The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Into the Arctic

Episode Date: August 19, 2021

The Bridge heads to the Arctic to see two big issues first hand -- the impact of climate change, and how to handle Arctic sovereignty.  Day One is in Pond Inlet before Friday boarding HMCS Harry Dewolf, Canada's first Arctic Patrol vessel.  And we don't forget the election as we talk too about the importance of turnout.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge, and this is different. You can probably tell already, The Bridge in the Arctic, coming up right after this. A can of pet food, where every ingredient matters. Some companies like to brag about their first ingredient, but the A Can of Pet Food team is proud of their entire bag.

That's because every recipe has been thoughtfully sourced and carefully crafted with the highest quality ingredients, starting with quality animal ingredients, balanced with whole fruits and vegetables. Akana Pet Foods are rich in the protein and nutrients your dog or cat needs to feel and look their best. Available in grain-free, healthy grains, and singles for sensitive dogs. Akana, go beyond the first ingredient. That's right, the bridge is in the Arctic. I'm Peter Mansbridge, and we're looking forward to talking to you over these next couple of days. But first of all, let me explain where I am right now, because you're probably wondering,

Peter, there's an awful lot of noise there in the background. Well, there is, and there's a reason for that. It's because I'm on an aircraft. I mean, that's how, you know, unless you're behind a dog sled, in a kayak, on a snowmobile, you're probably in an airplane if you're traveling in the Arctic to get from point A to point B. I'm on my way across the stretches of Baffin Island towards Pond Inlet, where my voyage is really going to start. But already it's been a long day, because it started in, well, started in Toronto,

then Toronto to Ottawa, where you catch the flight on Canadian North to Iqaluit. And from Iqaluit, I'm flying now to Pond Inlet. As a story about Pond Inlet, I'm going to tell you in a minute, but to set it up, I kind of explained to you, first of all, that, you know, I've been in the Arctic many times. My career started, as some of you know, in Churchill, Manitoba on the shores of Hudson Bay back in 1968. I've been back and forth many times since then. And I love the Arctic. I've been back and forth many times since then and I love the Arctic. I've had the opportunity to travel there many times and as a result have grown very, not only accustomed to the spectacular scenery, but in many ways accustomed to the traditions of the north and the Arctic. Now I think you're going to need a map to follow some of this. It's not hard but I want you to

have a sense of where we are. So start looking for a map of Canada's north. Just you know Google any community in the north and then just you know widen the map. So you know Google the Iqaluit and widen the map and then just you know widen the uh widen the map so you know google the callowheats man and widen the map and you'll get a sense of where we're going on this um while you're searching for that the first time i went to a callowheat this is actually part of the arctic story first time i went to a callowheat would have been around 1969. And at that time it was called Frobisher Bay, named after Martin Frobisher, the explorer who kind of opened up that particular area around Baffin Island.

Now, they changed it to Iqaluit in the 90s when Nunavut became a separate territory from the Northwest Territories. And that signal what's happened in the Arctic for years since. Many of the names are going to the more traditional Inuit name, the Nukhtutut. So Frobisher Bay became Iqaluit. And I've often thought when I've traveled in the Arctic, so many of not just the communities, but various points of interest, can be an island, could be a bay, could be an inlet. They're all named after, mainly mean, mainly European explorers, or European explorers' wives, or uncles, or aunts,

friends of different kinds. They're not named after the people who actually lived there, the indigenous peoples of Canada's Arctic. And so that's changing, and that's good. I'm glad that's changing. And that's good. I'm glad that's happening. So, as I said, Provisher Bay became Iqaluit. Now we're heading to Pond Inithi Matalik, or Mithi Matalik, the place where the landing place is. So in other words, the Inuit, when they were hunting or fishing or traveling, they would land at a certain spot in this inlet, and it became Miti Matalik. And the English changed it to Pond Inlet in their language.

Now, Pond Inlet, small community, there's, I think, about 1,600, 1,700 people there. And that's where we're flying to now, because that's where we're going to meet up with the Canadian Navy. The Arctic Patrol vessel, Harry DeWolf, will be coming to Pond Inlet, and that's where I'll be getting on board. So, by now, see, baby crying a couple of rows away. And that's one of the traditions. I'm assuming you can hear that. I'm wearing a mask because there's

everybody on the plane. So I've had to hide the microphone inside the mask. So I hope this is giving you some sense of what I'm saying. Anyway, if you've got a map in front of you, start off with Iqaluit. If we're both looking at the same place, that'll give you a better sense of where we're heading. So Iqaluit is at the southern tip almost of Baffin Island. And if you look straight east from Iqaluit, you'll see Greenland, not that far away, the southern tip of Greenland. Well, we're flying to Pond Inlet right now, that if you look at the top end of Baffin Island, the northern end, you'll see Pond Inlet up there. And it's sort of halfway up, if you look east again, it's sort of halfway up if you look east again it's kind of halfway up the Greenland coast

then from uh pond inlet we're going north even further north up to grease fjord which is the northernmost Canadian community where people actually live there are other spots in different parts, even further north, Isaacson, Eureka, Mole Bay, Alert. There are kind of weather and military stations, but they're not residential communities. Grease Fjord is, and it's the furthest north in Canada. So that's kind of an idea of where we're heading.

We'll be going. No, I'm fine, thanks. Thank you, the flight attendants here on Canadian North offering what little goodies they can during a time of COVID. If you look just north of Pond Inlet and south of Grease Fjord, you'll see this big stretch of water that goes straight all the way from east to west. That's called Lancaster Sound. And in classic terms, that's the best northwest passage. Trouble is, it's often clogged up in ice. So the northwest passage of our history books actually heads south and goes through a series of different inlets, passageways, before it hits the kind of top end of North America and It's open because of climate change. And it raises big questions about Arctic sovereignty. Who controls the North? Who owns the North, the waterways of the North?

So Canada is in a battle over Arctic sovereignty with countries as different as the United States, Russia, China, Denmark. I mean, there are a number of countries. I mean, and I say battle, I use that term loosely because it is a negotiation, and they have been going on for the last couple of years. But that's the main reason I'm up here this week.

It's not just for the podcast. It's mainly for a documentary I'm shooting for the CBC, which will air later on this year so it's the story of change because of the climate change and it's the story of sovereignty and what canada's doing to stake out that ground when i'm on the harry to wolf the arctic uh patrol vessel first time we've had one, the Navy, I mean, most of the ships that have been up here on Canada's behalf have been with the Canadian Coast Guard. And some of you with a good memory will know that I've been on a number of those

ships, the Louis S. Saleron, the Wilfrid Laurier, and others in different parts of the Canadian Arctic over the years. So this will be different. The Navy showing the flag and checking things out. You know, sniffing around for submarines. That Lancaster Sound stretch of water, there's no doubt that submarines have been through there. American submarines, Russian submarines. They've been there. They may still be there.

There may be some there right now we may have a look if we get lucky we'll find one anyway there you go that's a snapshot that's like a big picture a sense of what's happening here on this trip and how on the reasons why I'm kind of you know more than a little bit excited about it you know from the air you just fly over huge stretches of what looks like barren land especially here on Baffin Island but it's spectacular land it's you know to me it's beautiful and it's exciting and it's especially when you kind of look down every once in a while and say you know what that particular spot that i'm looking at nobody has ever walked

on that spot before now i don't know that for a fact but it's a pretty safe bet it's not like this is an overpopulated island baffin island there communities, you know, Clyde River and Pond Inlet and Arctic Bay at the northern end and of course a calorie further south. So I'm getting ready now for our landing in Pond Inlet and I'll meet up with the crew that I'm shooting this documentary with. And I'll be spending a fair chunk of time, 24 hours or so, in Pond Inlet, talking to a number of the residents there about the changes they're seeing, about their feelings about sovereignty. And I might even ask them about their feelings about the election. The election seems so distant from anything right now.

After being immersed in it for the last few days, this is a nice little break. I mean, you might have heard, if you listened to Good Talk yesterday with Chantelle Iberra and Bruce Anderson, Chantelle talking about, you know, the campaign's not really going to start. People aren't really going to get into it

until Labor Day weekend. Well, then this is the perfect time to be traveling up here and thinking and talking about other issues that are, you know, critically important. Climate change is important. Arctic sovereignty is important. It will affect not only our lives, but the lives of future generations. So we'll be looking at that and looking forward to hearing what the people in the Arctic have to say, rather than just us babbling away in the South about what we think it means. So they'll be telling us to buckle up here soon to get ready for landing in pond inlet, which means I've got to try and fish this microphone out of my mask and get stuff packed up.

So I'm going to take a quick break and then magically, magically, after the break, I'll be back with more of The Bridge right after this. This is The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge. Okay, I'm back. I'm back. I'm back. Peter Mansbridge here.

I'm in Pond Inlet now. And I'm talking clearly with no background sound. No babies crying in the background. No flight attendants offering bottles of water. That's all they offer these days on board flights because they don't want to get into the whole food thing. Anyway, it was a nice flight, both from Ottawa to Iqaluit and from Iqaluit to Pond Inlet, and exactly on time, both flights, like absolutely on time, no delays, no nothing.

You know, I was wondering what that might sound like, because you can't hear it while you're recording it. So what I found interesting, A, it was better sound than I thought it was going to be. But the other thing was, because I had tried it a number of different times with the microphone, you know, pinned to my shirt, my sweater, you know, on the edge of the mask. Finally, I put it right in the mask. Now, that made the voice heard better. However, it also picked up the sounds that, you know, your mouth makes aside from your voice. So I apologize for that. There was, you know, some clicking and going on every once in a while. But unfortunately, that's what you get when you stick a microphone loosely inside your mask. Okay, enough about the flight. I'm now in Pond Inlet,

and it's just the way I remember it from my last trip, which I think was 2008. There were actually a number of people at the airport who remembered me from that trip, and they remembered something else too. They remembered a great friend of mine from the early broadcast days by the name of James Arverluck, Jimmy Arverluck we called him. And Jimmy was from here in Pond Inlet. He passed away a couple of years ago, but he'd had a great career.

He was a member of the Nunavut Parliament. But he started, he became well known as an announcer at the CBC. And guess where? In Churchill, Manitoba. And Jimmy, which is what I call him, they call him James here, but Jimmy Arvluck and I worked at the same station, CHFC Fort Churchill, 1230 on your dial.

And we had a great time. That would be 68. And Jimmy used to do a number of different shows. He did shows in English, but he mainly did shows in a language that his fellow Inuit could understand. And he was a rock star in the north because of that. But he was also just a really nice guy.

And we had a lot of good times together in Churchill. And the last time I saw Jimmy Arvluck was right here in Pond Inlet during that 2008 visit. And we had a great chat. And I'm sad that he's gone, but I'm, you know, I love thinking back to the times we had together, the influence he had and the caring he had about his territory of Nunavut. And his concern about the Inuit people and that they were able in many ways, he wanted to ensure that they took charge. So, you know, he was one of the early people in the diversity of the CBC in the North,

and he wanted to ensure when he was a member, a political representative here in Nunavut, he wanted to ensure that the people of Nunavut, the original peoples of Nunavut, had a major say in what was going on. And I thought about that and what his dream was, again today, because there's a group here of young people who are in Nunavut, mainly based in Iqaluit, but they're also here in Pond Inlet,

and they were meeting here today in Pond Inlet. And they're called Karvik. And what's interesting about this group is that they're young people who want to ensure that, instead of leaving, you know, all these young kids who got to ensure that instead of leaving, all these young kids who got education, high school and college, and they could easily leave, not stay in Pond Inlet or even stay in Iqaluit. They could head south.

They've got an education. There are different things they could do. But they want to stay here because they love their territory, and they want to ensure that the decisions that are made in this territory are made by those who have passed down through generation after generation the Inuit culture and the Inuit dreams for their territory. So they're very focused on science, technology, environment, climate change. And a lot of these issues we're discussing in this documentary,

so I'm looking forward to talking to them. But here's the really interesting thing, and I've just got to go off mic for a minute here to grab this. Their, sorry, their group is called Ikarvik. All right? You know what that means? Inuktitut for the bridge. They want a bridge to the future, right?

But as you know, this podcast is called The Bridge, and they know that. And so they gave me one of their jackets. You know, it's one of those jackets you wear under a coat to stay warm in a cool area. And it's, you know, it's cool here. You know, when I got off the plane, it was like, I don't know, three or four degrees. So anyway, I had this beautiful black jacket

with the Carvick written on it. The bridge. Of course it's the bridge. Right? So what a welcome. What a welcome that is. Here's something that struck me when I was here in 2008 and struck me again today because it underlines the big issue that's confronting the Arctic. The major issue.

Here, it's one thing. It's climate change. And there's so many things fall out of it. But when I was here in 2008, if you've ever been to Pond Inlet, you know when you look out at the inlet from Pond, right across the other side of the inlet is Pilot Island. And right across, literally right out the window of my hotel room, I look across is what was called the Bylet Island Glacier. And I can remember in 2008 going over there by chopper because it was the early going of this glacier is melting.

And we went over by Chopper. We flew up because it's almost like mountainous on the other side of the inlet. Flew up that glacier, low to the ground, and it's a spectacular sight. But at the base of it, it was dripping, dripping madly. Well, when I got off the plane today, I asked one of the people who came out to meet me, I said, how's that glacier doing? And it was, it's gone.

It's not even there anymore. Well, that may be a bit of a stretch because there are remnants of it, but in fact, it's gone. You know, it's not like it was. And so much of the high Arctic is not like it was. This is the leading edge of climate change for us as Canadians. It's happening big time here. It's why the Navy's here.

We're trying to show that we own the North. Arctic sovereignty, right? The more there is of a melt, the more the ice breaks up, all kinds of different things start to happen. One, the waterways open and there'll be more international shipping because many countries, including the Americans, but they're not alone, say the waters are international waters. You know, once you've passed the top end of the North American continent and you get into the Arctic archipelago, which is where we are here, it's open season on the waterways. And if it really truly is, and there's no kind of accountability for what goes on, there are all kinds of things that can start happening. Oil spills, accidents.

And these are all things that are being, you know, you heard me talking on the plane about the negotiations that are going on with different countries about the North. Anyway, sovereignty is one issue. Jobs is another. Because with with the melt more things are opening up mining is opening up there's a mine here i won't go into the details of it here but there's a mine about 100 clicks from here that's owned by a company in luxembourg, I believe. And it's very profitable, very profitable. And in fact, I think just, you know, in Nunavut's gross domestic product,

a quarter of it is a result of this one mine. It's something like that. I may be off a few percentage points on that, but it's something like that. So it's creating jobs. So it's a dilemma for politicians in Nunavut who say, wow, this is fantastic. We've got all these potential new jobs

and new income coming in. But at the same time, it's a great concern and great worry for young people like my friends at the Carvick who are worried about the impact it can have on everything from the land, because it's basically a kind of open pit mining of a kind, the sea, wildlife. You know, he talked, I remember talking to hunters and fishers in

Clyde River 10 years ago and they were saying, you know, things are really changing out there in terms of what we can catch because they're moving further north

because the waters are warming and stuff that was further south is coming here. I can remember talking to one hunter who was like in his 70s, and he told me he was seeing things he'd never seen before, ever. And he'd been a hunter and a fisherman all his life. So these are the kind of things in the mix of discussion about the impact climate change is having in any number of different directions.

So anyway, the Navy's coming in tomorrow. The Harry DeWolf will be just, if I'm looking out my window, tomorrow morning it'll be there. And Friday morning we board it, I think, either late tomorrow night or Friday morning we board it, and then we'll head up to Grease Fjord. But it's going to spend the day here, and it's inviting some of the people of Pond Inlet

to come out and see the new Canadian Arctic Patrol vessel. And it's a warship. It's got guns on it. Now, it would be, one thing that I did in my last visit here is I went over to the co-op, kind of like the grocery store, the main one, really the only one in Pond Inlet. Because, you know, you hear these stories of the prices and the outrageous prices that have to be spent on buying basic stuff. You know, outrageous is probably the wrong term

because, you know, it costs money to ship stuff here. And a lot of the year you can only ship it by air, and that costs money. And, you know, there's a sea lift during the summer months, which is going on right now. That costs money. I wanted to, you know, I remember back then, and there's been a change since then because there are subsidies now. The federal government of Ottawa put in subsidies for people who live in the

north in terms of their food and some of their basic things that they need to buy. Now, I got here, I landed too late because the store closed at 6. But, you know, I got the skinny, so to speak, from a number of local people about things. And they said they wanted to remind me that there is a subsidy, but it's only for certain things. And I don't have a problem with this.

Things that are healthy. You know, so soft drinks don't have a problem with this things that are healthy you know so soft drinks don't make the cut potato chips don't make the cut all that kind of stuff does not get subsidized but the things that do matter you know milk and you know vegetables and all of that, which skyrocket in price, are heavily subsidized. But, you know, you look over at the, you know, 60 or 70 bucks for a case of 12 soft drinks makes you realize that, you know, maybe I don't need those soft drinks. Not for that kind of money.

Anyway, it's a good reminder for us who live in the South, who take certain things for granted, that our neighbors in the North, you know, face a very different kind of challenge when they head to the grocery store. Okay, I'm babbling. But I do want to, you know, I want to keep my promise of touching something about the election most days, even way up here.

And so, you know, I had a chance to watch what happened last night on that Nova Scotia election, and it was a stunner, right? And it certainly was a stunner if you were a Liberal. So here's the angle I'm going to look at very briefly tonight and just run through some stats because I think they're interesting. And that's turnout. You know, we always, I always say our turnouts are way too low for any election, whether it's federal, provincial, municipal. More people should vote.

This is the basic moment we have in our lives where we can impact the decisions that are made for us by voting right and i often tell the story about you know those of us who've traveled to different parts of the world and have seen where elections are incredibly important and are taken by the electorate in an incredibly important way. You know, we've all seen, whether it's even just on camera, on television, we've all seen those moments where people are literally crying while they're waiting in line to vote.

And why are they crying? They're not crying because it's hot. They're not crying because it's hot. They're not crying because they're waiting too long. They're crying because they have that right to vote. You know, they fought for it or their parents fought for it. In some cases, they died for it. Their parents. And here they've got that chance. They can influence a decision. They get a chance to vote. And I think sometimes we just take it all for granted. You know, the Nova Scotia election last night,

it'll be a while before you have a final determinant on what the turnout was in Nova Scotia. But the initial estimate on Tuesday night was 49% to 50%. Half. Only half. Those who were eligible to vote voted. As I said, we'll see where that ends up when the counting is really all done. Last time around in 2017, it was 54%.

Not that much greater, but at least it was more than half. The record low before last night was 2013, 53%. Let me give you a couple of other provinces because some of these things are interesting, especially as we head towards a federal election. All the provinces that have had votes since the pandemic started, and there have been a few of them, the advance voting went up and mail-in voting went up. And in both cases, that decreases the impact of a late surprise, you know, the weekend before a vote or even the day before a vote.

It also limits the amount of last-minute maneuvering that parties might make. Anyway, New Brunswick, 2020, September of 2020. Their voter turnout was basically the same as it was two years ago. So I'm just focusing here on provinces that have had a vote during the pandemic. So in 2020, the fall of 2020, fall of last year, New Brunswick had a vote when the turnout was basically the same as it had been two years before. 2018, the turnout was 66.4%.

In 2020, it was 66.14%, which is almost identical. BC, British Columbia, October of last year, 54.5% of registered voters voted. It was a bit less, almost 100,000 voters less than it had been in the 2017 provincial election. This was also, that was also the first election in BC in which more voters voted before election day than on election day. That's interesting. You know, because of the pandemic concerns, advanced polls they went to, and whatever mail-in voting was available there. Saskatchewan, October of last year as well. For most of the past century, Saskatchewan registered high levels of voter turnout's 18 elections between 1921 and 1991,

turnout ranged from a high of 85% to a low of 80%. The remaining three elections were in the range of 70% to 79%. So Saskatchewaners love to vote. I mean, they're good citizens. They vote. Their overall average over the 70-year period, between the dates I mentioned, 82%. But it has dropped in the last few years.

It's dropped down to the low 70s, the high 60s. And in the province's penultimate election, 2016, turnout dropped dramatically to a record low of 57%. That's not good. based on the 2020 election night totals of ballots cast in person at the polls, ballots cast over the five-day advance voting period, and ballots cast in personal care facilities, a total of almost 400,000 votes were counted. So the number of registered voters was 820,000. The turnout rate was 46.95%. It would be highly unlikely that the ballots remaining to be counted

between October 28th and November 7th would add a further 10 percentage points to the level of voter turnout. Thus, the voter turnout in 2020 will enter the record books as the lowest in the province's history. Wow. You know, there's a lot of that to the impact of COVID. Okay. Last point on turnout.

The lowest federal turnout ever, take a guess, what do you think it was? Happened in 2008, so not that long ago. 58.8%. It's the only time it's been lower than 60%. The numbers have gone up since then, but they haven't gone up much beyond the mid-60s. What will it be this fall?

We got COVID, potential of a fourth wave. There will be advanced polling. There'll be some mail-in voting. There won't be mandatory voting. Mandatory is a word everybody loves to bounce around these days about vaccines. But there's no mandatory voting in Canada. And some people say there should be, while others are vehemently against it.

It's an interesting one. We may discuss that at some point on one of these special programs. All right. That's going to be it for tonight from Pond Inlet in Nunavut. Isn't that great to be able to say that? We're podcasting. We're on Sirius XM, Channel 167, Canada Talks, from Pond Inlet, Nunavut.

And we will be again tomorrow night before we get on board the Navy's vessel. Now, tomorrow at noon, first up on Sirius XM, right? Now, a number of you have been writing, quite a few of you have been writing. Numbers actually have been quite dramatic this week after being back on just the lazy days of one day a week during the summer. We're back to daily, and the numbers have gone up considerably. In fact, my guess is in the next day or so, we're going to hit a million downloads,

which in podcasting terms is big, a million downloads in the last six months since we joined Sirius, since they started handling the distribution of our podcast. And we're very excited about that. And to celebrate it, we're in the Arctic. So it'll either be from pond inlet we hit a million, or it'll be from on board the Harrier to Wolf, the Navy's Arctic patrol vessel. One or the other, we're going to hit a million.

Now, a number of you have been writing with comments, and I'm keeping them all. Keep them coming. Some of you are making some really good points about our election coverage. And there will be, at some point, kind of a mailbag edition. We're kind of crowded this week and I think crowded next week. But I'll be saving it all up. We'll definitely do the best of your comments and your letters and your emails on an upcoming program.

So keep them coming. I read every one of them. Read them all. The shorter the punchier, and you've been great at that already this week. And that's great. Okay, we're going to wrap it up. We're going to give the big heave-ho to this one. It's been interesting.

It's different, right? Told you right at the top it was going to be different being on the plane. And it was. Thanks for listening. I'm Peter Mansbridge. This has been the bridge

and pond inlet. We'll be back in 24 hours.