The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Living the dream in Canada’s Arctic

Episode Date: August 23, 2021

On our third podcast from the Arctic we meet Chief Petty Officer Ginette Seguin - her story is one you won’t forget. But first a bit of history about Arctic sovereignty — how it started and where it is now.  Canada has come a long way.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here with the latest episode, you're just moments away from it, of The Bridge, on board HMCS Harry DeWolf in the Arctic, coming right up. This is The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge. And hello there. That's right. We are at sea. We've been at sea for the last couple of days on board Canada's U.S. naval warship. It's an Arctic patrol vessel. It's named Harry DeWolf. And you're wondering, Harry DeWolf? Who's that? Well, actually, Harry DeWolf was one of our naval heroes of the Second World War. He captained the Haida, among other things, the Haida, the ship that used to be in Toronto Harbors, now I think in Hamilton Harbor. And Harry DeWolf had quite a reputation,

and his name was the name they chose for our first Arctic patrol vessel. There are going to be six of them by the time all the construction is finished. Well, we've been at sea, as I said, for the last couple of days. There have been some memorable moments. I'm going to tell you about a couple of them. I'm on board this, actually. It's been in the works for months. To do a documentary for the CBC, it's on a variety of things, climate change and Arctic sovereignty being two of them, and we've been doing a lot of interviews, a lot of film work, a lot of trudging

around. It's been pretty exciting. We're high up in the Arctic. We're inside the Arctic Circle and we're visiting a number of communities. Well, I want to tell you this story, first of all. I don't know about you, but I like to watch old newsreels, and I like to watch old movies about the Second World War. And among other things, one of the scenes that has always grabbed me from both those, newsreels and movies, is that moment when troops on board ships have to get off to get into landing craft to go ashore. And they go down those kind of rope ladders, if you will, at the side of a ship. And they get into landing craft and then off they go. Well, those are pretty incredible scenes when you see them both on the newsreels and in the movies. They recreate it quite well.

Well, there I was yesterday, surrounded by all these 20 and 30-somethings, the men and women of the Canadian Navy. We were, you know, pretty much in shape. And here I'm, this old guy, 73. Age is just a number, though. 73, bit of a bit of COVID belly on him from the last year and a half. And they said, all right, Mansbridge, you want to go ashore here at Dundas Harbor? You're going to have to go down the side of the ship

and get into a landing craft because there is no dock here. So they're about, I don't know, half a mile at the most offshore. So I did it. I'm pretty proud to say I was able to do it. But lowering yourself down a rope ladder and getting into a landing craft is quite something. You do flash back to those images. Now, of course, it's different.

You're not under fire for one thing. And it's a little more sophisticated than it was say in the 1940s and the landing craft are much better but you cannot escape the thought when you're in the landing craft at the front of it as I was, at the gate, the drop-down gate, you can't escape thinking of those moments you've witnessed on the newsreels, in the movies, of those moments before an invasion begins. And the front gate, door, whatever you want to call it, drops down. And you hit the water and run up shore.

Well, as I said, this is a modern-day landing craft. It was pretty spiffy, but it had that same thing, that front section that drops down into the water and you're head off. And just imagining, I mean, when we came into Dundas Harbor, which is on Devon Island, remember I told you last week to have a map handy? Devon Island is at the north side of Lancaster Sound. So it's in some pretty barren land, barren territory.

And I couldn't help but think of those moments and what it must have been like for those guys. They were all guys back in the 40s. But here we were, landing on what was a gorgeous day in a very remote area. So why were we at Dundas Harbor? Well, this is interesting because it kind of fits in the story that we're telling on Arctic sovereignty. It fits in the story because in 1921,

the RCMP put an outpost in Dundas Harbor on Devon Island, a very remote area. It's not like there was a community anywhere near it. And initially, it was a posting for one person. They'd be dropped off in the spring or early summer, and they were there for a year before the boat would come back with a replacement. And their job was to sort of keep an eye on the territory. But the real job, really, was showing the flag, was to be able to say, hey, you know what?

Canada exists in the Arctic, beyond hunters and fishers. It exists, and we have a rule of law, to a degree, on Devon Island. And Dundas Harbor and its lone RCMP officer were, in a sense, that flag. Well, the outpost lasted about 10 or 12 years. And there were some difficult times. I mean, that's a difficult posting. And one of the first constables to be sent there

ended up committing suicide. They didn't realize it until they got there for the next exchange in the next summer that that had happened. And then one of the fellows who replaced him ended up accidentally on a hunting trip, shooting himself, and he died in the field. So you can see this wasn't exactly the kind of posting that you'd want it to go to. But by the mid-30s,

they closed the post down. The Hudson Bay Company took it over and used it as a trading post for a couple of years. It wasn't very successful, so they shut it down. And it just sat there for about 10 years,

until after the war, when the RCMP went back in, established an outpost again. But once again, not for long. It only lasted five or six years. And since the early 50s, it's been boarded up and shut down. So we were there to basically get a snapshot of history. Dundas Harbor.

And it fits in the overall story we're telling. Because Arctic sovereignty now is still critical. It's always been that way for governments. They've always wanted to claim Arctic sovereignty, but they've found it difficult to put the muscle behind that. Well, the muscle behind it now, on the military side, is on the part of the Navy. That's what the Harry DeWolf is all about.

And when there are going to be six of these patrol vessels that have some ice capability, not like the big ice breakers of the Coast Guard, but some that are the none, which is what we've had for the last half century, the Arctic patrol vessels will fill that gap. And so that's part of the reason we're getting pictures of this voyage and telling this story. There's a lot of different elements to it.

We've got a very good one tomorrow that we'll be telling you about on the podcast. But that's the focus on this visit to Dundas harbor we were dropped off and then it's a hike across some pretty difficult tundra um for i don't know a couple of clicks to get to these old uh abandoned buildings and the reason it's a difficult hike is there's a lot of up and down but for those of you who've walked on tundra in rough places, you'll know what I mean. It's kind of like sponge, especially at this time of year. So getting a firm footing is difficult,

but then mix that with a lot of rocks, and it's like a ticket to a broken ankle or a sprained ankle. Now, none of that happened to any of us yesterday, but you have to be careful. And it was more of a test of the old 73-year-old body because throughout it all, you knew you're going to have to climb back up that rope ladder at the end of all this, which we managed to successfully do again.

So it was an exciting day with a bit of real history to it. And those are the kind of days I love. And it was also the opportunity in the middle of the afternoon. I mean, we're in the Arctic. You wouldn't classify it as warm, but it wasn't cold. And it was a gorgeous day. It was a total blue sky. And for about 45 minutes or so, we just sat on the tundra and enjoyed the weather and enjoyed the scenery.

It's spectacular. You know, I've said before, Pierre Trudeau used to say, you haven't seen Canada until you've seen the north. And when you're in places like that, on Devon Island or Ellesmere Island or Cornwallis Island or any of the big places up north, so you hear the PA system going on in the ship here now, which happens every once in a while. They're giving instructions to the crew about various things that are happening anyway whenever you're in those places the landscape is spectacular mountain ranges and you know great expanses obviously of water but with a where we are with a 24-hour day like sun all day sun sets and rises at the strangest times here, but it's always bright.

But you kind of remember that Trudeau saying, I think he said it in the 60s or 70s, and it's so true. It is a spectacular place. And sadly, mainly because of the expanse, most Canadians will never get to see it. I've been lucky enough. I've lived in the north. I've worked in the North and I've traveled a lot in the North. But I've also done all of that with the opportunity to share it with other Canadians as I will with this documentary. And I'm looking forward to that. All right. Enough on that. Because I want to introduce somebody to you who's a very special member of the Canadian Navy.

With a great story to tell. You're going to love listening to her. We're going to do that right after this. You're listening to The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge. And welcome back. Peter Mansbridge here with The Bridge. Once again today, we are in Canada's Arctic. We've been doing specials over the last couple of podcasts

and broadcasts, and we will be doing a couple more this week. But we also each day am managing to say something about the election as well. And I will do that again today. By the end of this week, and I'll run through the schedule for you later on in this podcast, but we're hoping to get at least good talk and maybe one of the other programs, probably Smoke Mirrors and the Truth with Bruce Anderson on by the end of the week. It all depends on when I actually, you know, moving around the north isn't exactly predictable. But we're hoping by the end of this week that I'll be back in southern Canada and able to do a normal election broadcast.

But I really appreciate the mail that has come in on this one so far people are seem to be really enjoying this um keep in mind the mansbridge podcast at gmail.com the mansbridge podcast at gmail.com that's my address and i read all the letters and i'll be turning some of them into a program kind of a mailbag show um probably next week. So any comments you have about A, the election, B, the Arctic, and some of these stories, the importance of climate change and Arctic sovereignty, let me know what you think. All right. I told you that I have a special guest. her name is jeanette sega and why is she special special sorry uh well first of all you got to understand the kind of ranking structure in the military there are two sides to this there are the men and women who are officers and there are the men and women who are

part of the enlisted side. So you have on the officers, you know, like on this ship, the captain of the ship is a commander, then there are lieutenant commanders, and then there are lieutenants, and then there are sub-lieutenants. Those are the officers. The ranking structure on the enlisted side is more complicated, but in the simplest terms put it, and I'll use some terms that have come mainly out of the Army, but it just makes it more generally understandable, like privates and corporals and sergeants and so on and so forth. It goes up to, on board a ship,

the chief petty officer is the top person on the enlisted side. There are two CPOs on board the ship. One of them is the coxswain, so it's the most senior of the chief petty officers. And in this case, her job is a tough one. She's responsible for everything from discipline to connecting with the captain on a constant basis. You know, it takes for some, you know, a tough person. You've seen all the old movies with the drill sergeants and the guys who are kind of running, you know, training camps and barking out orders. Well, it's not quite like that, but they can be firm, let me tell you. So where does somebody like that come from?

What's the background? What's the story? And what's the life? So I met Chief Petty Officer Jeanette Sagan shortly after we got to sea. And I found her just from a short chat. I could tell this person is somebody who bridge listeners would love to hear from. Because, well, I'll let it play for itself and let you make your own judgments about that. But keep in mind, she's the boss.

She's the boss of a lot of young, energetic men and women who are members of the Canadian Navy posted to the Harry DeWolf, and she's got to keep things in order. And believe me, she does. Okay, we're going to play this interview, and I hope you find it interesting. We did it out overlooking the flight deck on the back end of the Harry DeWolf.

The Harry DeWolf can carry a helicopter. It doesn't have one on this particular voyage. But there is a, you know, quite sizable flight deck at the back of the Harrier DeWolf that would be the chopper's landing pad and has its own little hangar the whole nine yards. So we did it in the evening, overlooking the flight deck. It was a gorgeous evening, and so you'll hear a bit of sound,

you know, the wind, et cetera, et cetera. But nevertheless, enough, Peter. Just shut up and let the tape play. So here we are, standing overlooking the flight deck, on the back end of HMCS Harry DeWolf. How did a young woman from Sudbury, Ontario, get here? How'd that happen? You want the long version or the short version?

Well, let's start with the long version to find out what happened. All right. So during the Gulf War, I had a couple of friends whose brothers were in the Navy, and they were asked to speak at the Remembrance Day. And that's where the seed was planted, you know, the pride for your country and serving your country. That's where it was planted. And then, you know know graduated high school supposed to go to college went to college business admin didn't like it quit did hotel restaurant management

didn't like it quit moved, came back to Sudbury. Then I started... Wasn't there a bartending job in there somewhere? So that's when, when I came back from Hearst is when I started bartending. And then, of course, I was living with my dad. I was like, you got to do something. I'm like, okay. So I went back to college, took drafting this time, and it was in the evening.

So I thought maybe I'd have better attention span in the evening. And nope, because then I was making so much money bartending, I figured I don't need to go to school. And then at one point, I was bartending in a bar where there was karaoke every Wednesday. And the karaoke hostess got in a fight with the owner. She quit just before it started and he looked over at me and says, tag, you're it. So that's how I became a karaoke hostess. This is a long way from this flight deck. Yeah. So anyways, so then I realized that I didn't want to bartend for the rest of my life because as much as I was making a lot of tips that as a 20 21 year old um it's hard on the body and the evenings is not really a life for anyone and uh so I ran into a recruiter at the at the college we were just there for uh picking up a friend ran into a

recruiter so the it reminded me of the seed that was planted and then I said you know what let's do it. Why Navy? Love the water my grandparents had a camp uh you know Sudbury City of Lakes loved the water so had to be the Navy. And you know given your track record so to speak at that point of trying something, not liking it, moving on, trying something, not liking it. Here you go in, you try something. And that was 20 years ago. 25 years ago, sir. So what happened?

Like, why did it become such an attraction to you? Well, I barely made it out of boot camp, but I'm so happy that I did. I had a very good senior instructor that convinced me to stay. I was getting in trouble all the time. But with that background, I'm not surprised. She actually, her words were, what are you going to do? Go back to bartending for $20,000 a year. So I stayed and I am so forever grateful that I did I I

had to do some growing up over time a lot of mentorship apparently superiors don't like it when you tell them their plan is doesn't make sense so you know eventually I learned to really express myself in a more productive way. The adventure. I've always been about the adventure. I couldn't see myself in the same job. Like, you know, like if you went and worked at a company in the same job for 30, 40 years, and this really affords you, like, every get promoted you get a new job new job description every time you uh you get posted to a new ship

that's doing a different deployment um so it's like changing jobs all the time because i have a low attention span remember and so this was perfect perfect for for me. I like the structure of it, knowing what to reach for next, you know, and always striving for new goals, new adventures, new stuff. Well, you've certainly done that because you can't go any higher as an enlisted person than you are. You're the chief petty officer, you coxswain on the ship. So, you know, it's fun to hear those stories from 20 25 years ago but you've obviously delivered in that time span in terms of the adventure you've been around the world a couple of times yeah so i've uh i've done uh seven deployments this being the eighth

um three of which were in the persian gulf so I tell people that I've been around the world two and a half times, just not all at once. The only continent I haven't been to is Antarctica, which maybe one day I'll pay to go there. I don't think we're going to send our ships there. Oh, you never know these ships. But I won't be on it likely. But, yeah.

And lots and lots of great work very very proud i still uh till this day from day one in boot camp i uh i have a hard time i choke up when they play old canada yeah really oh i do and i i did in boot camp and i still do today what is it about the anthem that makes you choke up? What is it about Canada that makes you so proud? I'm proud to serve Canada. I'm very proud to serve Canada that I am doing something that is bigger than me, bigger than what I knew as a child, bigger than I ever could imagine. Like in Sudbury, I didn't know anything about the military. Nobody in my family had been in the military except one uncle in the 50s and so yeah it's uh it's always been in me and on this

particular adventure as you classified where were you when you got word that they needed you on Harry DeWolf I was at home because of COVID. Because of COVID, they called me at home, and it was the Commodore and the fleet chief that called to tell me. I was hoping, I was optimistically hoping I would get that call, and I knew some of my friends had already gotten a call, so I was like, am I going to get a call? And I was in Ottawa at the time,

so I was a little bit disconnected on what the ships were doing, what the programs were coming up, because you're not amongst the people that are talking about it. And when he told me I was coming to Harry DeWolf, I was ecstatic because I wanted to be a coxswain of his ship. And when he told me what the program was, I felt like I had just won Miss America. I really did. Just because out of all the deployments and the sailing that I had done, this is the only ship right now that's doing something I have never done before. And that is? Circumnavigating North America. And not a lot of ships have done that. No. So tell me the voyage in a snapshot. Start in Halifax. Start in Halifax and going across Northwest Passage.

Stop over in Esquimalt for a rest period and short work period. And then going down Op Carib, Panama Canal, and back to Halifax. And the whole trip takes, what, six months? Four and a half months, that's with the the rest you know rest period and and stopping over and in in some of the hamlets and and places that we're going to you what do you expect will happen after that for you um i'm expected to stay on this ship for a full two years i just got here at the end of june and then after that, there's a selection process for where you go after that. So it's all dependent how good of a job I do here, if they think I should move.

So I can get promoted, but I can move up levels at this rank. You've seen so much of the world, some pretty harrowing spots like it being in the Gulf some pretty exciting spots I'm sure where's this rank in terms of the Arctic this portion of your trip coming to the Arctic you you've ever been here before to the Arctic yeah this is my fourth time up here three third time on a ship once I was a maritime liaison officer in Rankin Inlet so spent six weeks in Rankin Inlet, so I spent six weeks in Rankin Inlet. This is very spectacular. So I've been to a lot of places, and I love certain ports for different reasons,

but this is uncharted territory, so it's even more special. Literally uncharted in some cases yeah and and right now like uh i i'm not as excited looking outside as i am looking inside at all the young people looking outside so i'm i'm getting my joy in watching them experience something that i've experienced before you know it's pretty young crew right it is yeah so i'm so a lot of the stuff that we're doing on this trip, other than the circumnavigating the North America, I've done before, like you've heard of some of the ceremonies and traditions that we do, I've done before. So my joy comes from watching them do it for the first time. Let me ask you just one last question. And it deals, I mean, you're a woman, you're in a senior position of leadership. You've been in the service a quarter of a century.

It sounds like a long time when you put it that way. But have you seen a change within that time in terms of the relationship between leaders and the people they lead, especially when you have the potential of a gender difference? So first between the leaders and the junior people, a huge difference since I got in. We work as a team a lot better, especially in Harry DeWolf. That is part of the CO's vision. And so everybody works together to make this big ship function and I love that and I think the junior personnel appreciate that as well because it takes the

division away but there's not as much of a division in there's always going to be dividing duties and responsibilities that's a fact um however um division of hardship and and different types of work that we do um that encompasses the entire ship um now there's less of a divide in um who's responsible for doing certain things that um is all ship benefit. So like, let's say, cleaning and stuff. Before it was just the junior people that cleaned. And now we all clean. We're all responsible for our environment and stuff. The captain told me he was cleaning,

not only his particular quarters, but elsewhere on the ship. Because he felt it needed it and off he went. That's right. And that gels the ship's company very well, very well, when we share a lot of the hardship. And you haven't seen it, but hopefully you see it while you're here. When it comes to doing hauling in lines and stuff like that, everybody goes.

It's not just, we don't just, a pipe that we used to hear frequently when I was in the junior rank is master sailor and below, muster, quarter deck, storing ship. You don't hear that anymore. Now it's ship's company, muster, quarter deck, everybody goes. It's not just master sailor and What about the gender issue? Have you seen a change in 25 years? There is. Everything takes time to normalize, and I think it takes us, yeah, we're getting there. We're getting there for everything being normalized, but there's still glass ceilings to break for it to not be so so odd to see or so few and far apart you know what I mean so currently we have two female coxswains that the on well we have more than two but that are c1s at the same time. As for before, there was years between one female to the next, right?

And now you have two at the same time at this rank level. It's been fabulous talking to you. It's fascinating. And what a location. Now, obviously, we could have done this inside, but we want to do it outside because it soaks up the atmosphere. The view is, like, spectacular. Perfect place to meditate.

Yes, absolutely. Well, good luck wherever your travel's taking you. It's been a treat talking to you. Thank you so much. Thank you. It's time to get back to the bridge with Peter Man's Bridge. All right, Peter Man's Bridge back. You're listening to us on SiriusXM,

Channel 167 Canada Talks, or wherever you download your podcasts. Hope you enjoyed the interview with Chief Petty Officer Jeanette Sagan. Told you she was a character, right? She sure is. Love the backstory for her. But love her firmness and leadership that she conducts on this ship. And I got to tell you, when you see it in person, you know she's a leader.

Okay. I promised something on the election. I know many of you are very interested, obviously, in what's going on in the election campaign. It's early days. So keep that in mind. We've got a long way to go. You know, some say that the election really starts on Labor Day weekend.

True to a point. Some say it doesn't really start until debate night. That's, I think, September 8th and 9th. So we've got a ways to go yet before all the ducks are in a row in terms of you making your decision. And you can already see there's some fluctuation in the way people are feeling about the election. And so we'll see where things end up. But in the meantime, keep this in mind. You know, of the last six governments, I think it's the last six, four have been minority governments. Only two majorities, a Harper majority and a Justin Trudeau majority in 2015, 2011, 2015, two majority governments.

The other six surrounding those have been minorities. Well, let's put it this way. There were three before Harper and one after Harper, or one after Justin Trudeau. So that's four minority governments, two majority governments, okay, of the last six. Who knows what will happen here now? One of the reasons it's so hard to get a majority is pleasing the whole country,

getting a sense that you're connecting at least to a degree in each region of the country. That's harder and harder these days. We've got a big country. It's a very diverse country with a lot of different interests. And where you used to be able to get away with saying one thing in one part of the country and quite an opposite thing in another part of the country and not worry about the two things conflicting or being heard about, you can't do that anymore. It's been a while since you could do that.

But that makes it hard at times when you've got such kind of competing interests. You know, say you're against oil. Well, you're going to get roasted in Alberta for saying that you can't hide that fact say you're against Quebec's Bill 21 you're going to get roasted in Quebec

if you say that and if your messages are somewhat distorted or questionable, you're really going to get roasted in both cases. But you have these competing interests in different parts of the country. So this is something to really watch during this campaign, how the leaders deal with this.

You know, I'm in the high Arctic, so it's a little hard to stay connected to the day-to-day events in the election campaign. But I saw over the weekend that Aaron O'Toole was in Alberta talking about his climate change policies, and that was not a popular policy to be talking about in Alberta. Now, I don't know whether he designed the trip to talk about climate change, but he certainly ended up having to talk about it and having to defend his policies. That's what I'm talking about. That's what I'm getting at. Because, you know, in the case of all politicians, they say some things to gain leadership.

And then they're forced, when they're in an election campaign, talking to everyone, not just their party, they sometimes moderate their views to try and please everyone. Well, you can't forget what you used to say. That'll always come back to haunt you at times. And all leaders, not just Aaron O'Toole, have found that out in the past. And we'll continue to find out that

in the present and in this campaign. All right, quick snapshot, looking ahead to the rest of this week. Tomorrow's podcast, we're going to deal with Grease Fjord, which is an incredible story. It's Canada's furthest northern community. And looking forward to talking to one of the people who's been there since day one of that community's existence. If you don't know the story of Grease Fjord, you should, because it's part of Canadian history, and it also ties to this whole issue of sovereignty.

So that's what we'll look at then. Wednesday, we're in Arctic Bay, which is the last stop on this little trip. And I'm sure we're going to have something to tell you about in terms of Arctic Bay. Thursday, I travel back to Toronto and Stratford. And let me tell you, traveling from the high Arctic back to southern Canada is not an easy experience. You've got to double back a little bit from Arctic Bay. I've got to go to Iqaluit, Iqaluit to Ottawa, Ottawa to Toronto.

It's a full day, a full day. But I'm looking ahead, trying to figure out the technology and where I can do my podcast from. And we'll see if there's a special election edition on thursday night there certainly will be on friday not thursday night thursday day and friday day so i'm working on that all right and once again email address the mansbridge podcast at gmail.com the mansbridge podcast at gmail.com send along any comments you have on anything could be about the arctic could be about the election uh we'll put together a special kind of i call it a mailbag

edition for lack of a better term well actually there's a better term but you know the voters say or your say or something like that we'll something like that. We'll come up with a phrase. All right. But for now, you've heard it. You've heard the bridge, the bridge in the Arctic. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening. Look forward to talking to you again in 24 hours.