The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Who & What Is Underwater in Canada's Arctic? - Encore

Episode Date: May 14, 2025

An encore of historian and author, Professor Adam Lajeunesse of ST FX University in Nova Scotia.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You're just moments away from the latest episode of the Bridges Encore episode, as this is Wednesday. We go back to last fall, a discussion about Canada's Arctic in terms of our defense capabilities. It was important then it's even more important now as it's one of the new items that is on the agenda for the new government of Mark Carney. Here you go. Hello there, welcome to Tuesday.

Welcome to another feature interview today. Tell you with whom in a moment, but first of all, Justin Trudeau yesterday made it clear at a conference in Montreal that Canada is on a clear path to hit NATO's defense target of 2% of GDP for each country that is a member nation of NATO. Canada has been taking a bit of a beating

from some of its allies over the last while, not just the United States, on the fact that that target has not been met yet. So the question is how are you gonna get there? Because it involves a lot of money. And one way of potentially getting there, and we heard us talking about this yesterday with Dr. Jenna Stein, is the submarine program. Canada

could be buying as many as a dozen new submarines. It takes a long time to get them, but it takes a lot of money to get them too, and that's a lot of spending. But to understand this issue you've really got to understand the history of submarines in Canada's Arctic because it's just sort of assumed that everybody knows it. Well I don't think so. I like to think I'm kind of in touch with what's going on in the Arctic to a small degree but I'm learning every day. I'm kind of in touch with what's going on in the Arctic to a small degree, but I'm learning every day. I'm certainly learning on this issue of submarines in the North.

Who has them? Who doesn't have them? Who uses them in our North? Who doesn't? Who might be? There's a lot of good questions there. And today, to answer them, somebody who's been on the bridge before, it's been a while, a couple years, since Dr. Adam Lajines from

Sainte-Evex in Nova Scotia has been on the program, but he's an expert, right? He probably doesn't like to be have that phrase used, but he is an expert on these subjects. He's's an author he's a historian understands the Arctic he understands the submarine program he's written on it he's got a number of books out there technically he's PhD associate professor and coordinator of the public policy and governance program at st. effects University also holds a research chair in Arctic and Marine security at the Brian

Mulrooney Institute of Government at SFX. And he's a Fulbright Scholar. So listen, he's got lots of credentials and they're all real. They're not like me and my honorary degrees. These are like the real deal. Anyway, we're going to talk to

Adam, the professor. Okay, I want to run Professor Lajunès without interruption. So as a result, we're going to take our break right now and we'll be back right after this. Welcome back. You're listening to The Bridge for this Tuesday. You're listening on SiriusXM, Channel 167, Canada Talks are on your favourite podcast platform. Our guest this week, Dr. Adam Lajunas, the Mulroney Chair in Arctic and Maritime Security at St. Evac University in Nova Scotia. He's been on the program before,

he's great to talk to you about the subject we have today, which is all about submarines in Canada's Arctic. So stand by and listen because you're going to learn some history and you'll learn some basic facts about the situation right now. So let's get started. Here we go with Dr. Adam Lejeunesse. Professor, I guess the the best way to start this is to try and you know define what we're talking about. I mean obviously talking about submarines in the Arctic, but for the purposes of this discussion, what's the Arctic? What do you see as the boundaries for the Arctic in this discussion?

Well, I think you could ask 10 different academics and get 10 different answers about what exactly the Arctic is. From the perspective of submarine operations, from a Canadian perspective at least, what we normally mean are two distinct regions. The first of course, is the Northwest Passage, which are the straits within the Canadian Arctic archipelago connecting the Beaufort sea to the Atlantic ocean, several different straits running through Canada. Now, of course, the second region is the polar basin, that area, uh, north and northwest of the Arctic archipelago, the Arctic

Ocean, which during the Cold War was of course a contested region with American and Soviet submarines moving back and forth and practicing the use of those polar waters both as missile launching sites and potentially as an avenue of attack. Okay. It would help for a lot of listeners and I should have said this beforehand is if they got a map and had it in front of them. You know, your basic almost school map of Canada, which always includes the Arctic. So basically what we're talking about here then

is the Northwest Passage and North of the Northwest Passage. And the Northwest Passage is tricky because there are any number of different Northwest Passages. But if you assume the one that was first traversed and move from there North. So what I wanna try and understand is when did submarines start going into that area and north of it? Well the Americans started to experiment

with under ice submarine technology pretty much right after the Second World War, undertaking some very daring exercises in north of Alaska with World War II era submarines, accepting a decree of danger and risk that we would never take today. And then of course, they continued on throughout the entire Cold War and that technology and the capacity, the design of the submarines getting better and better. The Americans started working in the Canadian Arctic across the Northwest passage in the 1960s These were of course nuclear attack submarines with power plants capable of sustaining a submarine Under the ice or underwater for months at a time

Essentially, they had an unlimited range that that's what made these these submarines so capable for the Arctic You could stay underneath for as long as essentially your food held up. So in 1960, the Americans had the first transit of the Northwest Passage. That was a submarine called the Sea Dragon. And then again, in 1962, they sent the USS Skate through. And then over the 1970s and 1980s, the Americans explored almost every channel of the Northwest Passage for different reasons, both to do hydrographic surveying

to figure out where they could go and how they could get there, and working with the Canadians to test our increasingly sophisticated under ice detection systems, looking of course, or the Soviets, should they begin to trespass in our backyard. Okay, well, let me back you up on a couple of things there. As soon as the Americans started going into Canadian waters, underwater, did we know about it? Was Canada fully aware? Yes, absolutely we were.

So the first voyages in the 1960s were built on a lot of the hydrographic work that was done by Canadian icebreakers, particularly HMCS Labrador in the 1950s. And so as the Americans were building northern radar systems to do line looking for Russian bombers, they were of course surveying those waters because they needed to bring supply ships up to build these radar stations. So as they were surveying these waters, the American Navy was asking the Canadian Coast Guard to look for potential submarine routes. They were already thinking about this in the 1950s.

And of course, the Canadian Navy, I should say Navy, not the Coast Guard at the time, was very happy to do this. This wasn't a sovereignty issue. This is a continental defense issue. the Canadian Navy, I should say Navy, not the Coast Guard at the time, was very happy to do this. Right. This was wasn't a sovereignty issue. This is a continental defense issue. Both the Canadian and American governments recognized the need to begin exercising more control over these waters as part of continental defense. So in the sixties, when the Americans were sending these submarines north, there were

Canadians on board. There was certainly Canadian involvement. So the Canadians were fully aware of what was happening. And of course, like I said, they were providing some of the hydrographic surveying to make these voyages possible. Tim Cynova Am I right in assuming that at that time, we had no submarines capable of doing anything like that? David Erickson No, absolutely not. At the time, it was really the Americans that were working in the Arctic.

Even the Soviets were really just starting to experiment with under ice operations, but it was really the Americans that were at the forefront pioneering Arctic under ice operations with their submarines. So as far as we knew at that time, the only other nation under our ice was the Americans. Yes, absolutely. Now there's no record of the Soviets having ever sent submarines to the Canadian Arctic. But then again, we may not simply know about that.

The Soviet archives were never opened to us. We don't have those records. We may suspect, we may assume, but the only records we have of foreign activity in the Canadian Arctic, at least, is of the Americans. Okay. In a moment, I'm going to get to when we think that changed. But let me go back to something you said in your earlier comments, which was the Americans

recognized that Canada had a certain expertise in underwater technology in terms of listening and knowing what was going on. When, when did that start? When did we have that capability? Well, that is a long, long process stretching over decades. It was really in the 1960s that both we and the Americans started to realize that we needed better situational awareness in the Arctic. Because of course, if the Americans are moving through the Northwest Passage, there was at least the future possibility that the Soviets would do the same.

And we are worried about two things. And the first was that Soviet submarines might in the future use Canadian waters to bypass what was called the Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom gap, Jaiuk gap. So you could send submarines through Canada to bypass the heavy NATO defenses around the Greenland-Iceland area. So it was a backdoor, if you were. The second consideration was that at the time, short arranged missiles meant that a Soviet submarine firing either conventional or nuclear weapons on North America needed to get a lot closer. So we started to think, well, the Arctic,

the Labrador Sea, the Beaufort Sea, even the Hudson's Bay area might be a firing location for Soviet missiles. So both we and the Americans realized more needed to be done to understand and monitor this area. So over the sixties, over the seventies and into the eighties, we were working with U.S. defense labs to build sonoboys, under ice, fixed listening systems, set systems, a whole bunch of different technologies were tested out. A lot of American tech being used by Canadian defense labs with partnerships across D&D, different American

defense and civilian experts and labs. It was a huge project, series of projects really, designed to build some kind of under ice detection system. Now, how effective it ever was, we don't know, that's still classified, but we know that in the, by the eighties at least, we were making serious efforts to try and track and identify any Soviet submarines that might come through. You know, at different times,

in explaining what that technology, the Canadian officials have said, well, you know, at different times in explaining what that technology, the Canadian officials have said, well, you know, it wasn't just to look for Soviet subs. It was also, you know, tracking fish movement and weather trials and all of that. Was it a combination of all these things or was it mainly this is a defense mechanism, that's what we're using it for? You know, it's hard to say because of course,

understandably so many of these records are still classified, right? I would say from my reading, this was purely a defense issue. I mean, some of these sensors were magnetic sensors looking for the magnetic signature of Soviet submarines. You're not looking for fish stocks with magnetic sensors. And then obviously where these sensors were positioned

clearly indicates that this is a defense mechanism. So there are three choke points that you can use to access the Atlantic Ocean from the Arctic Ocean. And these were the choke points that Canadian defense labs were working with the Americans to deploy these prototype sensor systems So I would say that you know, this was this is purely or at least Largely a defense consideration and I want to move

Gradually towards where we are in the press but on the way there I want to Totally understand the difference between conventional subs, which is what Canada has and has always had, versus nuclear powered subs, and their abilities in a region like the Arctic. Am I correct in assuming that conventional subs are basically for above surface. They don't really go under surface if that surface is ice. Well, it's a little bit more complex than that. So at the heart of the difference is the reactor core.

So what is the power source for this submarine? Now a nuclear power powered submarine, a nuclear attack submarine or ballistic missile submarine has a power source that is essentially infinite for practical purposes. And so this submarine can stay under the water or under the ice for as long as it needs to. It only needs to surface in order to reprovision the crew. As long as you have food, you can stay under the water. Now a conventional submarine has a much shorter lifespan under the water. It has to surface in order to recharge its batteries.

So it runs on a diesel engine, which has exhaust, which means it needs to be on the surface, or it runs on batteries under the water, and those batteries need to be recharged on the surface. So modern diesel submarines can still stay under the water for weeks at a time but their power level is rather limited which means if they're underwater and they're looking for an extended stay underwater they're moving rather slowly. So for the Arctic what this means is you cannot project power deep under the Arctic ice with a conventional submarine.

It simply doesn't have the range and the staying power to move under the ice. It also often, depending on the type of submarine, is going to have a much harder time surfacing through the ice because these are traditionally much smaller submarines. They don't have the same weight as a big American nuclear attack submarine, so it's much harder to surface through the ice. From a safety perspective too, you need to be able to surface through that ice in case something goes wrong. And so it is very dangerous to send a conventional submarine deep under the ice. So what Canada is looking at, all of the different designs from the different countries that we're looking at right now, they all have an Arctic capability to a certain extent. They can go under the ice. Any submarine can do that. Like I said, the Americans had submarines

in the 1940s that they were testing under ice. The question is how long can they stay under ice? How far can they go safely before they have to return. So what Canada is looking at is not an Arctic submarine per se. They're looking at a submarine capable of operating along the ice edge, something that is operating in the blue water in the open ocean,

but with the capacity to pop under the ice for a little bit and pull back. Well, that sounds great if the ice keeps retreating, but it doesn't sound like you've got much penetration into the region that you're concerned about. Uh, if it doesn't. So I think here's where we need clarity, not on the submarine itself, but on the mission that it is meant to achieve. And I think when people talk about an Arctic capability,

they are sometimes talking at cross purposes about two different things. So on the one hand, you have these American nuclear tech submarines that have been operating in the polar basin for generations now. These are the kinds of submarines, these are the weapons systems that the Americans

and NATO more generally would use to secure that region and to project power through the Arctic and even against Russia, God forbid in the event of war. What D&D and the Canadians are actually looking at when they're talking about Arctic capability is a guard for those back doors that I talked about earlier. So in order to get into or out of the Canadian Arctic, at least from the East or the West, you need to move through some strategic choke points. You need to move through either very straight on the Western coast, or you need to move up the west coast of Greenland in the east you can't access the Canadian Arctic except from the Arctic Ocean without going through those choke points. So I believe

D&D when it talks about an Arctic capable submarine wants a submarine that can guard that front and back door to our Arctic and of course if you're moving through the Canadian Arctic from the Arctic Ocean, trying to get into the Atlantic, you have to go through that door. So that is just a vital contribution to continental defense and to the Arctic more generally, because even if you can't be in the Northwest Passage safely for an extended period of time, you can watch the doors in and out of it. Okay. I think you've explained that really well.

Just to ensure that I'm getting it right, we're talking about, in this case, basing the submarines at the two doors, the two back doors on East and West. You don't have to go through the Northwest Passage. You don't have to be in through the Arctic archipelago. You're just on either side watching who's coming in or leaving.

Yeah, it's pretty much as simple as that, Peter. Now, if you want to add a layer of complexity, you have to remember that the Russians today have inherited Soviet capabilities. They can operate in the Northwest passage. They can operate in the Arctic Ocean. And if they so choose to do so, then there's nothing that we could really do. And so it's not simply a case of working independently, watching those two doors. We're doing that,

but we're doing it as part of a much broader continental defense initiative with the United States. And so while we are doing that, it's the Americans with their somewhat unique Arctic capability, able to work in the Arctic Ocean, the polar basin and monitor that area. And these aren't being, these activities shouldn't be done in isolation or in silos. They have to be integrated into that bigger continental defense picture that I talked about.

And during the Cold War, this is something most Canadians don't understand, is we worked so closely with the Americans on that big continental defense picture. I think we sort of reflexively think of American operations in the North, American submarines as a violation of Canadian sovereignty, somehow threatening to us. The reality is even as governments were sometimes arguing over the politics and the legality of Arctic sovereignty and the existence or non-existence of freedom of transit rights,

the submarines were operating there in a very well, in a very neighborly fashion for lack of a better term, the D&D and the American Navy were working together. These operations were taking place and it was, you know, it was non, it was not damaging to Canada's sovereignty claims in any way. And of course, we were there because we had that bigger picture in mind. We knew that the Soviets were a threat. And we knew that regardless of political a threat and we knew that regardless

of political or legal questions of sovereignty, this was a cooperative endeavor that needed to be undertaken. And we did. Have this, uh, have we ever had any firm proof that the Soviets have been in Arctic, our Arctic waters? No, no firm proof at all. Um, that's not to say it doesn't exist, but I think it's safe to say that this is one of the more

classified defense subjects that you can look into from both the Canadian and American governments. They're quite reticent to release documentation on submarine operations. Because, you know, it's not just the Soviets who have these capable submarines, right the British have them the French have I assume the Chinese have them Russians obviously have them Would any of those countries?

Have to have her would they ever ask permission have they ever asked permission of the Brits or the French being in the Arctic? To the best of our knowledge the French have never been there, but once again, very classified subject. That's not to say they haven't been the Brits. We know do have a history of operating in the polar basin in the Arctic ocean. We know that they've been there. We have pictures of them surfacing at the North pole. Now, whether or not they've been in the Canadian Arctic, well, that's a little bit hazier.

We know that in 1979 and 1981, the Brits, the Americans, and the Canadians were working together on what were called the Canada-UK-US Arctic exercises, which was a combination of polar deployments of nuclear submarines and tests of Canadian listening systems. So we know that they were there, but it seems from the available evidence that they were there as part of a broader NATO alliance framework. So they were there, but they seem to be working with us.

Let me just go back to the back door thing again. I should have asked this at the time, but could either conventional or unconventional nuclear submarines work in that role? Yes, you can really monitor space with any kind of submarine. And that seems to be the role that the Navy is looking to fill with these submarines that we're looking to procure. Still early days, we're still defining the concept of operation, but really any submarine can hold and monitor and defend a space. Now, despite being generally less capable than their nuclear cousins,

conventional submarines actually have some important strengths. Because they don't have a nuclear reactor, which needs to be on all the time, cooled and pumped, conventional submarines underwater are actually quieter. They're smaller, they're stealthier, they are actually more capable of silent listening and defense of a fixed region. You're around operation on the back door thing. Is that possible? It is. So it depends what time of year you're going to be operating

in a different space because of the ice. However, the exit from the Canadian Arctic from the Northwest Passage, there will always be a relatively confined area that moves into the Arctic that is ice-free. Now, whether or not that's the sort of west coast of Greenland or more off the southwest coast of Greenland into the Atlantic. And depending on the time of year, your defensive line, if you will, will move up or down, but there will always be a place where a conventional submarine can operate to watch those doors. What about cost?

Is there a drastic difference between the cost of the kind of conventional subs that Canada may be looking at versus your basic nuclear powered sub, if there's such a thing. Yeah, there absolutely is. And that's the reason we're not looking at nuclear power. Is it all about cost or is it about our kind of thing about nuclear on the military side? Well, I hope it's not about preconceived notions about nuclear power more generally. I would say Canadian society is actually falling back in love with nuclear power. If you look at the media trends, if you look what the government is talking about, I think

climate change is driving us back into a reconsideration of how dangerous nuclear power is relative to the alternatives. A nuclear submarine is not nuclear armed. It does not have nuclear weapons. That's merely the power plant. It's the engine, that's all. Yes. And I think it's the cost. So nuclear submarines are going to be much more expensive. They're twice as large, much bigger crews. And there's really only a couple of countries that make them. Now, the reality is even if we wanted to procure nuclear submarines, if we went to

the Americans tomorrow and said, you know, we'll take 10 off the shelf, please. The Americans don't have shipyard capacity to build them. Because the American Navy has ordered their own. I mean, no country really has the shipyard capacity to get us these submarines. The real question, however, is the logistics to build a nuclear submarine, you're not just looking at the added cost of the submarine. You need different ship, you need different port facilities, specialized port facilities, a lot of very specialized logistics, nuclear handling technology. You need a lot of training.

You need a lot of equipment. About two thirds of the cost of a nuclear submarine acquisition would not be the submarines. It would actually be specialized port facilities, equipment, logistics, just to maintain and manage these submarines. So quite frankly, I think the cost is prohibitive for nuclear submarines for Canada. And I think the Navy did the smart thing, pushing them aside right away and defining our requirements as conventional submarines. And it's not as if the conventional ones are a bargain, as you say, that would be a huge expense.

Absolutely, and the conventional submarines, like any complex military equipment, they're going to be very, very expensive. That's just the reality of securing modern warships. What does your gut tell you? I mean, you study this for a living. The talk is of 12 and they could be what mid to late 30s before you see them delivered. What does your gut tell you?

The thing about defense is, you know, things change all the time in terms of what's the right thing for a defense strategy? And when you're looking, you know 10 to 15 years down the road That's a that's a challenging prediction to be making So if you're asking what my gut is saying Peter, I think I'm quite worried. I'm worried because the procurement environment that we have today is not conducive to the threat environment that we have today. We don't have 15 years to build these.

This isn't 2010, 2005. We don't have decades to select, procure, build, train, bring online. We need these submarines yesterday. The idea that the, frankly, the Russians or the Chinese may wait for us to have gone through this lengthy process, 2030s, early 2040s to bring this fleet online. Well, that's ridiculous. The threat is today.

It is absolutely today. We look at Europe, we look at what's happening in Ukraine. We look at the near weekly threats that the Chinese government are making over Taiwan. We need these as soon as we can possibly procure them. So there's different directions that we can go. So there's several different countries with different design options that we can procure. And the Navy has been very good in saying that we want something that is in service or very nearly ready to go. We're not designing our own. That is a whole can of worms that would create a disaster. There are several

European options which are about to be built. They're just at the beginning of construction. built. They're just at the beginning of construction. The one option that is ready to go with the hot production line is the offering from South Korea. And that is probably the fastest submarine that we could bring into service. So the considerations here are how quickly can we get these? Are we bringing them online in 2030 or are we just starting to bring them online in 2035? That is a very important consideration. The next consideration is crewing. So we want 12 of these or up to 12. Today the Canadian Navy has enough crew for maybe two submarines, give or take.

So we would need to not only bring these submarines online, we need to train the people to operate in them. That's a serious consideration. We need to start bringing them online as soon as possible, not just to get the submarines themselves, but we need to start training new crew. Well, if the South Koreans build subs as well as they build cars these days. That sounds like a pretty one one pretty good option of the options that are out there.

We don't have a great track record on subs in terms of the ones we've purchased, their serviceability. I remember when the latest ones were the Victoria class that we bought used from Britain. I remember when I back in the day when I was working for the latest one, sort of the Victoria class that we bought used from Britain. I remember when I back in the day when I was working for the CBC, we traveled on the first voyage of one of those subs as we were coming to Canada.

It has sprung a leak halfway across the Atlantic, which was not a great start. And it hasn't really been followed through with great finishes either. Well, the thing to remember about the Victoria class is this was never meant to be the next class of submarines that we would drive into the distant future. The Victorias were meant to be a bridge of sort between our Oberon

class, which we were retiring and whatever would come next. And so the Navy procured the Victorious as a, that's what was out there. We can find these, we can get them right away. So we're going to, we're going to use these to maintain our capability until we can transition to the next thing. We just let the next thing drop and we use the Victorious far longer than I think we had originally intended to use them. And the reason we got those was because we didn't want to lose all of the Arctic submarine capability within our crews. You can't just go five years in between submarine fleets. If you lose a submarine class, if you have to retire them, you can't tell all of the crews to

just hang out for a few years until the next boats are online. They'll go away. They'll go do other things. And then when you have your new submarine class coming into service, you can't put an ad on monster.ca for submarine crew. The experience doesn't exist. You need to maintain it. If you lose it, it's an extraordinary difficult process to get it back. So when we're talking about timing of the submarines, it's not just that the threat is today and we need these now. We need them as soon as possible so that we don't lose all of that capability. You need a commander of a submarine with 20 years of experience, and you can't hire someone with 20 years experience. You need to build these now

to not lose that corporate knowledge. Of any of the existing, it's four, right? The Victoria class submarines. That's right. And two, as you say, two are operational. Have they ever been into the Arctic, as we defined it two are operational. Have they ever been up into the Arctic as we defined it earlier? Yeah, they have.

I think a couple of times, there's one famous photograph of Stephen Harper up North with a frigate and a submarine and a few aircraft. But like any other conventional submarine, they have capability. They can go under ice. Anything that can go underwater can go under ice, but they're not designed for that.

They don't have the sensors. They certainly don't have the hull strengthening to surface through ice. This is not what they're meant for. So the Canadian Navy has only ever sent the Victorias up north for a few almost symbolic voyages to the best of my knowledge. Professors, I mean, a fascinating conversation as it has been on the other time you were on the bridge and we really appreciate your time. Obviously, we're gonna be following this story

and see what headway, not only the current government makes on this, but the very likelihood that there could be another government within another year and what what approach they're gonna take on this same question It's gonna be a challenge for whoever's sitting in the seat of power in Ottawa Professor thanks again Thanks, Peter. Always a pleasure to be here and Always a pleasure for us to talk to a dr. Adam Lajunas from St. effects in Nova Scotia. Hope you enjoyed that conversation. And I,

you know, I, I love submarine stories. I love submarine movies, you know, seen them all, at least I think I've seen them all. And going back to, you know, second world war movies about U-boats and British boats and American boats and of course current movies as well. I should mention, you know, I mentioned during that conversation about the time CBC traveled across the North Atlantic with one of the new Victoria class submarines, new to us, old to the Brits who sold it to us, and the problems they encountered. I didn't want to leave the impression that I'd been on that trip.

I wish I had been on it, but I wasn't on it. It was Dan B. Arneson, great reporter, good friend. We worked together in Winnipeg in the 70s. Anyway, Dan was on there with, I think it was Brian Kelly, who was a freelance cameraman in London, but did a lot of work, or did it in those days, a lot of work with us at the CBC. And I think he was the camera on that shoot with Dan.

Could be wrong on that, but I think he was. Okay, before we go today, tomorrow's an encore edition, remember that. Before we go today though, we got time for a little end bit. I like this one, it was in the New York Times. It was a newsletter about thinking about your health before you get on a plane and this was based on research with Dr. Paulo Alves who's the global medical director of aviation

health at MedAir which provides remote medical assistance to airlines. Anyway, here's a couple of, I'll just give you these quickly. If you often get motion sickness, look a seat over the wing, because that's more stable than anywhere else on the plane, for or after, okay? Over the wing. Reconsider your trip if you have an ear or sinus infection when you're in flight congestion can make it harder to adjust to changing air pressure which could result in pain bleeding even a ruptured eardrum yes yikes untreated toothaches and postponed root canals can be similarly painful during flights.

You notice any pain or swelling? Get it looked at before you fly. Here's Dr. Alves's number one tip. If you're not feeling well in general, avoid flying or clear it with your doctor first. Many of the heart attacks that we see happening in flight for example, retrospectively the person will say, you know what, I wasn't feeling well before boarding. When you pack, make sure you put your medications in your carry-on luggage, not your check luggage. A check luggage is not going to do you any good if you suddenly need your meds and that check luggage is you know down in the belly somewhere. Bring your own water on board, not just because it's

important to stay hydrated. Ideally the suggestion here is you should drink 8 ounces of water each hour. So that, you know, on a long flight, you're not only, you're going to draw, and drink a lot of water, you're going to make a lot of trips down the aisle too. Um, if there's flight turbulence, flight attendants must stay seated. So you could be thirsty for a long time. That's why they're saying bring your own water. And here's another little tip.

own water. And here's another little tip. You can also bring peppermint or ginger tea bags which can soothe your stomach. If you get stomach trouble ask a flight attendant for some hot water. At the airport before you board, avoid carbonated drinks with meals for at least an hour before boarding. Eating a large meal increases the chance of swallowing air, he added. This is Dr. Elvis. And all that gas will expand in high altitudes. That can hurt sometimes so badly, people think they've got appendicitis. And before you board, take a second to run through a checklist of everything you need for the flight, including snacks, over the counter meds. Ask yourself, what would make this flight better, safer and healthier?

There's more. Go to the New York Times, newsletters. What to do to get ready for a flight. There's lots of little things in there. Anyway, you might find some of that interesting, even if you just find one of them. Learn something every time. I haven't realized drinking that much water on the flight, especially long flights. You know, you do those transatlantic flights, which I do, you know,

fair number of times a year. Um, that's a good thing to know. Hope you enjoy that encore episode of the bridge. We'll be back tomorrow with our latest version of your turn and the random ranter we'll talk to you then.