Welcome to Arctic the Culture Cure, the podcast all about Canada's Arctic, the climate, the animals, the land, the people, the culture and what it can teach the rest of the world. I'm your host, Rob Fagan. Jill Heinerth is a Canadian cave diver, underwater explorer, writer, photographer, and filmmaker. Her achievements include making TV series for pbs, the National Geographic Channel and BBC. She has also consulted on various movies for directors including James Cameron. Jill has written several books, including the recent bestseller into the My Life as a Cave Diver. And she's produced documentaries including We Are Water and Ben's the Intriguing Story of the disappearance of Ben McDaniel. Jill became the first person to dive inside iceberg caves of Antarctica and experienced the calving of an iceberg documented in the film Ice Island. Jill has penetrated further into an underwater cave system than any woman in history. Jill is a member of the Women Divers hall of Fame, International Scuba Divers hall of Fame, was awarded the first ever Christopher Andarchi Medal for Exploration by the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, received the Canadian Polar Medal from the Governor General of Canada in 2017, and the William Beebe Award for Ocean Exploration from the Explorers Club in 2020. Jill has done extensive exploration on the life cycle of ice as it moves from Greenland to Newfoundland and documents climate change in the Arctic. Her work with Arctic on the Edge and the recent documentary Under Thin Ice is fascinating and of interest to anyone, whether a resident of the world's polar regions or simply a resident of the planet concerned about our future. We are very honored to have Jill on the program today to talk about what's taking place with Arctic sea ice. Welcome, Jill.

Oh, thanks for having me. It's nice to talk to you.

Yeah. So you've been surviving Covid, and, you know, knowing your accomplishments and lifestyle, you just don't seem like somebody who would take that well to confinement. How have you been surviving during the COVID crisis?

Yeah, my gills are definitely drying up isolated with my husband. But there are. There are gifts and those opportunities, too. I travel so much that it's kind of nice to be home for a.

Bit, a little bit of an unplanned rest. So now you started off in visual communication design and you taught scuba diving in the evenings. But was scuba always your main love or did you love both of those things and eventually it led to combining those in your career?

Well, I always wanted to scuba dive as a young kid, but asking my parents about that, they said, oh, my gosh, honey, I don't think people dive in Canada. It's too cold here. So, yeah, it was my hobby when I was working in advertising. But. But in the back of my mind, I wanted to find a way to combine my love of creativity and my love of the underwater world. And took a while to figure it out, but I finally thought, sell everything. I sold everything I owned, including my business, and moved down to the tropics to have a chance to be in the water more and develop my skills as an underwater photographer, writer, videographer, all of it.

What a huge step. I mean, was there one thing in particular that triggered that, where you just went, hey, this is it, and a week from now I'm gonna sell everything? Or was it a gradual process? Was it a, hey, this is the moment, or was it very gradual?

Well, you know, it was always a dream. But when you first have these ideas, it's hard to even figure out how you're going to. How you're gonna make it possible. But I was working on a project for Nike. A couple times a year, we would draw the Nike catalog for the clothes that they had not yet made that were to be sold to the stores for the coming season. It was a really big job on a tight deadline, and I was so exhausted at the end of that project, I was on my way down on a vacation to the Cayman Islands. And that's when I made the decision. I'm like, my world is upside down. I need to be working creatively underwater, and then coming home to Canada for a little vacation. The rest to see my family. So it was kind of that project the pushed me over the top to change my life.

Yeah. And so you did live in the Cayman Islands for a while, and I see you lived in Florida for a while. And was that, you know, was that that opportunity or that environment that, you know, that helped you hone your skills and go, hey, now I know this. You know, I'm getting this experience diving, and it's going to lead me further. Is that. Was that, you know, the main proving ground, so to speak, of those skills?

Well, I knew I wanted to make it happen, and yet I didn't know how. I volunteered a lot for expeditions. I reached out to people that could mentor me. And through those opportunities, those projects, volunteering, I made the connections that opened doors later down the road, but it was a slow progress. I mean, I had to create this hybrid career, writing, photography, videography, consulting, you know, speaking, all kinds of things that. That would serve me and keep me. Keep me in the water as much as possible.

Yeah. So, you know, and again, as someone who I tried diving once and I wasn't real comfortable with it. I thought it was kind of fun. But I mean, diving is one thing. Cave diving to me is an extreme step beyond just diving. And what led you down that path from diving to cave diving?

Well, you know, I enjoyed dry caving, like exploring, you know, cracks and crevices in the rocks in the Bruce Peninsula, you know, not too far from my upbringing in west of Toronto. And so caves were always a cool thing to me. I liked confined spaces. And early on, like on my fourth open water dive, I went into an overhead environment underwater and saw the potential of just being able to like inhale and take a deep breath and rise up through this space and exhale and drop down and it was like gravity was gone and I could fully explore this incredible three dimensional space that, you know, almost felt like a womb. Being underwater was special enough. Being underwater in this dark space felt primal. It was, it was amazing to me and just set the hook immediately.

Wow. And I mean, obviously you're not claustrophobic.

Not a bit, but it's normal. You know, I applaud people that are claustrophobic that, you know, that's, that's natural. I am not normal.

You mentioned, you know, that I think you used the term 3D environment and one of your accomplishments, you're part of a team that made the first 3D map of an underwater cave. And it seems to me that with a breakthrough like that, you'd be opening a door for others to take that and build on it. Have other caves been mapped since that in that same fashion now?

Yeah. I mean, so to begin with, when you explore a new cave that nobody's ever been in before, you have to map it or it doesn't count. So it's one thing to swim into a place that nobody's ever been, but if you don't make a map, then it's as if you weren't there. There's no bragging rights. Well, back in the late 1990s, we made the world's first accurate three dimensional map of any cave, dry or wet. But we did it in a really deep, difficult cave system on, you know, missions that were, you know, closer to a moon launch than what you might perceive as a diving project. So, yeah, that did open a lot of doors for me. And I've continued to work with people from that very team that I, that I, you know, explored with back in 97, 98. And the mapping device that we used has continued to be developed as well. And it doesn't need me anymore. It's now a fully autonomous robot that can map a cave in three dimensions, make choices about going left or right, turn around when it's running out of fuel, and come back to deliver the goods, basically. And, yeah, that device is actually destined for space. It was designed to explore Jupiter's moon Europa. The liquid oceans beneath the frozen surface of Europa.

Well, that's incredible. I mean, just something that started there and the, you know, the opportunities for that, that technology to keep expanding.

Yeah, I kind of pinch myself. You know, I wanted to be an astronaut, and I guess this is the next closest thing.

So now again, you talk about, you know, steps and things progressing. And so now you've gone from diving to cave diving and then cave diving inside iceberg caves. In fact, you were the first person to dive inside iceberg caves. And what led to that step of your diving inside of iceberg caves?

Well, ice diving itself is kind of a natural extension for a Canadian diver if you want to dive all year round, because so much of the time we have a frozen surface and there's lots of cool stuff to explore beneath the ice. But back in 2000, I was pitching a project to National Geographic with my colleague Wes Skiles, and we were going to follow in Shackleton's footsteps and retrace his route from New Zealand down to the Ross Ice Shelf. And during the process of writing the pitch and the proposal for the project, the largest iceberg in recorded history broke away from the Ross Ice Shelf. It was the size of Jamaica and the largest moving object on Earth. And so we pitched to National Geographic that we would go down there and be the first. First people to ever cave dive inside a body of ice. So go inside the cracks, crevices and tunnels of an iceberg.

Did you say the size of Jamaica?

It was the size of Jamaica, yeah. Huge. But even, you know, from the moment it first calved away from the Ross Ice Shelf, it was, you know, unstable and fragile and continued to crack and break up into smaller pieces that only just disappeared like last year, like almost 20 years later. Yeah. So when we pitched the project, it was only a hypothesis. We didn't know for sure that we would find cave systems inside of icebergs, but it was a pretty good guess. And we went down there on a harrowing trip and were indeed the first people to cave dive inside the ice.

Incredible. Now, you know, again, this is a very uneducated question, perhaps, but how do the dangers of cave diving compare to cave diving in an iceberg?

Well, cave diving is dangerous in and of itself. You need A lot of training. You need a lot of equipment, redundancy of that equipment so that you can deal with emergencies in an overhead environment where you can't just swim to the surface and things can happen. You can get stuck, you can have a problem with your life support equipment. You could get lost, and you can kick up the silt and not be able to see. So there's a lot that can go wrong in a cave. Now, go inside an iceberg cave, first of all, it's like minus 1.8 degrees. It's cold, 110 of a degree colder, and it would be frozen solid. But now you're also diving inside of a cave that's changing minute to minute. So the ice is moving, it's cracking, it's heaving, it's calving. And then we also learned, just through experience, that there are some pretty tremendous currents moving through these massive bodies of ice as well. Currents so strong that you cannot swim against them.

Okay. So it's that changing environment that leads to that potential danger. And I know from watching some of your work, there's also, I would think, the danger of the iceberg tipping as well.

Yeah, yeah. The icebergs destabilize just as they melt. Just when the daytime warms up, they'll crack and heave and melt, and then it gets a little bit cooler and they sort of refreeze. But they're stressed now and more fragile. And as the weight is redistributed from the melting, suddenly, without warning, they'll just flip over and roll or break apart. And it's very difficult to predict.

So how would. I mean, just visually, before you get in the water and go inside of that iceberg, how would you visually determine, okay, this is the one that we think is the safest or the most interesting or combination of both, to go in and take a look at those caves?

Well, back in 2000, it was. It was totally a guess. I mean, I read every bit of literature that I could about the exploration of Antarctica and the character and quality of ice, and I read scientific papers to prepare myself. But nothing really prepares you to do something that hasn't been done before. You know, there is no handbook for the first. And so it was literally, day by day, slow, progressive penetration, and then slow, you know, observation of different masses of ice that helped us get a gut feeling. But it was still just a guess. It was still quite an enormous risk that we took on doing that. Wow.

Now, your documentary Under Thin Ice, which I would encourage folks to watch, it provides an incredible account of our Shrinking sea ice. The documentary, it starts in Ikvyarchuk in Nunavut, which used to be called Arctic Bay for some folks who are used to that name. What made you select that location?

Well, it's a really. It's a really great spot to connect with some of the indigenous leaders who can act as our guides out on the sea ice. So you can fly into Arctic Bay in a small plane, carry a lot of your film gear, and then from there, with the help of local people with snowmobiles and Kamatex, you can go out Eclipse Sound. And it's very, very, you know, long fjord out to Lancaster Sound. It'd be right on top of the Northwest Passage. And our goal was to camp as close as we could to what is called the flow edge. So that's where the frozen sea ice that is set up for the winter meets the open ocean. And so the flow edge moves, changes every single day, because as it warms up each spring, that sea ice breaks up until it's all open water out there. So the flow edge is the most exciting place for wildlife encounters, for seeing narwhals, belugas, polar bears, all, you know, all kinds of bird life. Like, the entire food chain of the Arctic is focused on that flow edge, like a moving buffet that shifts along each day as it melts, because the ice itself is actually full of nutrition. It's actually serving up the bottom of the food chain to everything else above it.

And how important was the knowledge of the local Inuit to you as you filmed the documentary?

Oh, for me, the cultural stories and the knowledge of navigating safely on what they call the land, that sea ice, they call the land. You know, we would be nowhere without their help and their stories and their wisdom. And for me, that's half of the story, too, is learning about what they've experienced in their own lifetimes or what their parents have experienced and how they're facing adaptation to climate change. I mean, like, imagine they call this the land. That means that it's not just the place where they have their cultural roots and where they go as a family to. To learn how to hunt and to get their sustenance, but it. It connects them with other communities. So their whole life is really centered around this stability of the sea ice. And as it goes away, it's changing, you know, their cultural connections, their sense of community, their access to their family, and also to the very wildlife, the food chain, which is suffering from, for massive changes in the geography.

That's very interesting. And so you were there in early June. And I think you've been going back there for several years, if I'm not mistaken. And what are you like when you take a look at what you've seen changing each year and you talk to the Inuit elders and the folks around the area, what are you seeing? What are they seeing as far as when the ice is leaving and returning and all of those things that are so important?

Yeah, it's really shocking how quickly things are changing and the magnitude of that change that you can see just year to year. I mean, I hear now from people both in Pond Inlet and Arctic Bay that they see water streaming out from underneath the glaciers, from underneath the snowpack in the middle of winter. They hadn't had that happening before. So liquid water streaming out and steaming from underneath the ice. Each year we have to go a little bit earlier because of the condition of the sea ice with the rapidity of it breaking up and to look for places that are even safe to camp. There's more water on top of the ice. There's rainstorms all of the time. There's an Arctic heat wave happening right now, and it's shocking. But the other thing that amazes me is when speaking with some of the elders, I would have expected a resentment towards myself and the people of the South. The people that have really had more to do with the changes caused the issues that they're suffering from right now. I mean, they're in many ways a great example of how to live in communion with mother Nature. So I would have expected some resentment towards those of us that have, you know, lived a more industrial, technology filled life that has heated this planet. But what I got was nothing but graciousness and an expression that it was something that they just had to adapt to. So for someone to say to me, you know, well, you know, change happens and, you know, we don't know what will happen, but we know that we will adapt because we were strong, you know, and so it's this stoicism and grace that is quite remarkable to me. You know, it would be very easy to be resentful as your entire world is falling apart, but I didn't see that. I've never seen that.

Amazing people who, I mean, their history is adaptation to their environment and surviving by doing that.

Yeah. And it's beautiful to see the cultural practices and knowledge passed on still to the next generation because those stories are important. Those, you know, stories that I asked them about, about, like, what life was like even, even just a generation or two ago are important for us to hear and important to our understanding of climate change.

Yes, yes. Now, in the documentary, and again, I would really encourage people to watch Under Thin Ice. I mean, any of Jill's work, but I found the documentary Under Thin Ice just intriguing when it comes to Canada's Arctic. And in the documentary, you talk about the bloom that occurs when the sea ice melts. And I mean, again, much more time would be needed to do this properly. And the documentary does such a good job. But could you maybe just describe for our listeners what that means? What is that bloom that happens when the ice is melting?

Yeah, so. Well, there's several things that are going on. I mean, we used to have a lot of thicker, whiter ice on north, and that would reflect the sun back into the atmosphere. And now thinner and less abundance of ice means more dark, black ocean. It's called the albedo effect. And so now the sun is getting absorbed by that dark ocean and warming up. And as the ice melts, as the water warms, we get more and more, more of an algal bloom. And the ice releases algae that's been growing on the underside basically into the food chain. And that phytoplankton will feed the zooplankton and on up through the food chain. But we're getting quite an abundance of algae in some places. I mean, we can see the algal blooms from space. And so part of the things that are being disrupted are, are not just like changes in, like, what's available or how many of a particular animal or organism are available, but it's also timing that's being screwed up. And so if the ice is rapidly melting earlier in the season, the timing of every other organism that feeds on up through the food chain is also disrupted. And, you know, if we all crowded into the five o' clock buffet and cleaned the place out, there's nothing for the 6:00 clock sitting. So if, you know, the humpback whales and bowhead whales that used to arrive at different times now arrive in the Arctic at the same time and start to eat like crazy. Will it deplete the food supply? And the answer is, we don't know. I mean, the changes are happening so quickly that we can't even keep track of what's going on and the consequences of these changes.

That's. You're answering one of the questions that it really intrigued me. And I mean, you know, you talk about the cod, the polar bear, the seal, the narwhal, the beluga, the bowhead, all of these different, you know, fish and animals, sea mammals that rely on the system functioning the way it has. So that's what happens. And you know, you're. The whales used to come at different time or have their feeding at different times. So when that them arriving at the same time. So there is that fear of depleting then the food source if they're all there at the same time instead of as they used to, the timing used to be.

Mm. Well, it's just like with the polar bears. So, you know, polar bears traditionally hunted on the ice and they'd, you know, grab a seal through a breathing hole and yank it out, consume it. But if you. The sea ice isn't there, then they're swimming. Now they're spending seven weeks more in the water and on land than they used to even, you know, 20, 25 years ago. And so they're looking for other food sources. They're using more energy and now they're swimming after and even diving after seals. But they'll lose that game. So we've seen them on land, climbing cliffsides, eating eggs out of bird's nests. So imagine how many eggs it would take to fill up a polar bear and they could just completely go through a rookery and clean it out and then, you know, whatever was going to be feeding on those birds on down the food chain again, the things are just different and disrupted.

So again, you know, food chain chain reaction, things affecting each other as they. This whole system is thrown out of sync, so to speak. How does the pace of the ice retreat and the shortening of the colder season compare to, say, what we saw 20 years ago?

Well, I think it's. It's accelerating. I mean, we keep having the warmest year and the lowest ice cover on record and the hottest Arctic on record. So in my short lifetime, it just, it just seems to be on this massive, you know, exponential scale of warming and depleting sea ice, and it's run away. I mean, I don't think that, honestly, that there's any chance that we're gonna have, you know, ice cover in the Arctic in another 20 years, if not sooner. Right. So who knows when? And it'll all come down, but, you know, it's gonna happen. And that's. That's devastating.

What would you say? I mean, there's always naysayers, there's always people who question these things. And what would you say to people? I mean, you're some. Someone who's seeing these things firsthand and most people don't. And what would you say to people who think the receding ice or warming waters are a blip, and, you know, they go, oh, it's gonna shift back to the way it was before. What would you say to those people?

It's not a matter of belief, it's science. Yeah, I mean, I get that question a lot from people in speaking engagements where they'll say, do you believe in climate change? It's not a matter of belief, it's science. And there isn't a reputable scientific body, organization that would not agree that the Arctic is changing faster than anywhere else on Earth and that we're in this, you know, probably irreversible loss of sea ice now, you know, it doesn't leave me hopeless completely because somehow we've adapted, you know, to massive changes before. The planet's gonna be fine for sure. It's more a matter of, you know, how this is all gonna fare for humanity and the rest of the wildlife, but, you know, the planet will be fine. So, you know, what does our look. Life look like? I think maybe this is one weird gift of the coronavirus, that there isn't a person on the planet that does not understand our interconnectivity anymore. You know, we are one living organism on this planet, and we cannot divorce ourselves from things that happen on the other side of the Earth. So maybe this time for reflection and isolation gives more people a chance to understand their connections with the rest of the planet. And perhaps this is a dress rehearsal for some of the very radical changes that we're going to have to make to face climate change.

And, yeah, that's a good topic, and that's something that I was going to ask you. I mean, I'm sure a lot of people who look at the speed of change and the speed of warming and the speed of the ice receding, they go, well, really? Are any of these things that we're doing going to help? Are they going to stop something that seems irreversible? And, you know, they kind of go, well, I'm just going to, you know, should I just throw my hands in the air, not take steps to try and slow this down again? What would you say to people who feel that helplessness?

Well, you know, it's funny. I actually write about this in my book into the Planet, which is it's about my expeditions and all those wonderful experiences, but it's really about fear and facing fear, challenge change. And, you know, when I'm in a cave, trapped because my buddy has panicked and become wedged and blocking the doorway, and the guideline is broken and My life support system is failing and I have to deal with all of these compound issues in a complete whiteout. It's hard to know how it's all going to work out. It's too big a problem. And I kind of look at climate change in the same way. It's such a big problem that people can feel immobilized, unable to act, they don't know what to do. But I tell people in that moment of abject terror, and you've got to take a deep breath and turn off the emotions and just say, listen, emotions, you're not going to serve me well right now. I have to be able to think very carefully and pragmatically about what the next best step is. And we always know what the next best step is. You know, for me, trapped in a cave with broken life support and a guideline that's been severed and a trapped buddy, I've got to calm down, my buddy, I've got to fix the guideline. I've got to got to deal with the problem one small step at a time. For climate change, we don't know what the big answers are yet, but we do know how we can have a positive impact on the planet. In fact, we're having one just by staying home and not driving, though, we're leading a life with a smaller footprint and that's a good step. And so I think that if everybody takes these small mitigating steps, that it will lead up to an opportunity for the big solutions. So, you know, in coronavirus it's, you know, stay home, don't mix with other people, stay isolated and let the researchers do their job, let the experts do their job. And when the vaccine is here, then, you know, that will be the next phase of opening our society again. But until then, we've got to think small. So I think it's the same thing with climate change.

Yeah, some really good points. I mean, I think hopefully we learn from COVID and, you know, we see, hey, you know what, we're working from home. Some of us who have office type jobs, you know, working from home was just as good as being at the office in many ways. And look at it's not as smoggy and look at there's birds around in our backyards that weren't there two months ago. Well, we're having an impact just by staying home and using our vehicles less. So, hey, there is hope there. So hopefully that's one of the things we do pick up from, from this whole Covid crisis.

Yeah, I sure hope So, I mean, I always look for these silver linings in all the experiences. I mean, you know, that's another lesson really, is that you can't change the difficulties that you've had to endure. You can't change, change the mistakes that you've made in life. But you can use all of those challenges as character building opportunities that inform you how to move forward in a better way in the future. And I don't think anyone will leave this experience unchanged. It's opened our eyes to other things and hopefully connected us to the rest of humanity and the natural world a little bit better.

Yeah, very well put. Now, you have so many amazing accomplishments. You've, you know, you've penetrated further into an underwater cave system any moment in history. You've received the Polar Medal from the Governor General of Canada. You're in the Women Drivers hall of Fame Divers hall of Fame. You're the International Scuba Divers hall of Fame. You're a fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, William Beebe Award. You've worked with director James Cameron. You're a published author. What's next? What's your next adventure? I mean, have you sat back during the COVID crisis or did you already have plans and, you know, you're going, hey, what's next on my calendar?

Yeah, I mean, all of my plans have been derailed for the year. Basically. I had a series of expeditions and projects that were on the go that, that are not happening now. I've been using my Covid time in a lot of outreach, actually, you know, podcasts like this, but I've been doing a lot of online webinars in classrooms and reaching out to kids in schools. And that's been a really important, meaningful part of my, of my volunteer work with the Royal Canadian Geographical Society is that outreach. I want to be that woman that I wish I'd met when I was 10, someone who I could look up to as a mentor that would answer questions about what comes next in life. Yeah, when this all opens up, I'll be back in the water. But more cold water.

More cold water or warm water?

Yeah, well, actually I, I would have been in Nineveh right now if, if things were different, but because Nunavut doesn't have any Covid yet. Touch wood. And thank goodness, you know, all travel to the Arctic from all my colleagues in the scientific and exploratory and tourism world has been canceled this year in order to keep it as safe as possible for those that live there. So, yeah, I would have been there right now, but I Hope to get back. You know, the last time I was up, I was really entranced with doing audio recordings of what's happening under the ice. You could be on top of the ice and be standing in the middle of a, you know, windswept blizzard or rainstorm, but it feels so bleak and empty and cold. But you stick a microphone in the water, and it sounds like an alien world. There's so much going on underneath the surface, so many sounds, and. And so I've been collecting those sounds and even using them to compose some music, actually.

Beautiful.

Yeah. When you've heard the trill of a, you know, a ringed seal or a bearded seal underwater, you just think you've gone to another planet.

That's so, so beautiful. Now you're talking about being a mentor and doing more of that work. During COVID what advice would you give to young women, or just young people in general, who have a love, perhaps, that they're dreaming of following and they just haven't taken that next step, or maybe they haven't figured out yet what that love is? What's some advice you'd give to young people heading forward?

One thing I like to tell them is step into the darkness. I do that literally as a cave diver whenever I explore. But so many people run away from things that scare them today. But I like to tell kids that I'm scared all the time. It's normal to be scared. You should be scared of things that are dangerous or things that are new. It means that you care about the outcome. And so to a young person, I suggest that, you know, step towards those things that scare you. Step into the darkness. Allow your eyes to adjust to the dim light just a little bit, because that's where the opportunity lies for you to explore, you know, for you to make a discovery that's new for yourself or maybe new for humanity. That's where the opportunities in life lie. And today, anything is possible. I mean, when I grew up, there were more gatekeepers that stopped you from making a movie or writing a book or expressing yourself or doing scientific investigations. But with the global interconnections that we have online, those gatekeepers are gone. If you want to be a filmmaker, start your own YouTube channel. You know, if you want to write, publish your own book, you can express yourself and get grants and funding and support and mentoring just by reaching out to this international, connected audience. And those people will help you. Just ask. So I think there's a great time of opportunity, and that's where my optimism lies. Kids understand technology. They have a literacy for that, and I think that will save us in the end.

Well, thank you so much, Jill. I really appreciate that advice and appreciate you coming on the podcast. It's been a pleasure to have you on the podcast. And again, I encourage folks Under Thin Ice and the other work that Jill has done, seek it out and you can find it on YouTube. And just amazing work by Jill.

Yeah, Under Thin Ice is streaming on CBC GEM in Canada, so you can get that free on GEM and around the world on other networks as well. And yeah, feel free to drop by my website, into the planet.com for more of the little snippets of videos and stories and information about my book, too.

Yeah, well, that's fantastic. We'll have to have you back. There was another piece of work that you did, and I didn't have a chance to dive into it very deep. But around the arsenic with gold filings, I think you have. And part of the reason that intrigued me is a good part of my life. I was growing up in Yellowknife around the gold mines. As a young boy, we used to ride our mini bikes through what they called Con Mine Desert, which was made out of the gray stuff they pulled out of the mine. So I biked through it, inhaled it, played it. Yeah, I saw that title of that work and I went, geez, I've got to look at that. So maybe we could have you back to talk some more about some of those topics. That'd be fantastic.

Yeah, you bet. I'd love to come back.

Okay, well, thank you very much, Jill.

All right. Great talking with you. Take care.

Take care.

Bye Bye.

Bye.

Bye.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Arctic the Culture Cure. For more information about my novels or to inquire about my presentations, please Visit my website, www.robertfagan.com. we'll join you again on the next episode of Arctic the Culture Cure.