Discover, Connect & Share from Sea to Sea to Sea

 We've entered an idea in the Aviva Community Fund challenge! But we need your help to make this vision a reality. The next round of voting starts on Monday, October 24 and every vote brings us one step closer to empowering young nature leaders across the country. Sign up now to be ready to vote or read on to learn more about our idea.

The Project

"It was in the Arctic that I started to realize the significance of a sustainable lifestyle."
– Donovan Taplin (17 years old)Bell Island, Newfoundland

Photo by Lee Narraway/Students on Ice

City traffic, air and noise pollution, cell phones, shopping malls and a daily deluge of e-mail are a reality for most Canadians. We spend our days indoors, sitting under fluorescent lights and breathing re-circulated air.

Our children play video games; they don't play outside. They know how to navigate the internet, but don't know what birds live in their backyards. They learn about big issues like climate change, but don't have the connection with nature that will let them truly understand the problem.

We are isolated from nature. We are isolated from each other.

Nature Canada and Students on Ice want to provide a life-changing opportunity for Canadian youth from sea to sea to sea. We will help them discover nature first-hand on the Arctic Expedition 2012, connect with peers and mentors in community dialogue, and share their experiences with other young people at a national Youth Leadership Summit. We hope that each person who is touched by the SEA to SEA to SEA experience is inspired to lead positive change in their own individual communities.

The Partners

For more than 70 years Nature Canada, a membership-based not-for-profit conservation organization, has been a leader in connecting Canadians to nature.

We have worked with hundreds of local groups in every province and territory to deliver community-based projects including the Parks & People program, allowing youth to experience nature first-hand; the Community Action Fund, enabling on-the-ground conservation activities; the Important Bird Areas Caretaker Network, engaging stewards for habitat and species protection; and Nature Explorers, an integrated program that will see one million children and their families participating in multiple experiences in nature over the next five years. 

Students on Ice is an award-winning program that provides youth from across Canada and around the world with ship-based education expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic.

The Students on Ice mandate is to educate and inspire the next generation of leaders and responsible global citizens, and in doing so help provide them with a greater understanding and respect for the planet.

The Plan

Nature Canada and Students on Ice are seeking $150,000 of support from the Aviva Community Fund to assist with on-the-ground delivery of the 2012 SEA to SEA to SEA experience that will empower Canadian youth through a transformative journey.

Photo by Lee Narraway/Students on Ice

In August 2012, 75 students from around the world will participate in the Students on Ice Arctic Expedition 2012. Through a nationwide selection process, a young Canadian from every province and territory will be chosen to participate on the expedition thanks to this support from AVIVA. These funds will facilitate this journey of discovery and the development of young nature ambassadors.

Highlights of the expedition will include a welcome event hosted by the community of Kuujjuaq, Nunavik, and a visit with community leaders and Inuit elders in Pagnirtung to learn about their observations of climate change and its impacts on their community and way of life. The team will stop at National Parks, Important Bird Areas, and spectacular fjords along the way to immerse themselves in learning directly in the spectacular landscape. Participants will have a chance to see magnificent Arctic wildlife, including seabirds, whales, and polar bears.

Throughout the expedition, students will have a chance to learn from each other and connect with mentors. Ongoing discussions will let them reflect on their experiences and energize them to become leaders for environmental and social change in their own individual communities when they return home.

In November 2012, 130 youth from across Canada will converge at a Youth Leadership Summit to explore what the Arctic means to Canada, how our country is connected from SEA to SEA to SEA, and why healthy sustainable communities are critical for our future, the Arctic's future and the planet's future.

The AVIVA Nature Ambassadors from the expedition will serve as youth leaders, motivating their peers as they share their recent Arctic journey, experiences and new knowledge.

The Youth Leadership Summit will empower participants as young leaders, changing their lives and communities. They will make lasting connections that will link Canadian communities from sea to sea to sea in a sustainable future.

"I am taking on the world as an ambassador of positive change."
– Victoria Wee (17 years old)Coquitlam, British Columbia

Please vote to empower change, from sea to sea to sea.

An Arctic Experience to the "Place of Spirits" with Students on Ice

Students on Ice participants in Torngat National Park

What happens when you place 65 young people from all walks of life, 45 teachers, mentors, musicians and coaches on a floating classroom on the rugged coast of Labrador and Nunavut? You get a recipe for life shaping experiences. It was into this mixture that I was invited by Geoff Green, Executive Director of Students on Ice, to experience the Students on Ice (SOI) initiative – an international effort that aims to provide students from around the world with inspiring educational opportunities at the ends of the Earth and, in doing so, help them foster a new understanding and respect for the planet.

I intercepted the Students on Ice in the Torngat National Park on August 3rd, 10 days after they had set sail from Iceland. Our Twin Otter plane made a flyover of the bay, banked, then dipped and made its way onto a nearby runaway in hot pursuit of a lone Caribou which had taken refuge at the beginning of the tarmac. Within an hour of our landing, we joined the Students on Ice participants and made our way to the Torngat National Park base camp at Kangidluasuk – an orderly alignment of some 30 large canvass tents and a research trailer on a quiet beach overlooking the steely blue bay and glacier scarred landscape. The base camp was established by Parks Canada under the jurisdiction of the Nunatsiavut Government and its management is in the process of being transferred to the local Inuit representatives. At the base camp, we shared a wonderful dinner on the beach with the Inuit elders from the area who recounted stories of their time on this land. Many of the participants from Students on Ice were selected from Inuit communities across Canada’s north and it was beautiful to watch as, together with the Elders, they shared their rich culture with other youth from southern Canada, the US, Europe and Asia.

Over the next 3 days we nimbly made our way northward and as we did, we poked the ship into several breathtaking fiords that reach westward, penetrating deep into the Park. Nature Canada worked for several years with Parks Canada, and the people of Labrador to establish Torngat National Park in 2005. It’s one of Canada’s most remote National Parks occupying some 10,000 square km and extending nearly 1,000 km from Nain to the northern most tip of Labrador. The Park protects one of eastern North America’s greatest mountain ranges and its wildlife, including large populations of Polar Bears, Caribou, whales, seabirds and tundra Black Bears, and honors the Inuit whose settlements predate the first European Vikings and the Moravian Missionaries. Within the Park’s boundaries, two globally Important Bird Areas support large concentrations of Common Eider and several colonies of marine birds.

Each day was designed to expose young students to aspects of the north through different workshops including landscape painting, advocating on environmental issues, establishing an Arctic council, cataloguing plants, learning about the life history of birds, to name a few. These sessions were interspersed with excursions to picturesque glacial lakes, waterfalls and sacred Inuit burial grounds, as well as expeditions to climb mountains, search for Polar Bears and float alongside Minke Whales.

The Torngat Mountains and George River Caribou herds cross paths as they migrate to and from their calving grounds – we spotted several lone Caribou along the rocky shores. The inland bays and coastal waters were rich in bird species. We saw Common Loons, Black Guillemots, Glaucous Gulls, Peregrine Falcons, Long-tailed and Parasitic Jaegers, Northern Fulmars and Black-legged Kittiwakes. Northern redpolls were perhaps the most numerous passerine on most inland walks. And wildflowers, grasses and sedges abounded.

After departing Port Burwell, Killiniq Island on August 6th, we set sail across Ungava Bay and headed towards our final destination, Kuujjuak. In the afternoon, the students gathered one last time in the front hall of the ship to listen to leadership presentations and prepare for a final night of comedy, competitions, photography, singing and drama. It was clear when the curtain came down on the night, that the students had clearly been moved and Students on Ice had left an indelible mark on all those it had touched during the course of the fantastic voyage.

Students on Ice has done more to help shape young minds about the Arctic than perhaps any other initiative of its kind. By embracing Inuit knowledge and integrating their experience and understanding into the program, Students on Ice is breaking down the barriers between northern and southern cultures and is bravely paving the way for a new found understanding and respect for northern cultures and the Arctic environment.

The lessons learned from Students on Ice have profoundly impacted my understanding and appreciation for engaging young people in nature and these lessons learned come at an important time as Nature Canada looks for effective ways to continue engaging Canadians in a meaningful way in nature.

For more photos from Ian's trip and photos of Canada's National Parks, check out our Flickr album dedicated to these beautiful, wild spaces.