Dec 24, 2024
Nov 13,2024
It wasn’t long ago that many parts of our world were still unexplored by humans. Two hundred ago, there were still places on our planet that nobody knew existed and where undiscovered communities lived and thrived. Today, being ‘off-line’ is a strange idea, the world is a much smaller place than it used to be and we are now able to connect with everyone on the other side of the world instantly. We’re also able to monitor our whole planet in unprecedented detail using satellites.
However, there are still some places where it is possible to experience wilderness in the same way that adventurers would have two hundred years ago. One such place is the Canadian High Arctic, a place so remote that when standing there, there is unlikely to be anybody else for hundreds of miles and nobody to save you from curious (and hungry) animals if they appear!!!
As an ecologist, my job is to be curious and when I was first approached to participate in the Where The Wild Geese Go project, I was very curious. To track the light-bellied brent geese from Ireland to the Canadian High Arctic was a daunting task and not without risk. The answer to the question "could we find out exactly where they go?" from the series producers was met with an "Of course, but it will take some serious work".
The first job was to GPS tag the geese in Ireland with the help of our ‘goose detectives’ in St. Mary’s School in Dungarvan. This allowed us to track the geese from Ireland to Iceland which was great. However, after Iceland and into Greenland & Canada, the GPS tags don’t work (as there’s no mobile phone network) which meant fellow scientist Stu Kendrew and myself had to jump on a plane (well several actually) and go looking for them using the traditional method… binoculars.
Even after studying brent geese for around 25 years and dozens of expeditions to western Iceland in spring and autumn, visits to every nook and cranny of the Irish coastline and two previous expeditions to the Canadian High Arctic, planning a trip like this takes considerable work – none more so that into the arctic archipelago. The first task was to get to Resolute Bay, basecamp for our search (and one of the most northern towns in Canada).
In Canada, only one airline serves remote communities like Resolute, and unsurprisingly, the cost is through the roof. After arriving, we immediately talked to local hunters and using previous experience, we set off locally from Resolute Bay on quads and boats but to no avail. Our search for the geese was to be far more north, a place where there are no roads and a landscape that wouldn’t look out of place on the moon. Yikes!
By sheer fluke, we had received an email from a Canadian scientist – Dr Mark Mallory – who had already done his seabird fieldwork up there in June and we remembered he had his small hut and field camp on Nasaruvaalik Island in Penny Strait. Would Mark allow us to access this as a base?
Somewhat relieved, the response from Mark was "You are more than welcome to use the cabins, we checked them a few weeks ago after asking two polar bears to leave. YOU WILL NEED GUNS – you cannot stay there without firearms, too many bears!!!!!."
Gulp!
Armed, we set off to Nasaruvaalik Island on a very expensive chartered aeroplane, which was unable to land because of dense fog. So then we set off again on another very expensive chartered aeroplane, our last shot, and one which thankfully was able to land.
The relief of finally being able to step on Nasaruvaalik Island was incredible and after trawling the island, we found our brent geese. Unbelievable…. a literal wild goose chase had come to an end. To be able to share the news with the ‘goose detectives’ back in Ireland was utter magic.
