LYUBOV ORLOVA, FROBISHER BAY, NUNAVUT — Throughout this Arctic trip I’ve been trying to get a few minutes with Geoff Green, the expedition leader and founder of Students On Ice. But the man’s been busy – up on the bridge urging our captain to anchor in uncharted waters, down in the presentation room, talking to the sixty-odd students about the need for positive action.
This seems to be his usual state of affairs. Since his first expedition in 2000, Geoff has turned a rag-tag group based out of his basement into a serious organization. On this trip to the arctic, he’s taken 60 kids, from every province and territory including about 20 students from across the north. About eighty percent of the students are fully funded through a mish-mash of corporate, government, and charitable funding. Finding the money to do this is probably one big reason Geoff is so busy.
We finally found time to talk yesterday afternoon, after landing at Shaftsbury Inlet. Compared to the other places we’ve been, the place was incredibly lush, the ground covered in white heather and ripe blueberries. Two loons flew overhead while an ungodly number of mosquitoes and black flies formed clouds around us. It felt like Ontario in August.
We talked while hiking at a quick pace up a valley towards a freshwater lake. Geoff bounced over the rocks with a rifle slung over his shoulder, just in case – on one landing we came across eight polar bears – while I ran alongside in a full mosquito jacket, scrambling to take notes.
NICHOLAS HUNE-BROWN: How did you start Students On Ice? Why take a boatload of students to the polar regions?
GEOFF GREEN: I was a school teacher and I was also a guide and ski instructor, and eventually I started leading expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctica. I was leading adults, in many cases your typical adults who were a little set in their ways, a little cynical. But there was something about the arctic and Antarctic that was changing them, something about those places that was bringing something out in them. And I actually remember the moment I got the first idea – it was a pretty simple thought. I was on a beach in the Antarctic, just looking out at the water, and I thought, ‘Imagine if you could give that experience to kids, to people at the start of their lives, what a difference that could make.’
I started shopping the idea around, and I got some support. That first trip in December, 2000 I maxed out about eight credit cards. We were literally at the dock waiting for our cheque to clear so we could pay for the fuel. But that first expedition also proved the whole venture was worthwhile. You could see and hear it from the students.
What do you hope to achieve? What’s the mandate for Students On Ice?
The goal is experiential environmental education. To give youth an inspirational experience that will connect them to the natural world and motivate them to be stewards of a sustainable future. Giving them this experience now, at a time when they’re so young, is important.
The first trips we didn’t even talk about climate change. It just wasn’t on the radar. And a few years later it kind of emerged as an area of focus before becoming kind of the central theme of the trips.
What’s so special about the arctic and Antarctica?
Well, as platforms for education the polar regions are just unparalleled. I mean, you have ecology, different cultures, history, environmentalism, all of it is just right outside.
More importantly, though, they’re humbling. They remove us from that crazy, media-saturated society we’ve created. Up here we’re able to experience things on a different level. It’s not just the polar regions of course, there are natural places all over the world that can do that, but because the polar regions are relatively untouched it’s just a little bit magnified. It’s kind of like going to another planet, and from here you’re able to look back at the earth from a different angle. Being here just puts things in the right perspective.
Photo by Eric Galbraith.
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