Combining Indigenous and scientific knowledge to document climate change and empowering Inuit girls and young women in the Arctic
Adventure Canada Announces Partnership with the Sedna Epic Expedition
By Susan Eaton
Susan Eaton
Ten years ago, I suffered a serious scuba diving trauma that landed me in a hyperbaric chamber for three days, ending my 30-year diving career. Undaunted, my up-close-and-personal relationship with the ocean—which had included teaching scuba diving—didn’t end in the hyperbaric chamber… Today, I explore the world’s oceans—from Antarctica to the Arctic—in the snorkel zone, a dynamic land-sea-ice-air interface where charismatic animals interact with snorkelers. I've snorkeled with chatty belugas Hudson Bay, migrating salmon in Haida Gwaii, and with charging 1,400-pound leopard seals in Antarctica. During a snorkel expedition to witness the annual narwhal migration through the Northwest Passage, my co-explorers and I became trapped on a floating ice island, precipitating a 36-hour military air rescue off the northern coast of Baffin Island. In the past five years, I've participated in two science-based expeditions to the Arctic and three science-based expeditions to the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and Antarctica. Readers followed me virtually, at the Bottom of the World, as I studied the interplay of plate tectonics, glaciers, ocean change, climate and life. In 2015, I was was named one of Canada’s top 100 modern-day explorers by the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. In 2016, I was named one of Canada's top female explorers, also by the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. A member of the Explorers Club, I was named to the Explorers Club's (Canadian Chapter) 2014 and 2015 Honour Rolls. An advocate of protecting Canada's wild spaces and the animals who call them home, I sit on the board of directors of Nature Canada.