a Canadian population we need to protect the Arctic because it’s such a unique and delicate ecosystem so I think to expand the knowledge of students who are going to be the future leaders will be the best way to make future changes.”
Jack Patterson grew up hearing northern-inspired stories from his grandparents, who did the trip years before as educators. This year the 16-year-old and his cousin, also from Ottawa, joined their grandfather in what has become a generational tradition for the family.
He said those tales couldn’t capture the reality of his experience, which will end July 24 when the group returns to Ottawa.
“You always hear about global warming and everything that it’s doing but you never get a face on what it’s really affecting,” said Patterson, adding Inuit elders spoke of the warmth changing the landscape, moving the tree line farther up and destroying habitat for Arctic animals. They pointed out other animals and birds that are not native to the area, but are surviving in what once was a hostile climate.
Jack Patterson participates in a traditional Inuit game called The Arm Pull during the expedition. Lee Narraway/Students on Ice
“It just makes you want to start a movement or be a part of something to help solve it and preserve this,” said Patterson, who, like Norgren, is heading into Grade 12.
But he, too, has hope, inspired by the realization that there is common ground even in seemingly exotic environments.
“It’s so different and so the same,” he said of a recent stop to a small coastal community in Greenland. “There was a big music festival with us and the kids from that town, and neither of us had any idea what the other kids were singing about. You could feel the atmosphere.”
Saving the Arctic, he said, is not an individual effort.
“I think if we don’t make it a world responsibility nobody will be able to save the Arctic. Even if nobody borders Arctic land, everybody’s responsible for what they do.”
