Musician Tamara Lindeman was the artist in residence aboard the MV Polar Prince during the recent Students On Ice expedition. (Students On Ice/Facebook) A musician says sailing on an expedition along Labrador's northern coast — and then beyond — was the fruition of a longtime dream. For three weeks, the MV Polar Prince hosted the Students On Ice's recent Nunatsiavut to Nunavut expedition, facilitated by the Innu Nation.
The trip — which began in July in Nain and continued on to Iqaluit — brought students from across Canada as well as Indigenous elders, educators and scientists. Tamara Lindeman, a Canadian singer-songwriter who performs as the Weather Station, was on board as the artist in residence. She said the trip was eye-opening and helped her accomplish a longtime dream she'd had ever since she read about the establishment of Torngat Mountains National Park in 2008.
"I literally put it on my mental bucket list. I was very, very determined that some day I'd get there," Lindeman recently told CBC News. "I never dreamed it would be this way — which is by far the coolest way to see this landscape.
So I'm really overjoyed." One memorable sight was when the vessel was halfway up the tip of Torngat Mountains National Park, she said. "The mountains up here are massive.
They're really old. They're sort of rising right up out of the ocean. It's wild.
" Lindeman said one morning they had to wait on board the Polar Prince for two polar bears to leave the area before they could go ashore. They saw a few caribou, went fishing, had a bonfire and cooked Arctic char. "I'm pinching myself every day," she said.
Lindeman said she hopes to take this experience and turn it into music. "It's just deepening my understanding. And whether I turn it into song or whether I turn it into writing or just just sharing it as I get home — I think so much is gonna come out of this for me.
And I hope that I'm able to capture something of what this has been." She said many of the youth on the voyage are from First Nations and she learned a lot from them and see how they experience the landscape. "So some folks here are coming to a region that they actually have deep roots in and some are coming here for the first time.
We actually also have a couple elders with us." One of the first places the expedition visited was the now-relocated community of Hebron, which she said is where a number of the elders were born. "We went to Northwest Arm, which is, like, an astonishingly beautiful place with huge cliffs and a crystal blue lake behind.
Yeah, I don't even know where to begin with the highlights." Lindeman said she's seen the impacts of climate change on the trip and the elders have been able to point out changes in the landscape. The youth on the trip also talked about climate change, she said.
"I'm just hoping that I can bring something back. I feel overwhelmed with things that I'm bringing back right now. It makes it real.
" During her time onboard the MV Polar Prince Tamara Lindeman says she's been able to polar bears. (Students On Ice/Facebook) The landscape is fragile, she said, and she can see how complex life is. She has seen animals like polar bears and Inuit communities that were relocated, which has given her a sense of how "against the wire life is.
" "When things change, it's massive, it's everything. So it's really bringing that home for me and, and hopefully reigniting that spark for me to go back, to go back south and and keep battling.".
