Melting Point: ‘Hearts in the Ice’, a Triumph for the Climate and Women

the world is loud chaotic the world is stressful the world is changing our Earth is being pushed to its limits at a time when we need to listen to its needs our Earth is heating burning and hurting this noise can get louder and more intense what if we could just make it all stop this is spard a place like no other a place of quiet calm and natural beauty far removed from the cityscapes industry and hectic traffic that we know as the culprits of our changing world this collection of islands in Arctic Norway appears pure untouched on the surface but remote fallard has found itself to be the fastest warming place on Earth due to climate change this is the perfect spot to study the effects human activity is having on our planet my name is jacqulyn whittall I'm a meteorologist and a climate change journalists I was invited to return to this special spot in 2023 two Brave women did something that no two women have done before their mission was to overwinter in an old Trappers cabin in the Arctic in the name of climate change the two women call themselves hearts in the ice an awe inspiring mission to protect not only fallard but the whole world here is their story we kind of wanted to disconnect from the world for a little while and and do something we had two main goals one was to collect data for scientists studying climate change as citizen scientists and the second thing was to use the Hut as a base camp um for connecting with kids um and adults around the world on different topics all related to climate change it's hard to measure time up there because we have no point of reference to anything that um anyone in our in our connected world would be familiar with because we are untethered we're remote we're 140 kilometers from the closest town our neighbors um are wildlife and our our back our backyard is ice and snow and light and mountains my short Journey offered a glimpse into what life was like for two women who spent 19 months overwintering in a cabin in spard all in the name of climate change spard has become the fastest roing place on Earth so we often say this is the epicenter for climate change and the main reason why this place in particular is warming so quickly is because of sea ice so if we were here in the winter times you would see like the entire field around us would be white would be covered by this ice that forms over the ocean and a few decades ago you would find cicer most of the Year Dr Heidi sylvestra a glaciologist was on board our ship and I took every opportunity to discuss the impacts of climate change with her but it was this story from Hilda Fallon stom that stood out to me the most December 19 2015 uh my husband s and myself was uh home um we had been on a Christmas uh event the night before and uh went to bed quite late and we were witnessing the biggest snowfall that I've ever seen up in salal and the next morning I got up quite early I was still outside digging snow and then I just heard him screaming my name I just instantly understood that something really really bad had happened an unusually warm winter and a very unstable snow pack triggered an avalanche 17 of my neighbor houses was um buried inside their homes and um and I was very involved in the young family that were looking for their 2-year-old and a four-year-old the whole settlement was looking for the people that was buried inside their home and and we found the two girls and and tragically uh the youngest one died I I really wanted to do something different in my life but I really wanted to to make a change it was this event that became the beginning of a journey to hearts in the ice sunniva sori is no stranger to cold weather Expeditions I was the the last uh woman to be selected to be part of a the team that would ski across Antarctica um we made it to the South Pole so we made history and that was uh in 1993 she gives lectures on ship teaching people young and old about the incredible spots on earth like Antarctica and why it's so important for us to protect them she's a Norwegian Canadian and a proud member of the international Explorers Club Hilda Fallon Strom a member of the Explorers Club as well has been surrounded by the outdoors her whole life and the idea of overwintering in a remote cabin has always been intriguing to her um I read the book when I was a young young girl uh that my father gave me and I read about this first female Trapper called bon volat in 1932 volstad was recruited for an expedition to spalart she learned to hunt reindeer polar bears and overwinter in a cabin though there was one distinct difference about her she was surrounded by men the sendoff mission on board the MS nordsten in 2019 the same vessel that I was on in 202 three this ship included many scientists as you can well imagine the preparation for such a trip took tons of planning including food and gear to sustain themselves for the next 19 months I just want to officially Welcome All of You family friends Partners sponsored um sponsors on board this amazing trip I can't believe we're here and if we forgot anything do bad the ship crew taking them from longe bin to Babu would be the last people they would see in the fles for many months when our Zodiac boat reached the shore at bumbu we were all speechless to be honest this small forgotten cabin is where these two women stayed in complete darkness how remarkable I walked around the shore exploring at every step there actually bones auga bones it's kind of like a pluga graveyard that basically lines the beach you can see here I this is a pile of beluga bones all the Beluga ancestors and is really just sort of end of the end of the beach it's quite extensive in 2019 this remote location and uninsulated Hut named bumbu the historic Trappers cabin on the shore of the vancol and Fjord would be their home for the next 9 months we had two solar panels on the outside of the Hut and a huge windmill to power our needs so that we could have connectivity and um send emails every now and again the cabin itself was built in 1930 with four small windows and uninsulated the cabin was used as a beluga whale hunting cabin for years no running water no electricity no Netflix just living there was a very simple living we chopped wood every day for our wood burning stove we found that wood on the beaches around the Hut at any time you can easily see a bear so we have rifles with us at all times and I could actually see somebody kind of getting getting their rifle so just leaning it there they were just kind of getting it ready just in case and those logs that you see angled against the cabin that's for polar bear protection this disturbs the Bear's space when they're trying to break in and in fact there hasn't been a successful Breakin since the year 2000 that didn't mean the women didn't encounter a bear well there in fact there were over 100 bear encounters that's where we have this uh big po bear standing here right here and open the door and then we have this this door sort of a little bit in between us he was like here and his butt was sticking up that was a good aim he was a big bear God oh my God that that was he ran right past me yeah yeah it's October 12th and on Monday and today Saturday on Monday it will be one month since we've been here really hard to actually believe it 19 months felt like a really long time I don't miss a thing it's like I'm I'm here had all the thing it had yeah but I think one one thing that is really good about you and I is that when we're somewhere we're right there yeah this is all sample sheet for ice here and this is the insect book what started out as 7 months turned into 19 months in total the global pandemic meant that not only could they not be picked up by another ship at bump subu but they also felt they were needed right where they were I just have to stick it through we just canceled our trip for May 7th to 11th a pickup trip because of the Corona virus and all that crazy stuff that's going on they tried to start off each day with a sense of normaly working out eating well trusting in one another as as their bond deepened as friends as the months went on uh being just the two of us together for 14,000 hours that is what I'm most proud of how we managed to do this so so well coming out as as as friends even after I've spent a lot of time in cold places but I've never had an experience where I was in one place for so long most of my Expeditions have been you're on the move and so to be in one place for 19 months that's not for the faint ofart oh my god seriously seriously oh boy ready ready go do come this is fine very very close and and extremely dependent on one another I mean you know for example I could not walk down to the Shoreline without saying he I have to go to the bathroom because she had to come with me you're completely Tethered to the other person and it it what that develops in you is a deep respect um and a need to collaborate and and find that that closeness get a yard get small bir literally hundreds of kilometers away from long you been in the winter this would be completely covered in ice and snow and it'd be windy and it'd be cold into Theus 30s and 40s and here is where Hilda and sua stayed for 19 months alone total darkness through the polar night and finally seeing the Sun for the first time on March 9th can imagine what that feeling must have been like is coming in the storms hurricane force winds blast the cabin night after night almost ripping the door right off the hinges a communication antenna which linked them to the outside world was ripped off the metal stand outdoors and they secured it again through the strong winds and got it up to working condition by the way that was done Inus 400 C temperatures [Music] when it was hurricane and and really bad weather you maybe you remember it built up a big big snow wall here we had to go out every day to chop wood we had all our Woods out here picking up snow and ice from this area so water was actually a very limited resource for us from November to February swart is completely blanketed in darkness even in the middle of the afternoon this makes this location quite unique [Music] there's a special type of Aurora up here that you can't see at Southern latitudes and that's called a cusp aora and it usually happens between 12:00 and 3: in the afternoon there's no time for sleep because you want to soak it all up and I couldn't have been luckier to have somebody so lit up like Hilda because um you know photographing the Aurora in those conditions you've got polar bears as your neighbors out there you've got a camera that batteries need to be kept warm and it's- 26 outside but you could not be happier to be out there photographing the night sky the incredible Aurora Borealis that filled the fallard sky with waves of greens blues and reds was not just a spectacular view but was also part of their citizen science Mission they were documenting the Aurora for NASA while the rest of the world was on pause during a global pandemic the women kept busy with many citizen science duties in fact it set them apart from every other scientists on the globe who could not partake in travel at the time Allison cusk San Diego PhD candidate and biological oceanographer was closely linked to the women their job was to collect phytoplankton samples to see how and if there was activity in this part of the world particularly during the polar night phop Plankton is not something we interact with regularly so it's two Greek words phto and Plankton phto means plant and Plankton means Drifter or Wanderer so they are in the ocean single celled organisms that use sunlight to make energy or photosynthesize and because they're converting organic carbon that's the base of the food web life all of life requires carbon first of all they were going in the polar KN which we really don't know a lot about how phytoplankton act in the night because normally they are photo synthesizing using sunlight and also the fact that they were going to be there for an extended period of time regular sampling which is something that's incredibly difficult to do especially in the polar regions they were given a instrument that can detect the saltiness the temperature of the water from the surface down to 100 m they were given a net phytoplankton net some of the first things were seeing of course are the different types of phytoplankton present so in the winter time you have this sea ice growing when the ocean freezes over and those phytoplankton are what are found in the bottom of the sea ice the polar Knight is not kind of like a quiet time it there's activity going on you have these two incredible women who have their own accomplishments who also are so passionate about sharing this story of regular people getting involved in the solution right now there's absolutely no ice at the end of November and last year there was almost a full F device and here comes the Drone in for its little Landing I went up there and taught them how to how to fly it I created some pre-programmed flight plans that they could just automatically have the Drone fly another important citizen science project that they took part in was monitoring the ice conditions the thickness of the ice ocean temperatures and even Wildlife with a drone the Drone has has uh a camera system that has two lenses one is a regular color camera lens like you would have on your cell phone or any other camera and the other lens uh essentially has a different type of sensor a different type of filter that only allows infrared or what we call thermal energy to to enter these types of thermal cameras are beneficial for seeing objects that are relatively cooler or warmer than their environment for example like a warm blooded polar bear walking along the cold sea Ice uh when you can't when it's too dark to see the thermal camera could potentially pick up with a polar bear at some distance and say okay maybe it's not a good idea to venture over there they partnered with exploring by the seat of your pants a Canadian organization that connects explorers to classrooms virtually these women reached over 100,000 students around the world [Music] [Music] [Music] come is [Music] this the women told me they tried to celebrate the little things they adjusted to life in the cabin we had a lot of fun we we played and we we we we really tried to do some fun things every single day and uh the celebration every day was dinner even though we didn't have much sometimes we did but sometimes we didn't and to celebrate that regardless what we had of resources was very important for us life is good here at bumps life is as good as we make it absolutely right probably one of the most powerful things we did was to um was to record wildlife um Dr doent you know what we were seeing around us because there was plenty of wildlife here there were walruses on a seal with a little pup breastfeeding there were um seals there were arctic fox there were reindeer I'm hoping once we get in so here's ideal ideal we did the polar dip all right here we go the two of us taking a dip in the Arctic Ocean was just a small taste of what they experience but we truly felt like we were one of them all of us connected on our time on spalart new friendships blossoming on the tundra even canine friends just like etra she created warmth between us she gave us an opportunity um to love and care and and and you know express ourselves and keep that emotional part of ourselves alive she was she was absolutely um a savior for us she really was what's amazing about sea ice is that it is the AC of the Arctic so because it's white it reflects solar radiation so it's like a mirror it's like wearing a white T-shirt in the summer months so the solar radiation gets back into space and it keeps that place cool but the problem is that se ice is in contact with an ocean that is getting warmer and warmer every year the air temperatur is also getting warmer and warmer every air so in 40 years we've lost 40% of Arctic seais places like that are are are these these literal hot beds of of climate change and to to be able to do research in these areas as as CA and Hilda have done is is Monumental Monumental indeed in fact as the first two women to ever overwinter in a cabin without men this far north they will go down in history for their working contributions to science this was a forward sent to them for their latest book Parts in the ice is more than a project more than two Brave women managing to stay on their own during a polar winter it's a model for how scientists industrial Partners explorers artists and other stakeholders can meet in a common action to focus on Polar climate changes they are following in the footsteps of other polar Pioneers but this time not hunting for fur and skins but knowledge and wisdom while visiting spard I learned about cing glaciers ocean currents and how they continue to warm which will lead to an even warmer Arctic I learned about polar bears they may indeed try to adapt in the shortterm by eating reindeer and that this magical place is not truly magical it takes an army all of us to make changes to better the world that we live in you matter more than you think you know we're in a world where it's so it's depressing Don't stop believing that you really have an impact that you can make through your Voice or through your personal actions most of all I learned the importance of relationships and the power of friendship trust and bravery we can do this [Music] [Music]