Far-Flung Postcards is a weekly sequence through which NPR’s worldwide workforce shares moments from their lives and work world wide.
Rising up in Canada, I at all times thought of the Arctic a part of my yard, part of the nation’s identification and historical past. So I used to be overjoyed a number of years in the past once I obtained what I thought of a dream project: a week-long voyage by way of the fabled Northwest Passage, a sequence of waterways excessive above the Arctic Circle.
I used to be aboard the CCGS Louis S. St-Laurent, a hulking Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker affectionately recognized by the crew as merely the Louis.
Forward of that tour, I had been doing month-long reporting rotations into Afghanistan and Pakistan, and was feeling floor down. All that evaporated as soon as I used to be aboard the Louis. I felt my soul replenish with pleasure as I breathed within the frigid, clear air and gazed out on the infinite expanse of ice — there have been no buildings or boats, nor any trace of humankind for tons of of miles in any route. The ice twinkled with the sunshine of the solar, which shone 24 hours a day at the moment of 12 months.
My leisure was the polar bears like this one which day by day lumbered as much as the facet of Louis, cocking their heads as if interested by who these interlopers have been.
It was breathtaking to be the place so few individuals on Earth have traveled, to really feel the thick ice crack beneath the ship, to observe the polar bears strategy the ship, all of the whereas understanding this swiftly altering hinterland would by no means be the identical.
I believe typically of that magical time once I examine large cruise ships or oil tankers now commonly making their method by way of the Arctic. It breaks my coronary heart enthusiastic about the impression on the pristine area. It is egocentric, however I am going to at all times treasure the time I needed to myself on the high of the world — and the majestic creatures that decision it dwelling.
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