Chatter Marks EP 133 Where science meets story with Caroline Van Hemert

Caroline Van Hemert is a wildlife biologist, writer, and researcher whose work moves between science, story, and the lived experience of wild places. She’s based in Alaska, where she’s spent years studying migratory birds and the shifting ecosystems they move through, paying close attention to how climate change is reshaping patterns that have existed for generations. She’s also the author of “The Sun Is a Compass,” a memoir that traces a 4,000-mile journey she and her husband made from Washington State to Arctic Alaska under their own power—by boat, ski, canoe, and foot. Across her work, whether in the field or on the page, she’s asking a version of the same question: how do we find our way through a changing world, and what can the natural world teach us about movement, attention, and belonging?

Caroline’s writing merges the personal with the scientific, a perspective shaped by her early research into beak deformities in black-capped chickadees. That work led to a broader focus on wildlife health, studying everything from parasites in polar bears to harmful algal blooms and their effects on seabirds — and how disease, toxicants, and environmental stress ripple across entire ecosystems. Because a change to one species is never isolated, it’s a community-level shift. For a long time, that work felt heavy, like serving as a gatekeeper at the morgue, documenting decline. But more recently her focus has begun to shift. In her new book, tentatively titled “Upwellings,” she looks for moments of surprise, places where the natural world resists the expected ending. Because she believes that by recognizing what’s possible in the wild can reshape what feels possible within us. It’s a shift that also reflects a deeper question about science itself: whether data alone can still move people, or whether it requires a more engaged, more human voice.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
I think I'm moving toward a point of trying to hold both the very dark realities and also

(00:20):
that sense of possibility and of hopefulness together in a more cohesive fashion.
So I'm not just vacillating between being this sort of stony-eyed scientist and a mom
to my kids being out in the world seeing wondrous things, but something that merges those.
And I think that's true for me professionally as well, that having that really dichotomous

(00:45):
existence doesn't bring the sense of personal satisfaction or also the sense of feeling
like purpose as much as bringing those together.
And so I'm still working on what that is going to look like, but I think by writing about
science and hopefully finding ways to engage science and storytelling, which is something

(01:10):
I've had the chance to do, you know, to some degree professionally, but figuring out what
that path looks like is part of my journey right now.
That was Caroline Van Heemert.
She's a wildlife biologist, writer, and researcher whose work moves between science, story, and

(01:33):
the lived experience of wild places.
She's based in Alaska, where she spent years studying migratory birds and the shifting
ecosystems they move through, paying close attention to how climate change is reshaping
patterns that have existed for generations.

(01:53):
She's also the author of The Sun is a Compass, a memoir that traces a 4,000-mile journey
she and her husband made from Washington State to Arctic Alaska under their own power by
boat, ski, canoe, and foot.
Across her work, whether in the field or on the page, she's asking a version of the same

(02:20):
question, how do we find our way through a changing world, and what can the natural
world teach us about movement, attention, and belonging?
Caroline's writing merges the personal with the scientific, a perspective shaped by her

(02:40):
early research into beak deformities and black-capped chickadees.
That work led to a broader focus on wildlife health, studying everything from parasites
in polar bears to harmful algal blooms and their effects on seabirds, and how disease,

(03:03):
toxicants, and environmental stress ripple across entire ecosystems.
Because a change to one species is never isolated, it's a community-level shift.
For a long time, that work felt heavy, like serving as a gatekeeper at a morgue, documenting

(03:28):
decline.
But more recently, her focus has begun to shift.
In her new book, tentatively titled Upwellings, she looks for moments of surprise, places
where the natural world resists the expected ending.

(03:48):
Because she believes that by recognizing what's possible in the wild can reshape what feels
possible within us.
It's a shift that also reflects a deeper question about science itself, whether data alone can
still move people, or whether it requires a more engaged, more human voice.

(04:16):
So here she is, Caroline Van Heemert.
Welcome to Chatter Marks, a podcast of the Anchorage Museum, dedicated to exploring Alaska
and the Circumpolar North through the creative and critical thinking of ideas, past, present,

(04:37):
and future.
My name is Cody Liske, and I'll be your host.
You study birds, creatures defined by movement.
What are migratory birds teaching us right now about climate change?

(05:01):
Great question.
I think a lot of things.
They're sort of teaching us both the precariousness of where we sit right now on Earth, but also
some of the possibilities.
And that's actually one of the things I'm most interested in exploring right now as
a writer.
Also, as a scientist, I'm not currently in a research position.
So I've sort of taken this year to focus on a book project.

(05:23):
So I'm having the pleasure and the challenge of trying to make sense of some of these questions
more from sort of a writer philosophical perspective.
But I think one of the examples I'm really looking to, in terms of migration and bird
movements, animal movements more broadly, and climate change is this question of, you
know, what is possible in these really rapidly changing contexts.

(05:46):
And for birds, that can often mean that they're showing up to places and the conditions are
not what they were historically.
And so you can look to some species, Arctic geese are one example, a handful of different
species that seem to be able to really sort of change that timing, pick up on different
cues to adapt and adjust.
Other species are having a much harder time doing that.

(06:07):
So one example that comes to mind are Rufous hummingbirds, which probably most of us in
Alaska have some familiarity with.
Those amazing little travelers that come all the way up from Mexico, and their timing is
so key as they stop along, often on sort of the crest of the Sierra Mountains and other
places where there's these early blooms that these birds are counting on.

(06:30):
And so they have this long story of sort of evolutionary ties to very specific species
of flowers, and they need those stopover fueling points desperately.
And so when the flowers are blooming at a different time and the hummingbirds show up,
they are increasingly challenged to find that proper timing.
So you sort of see the, you know, two extremes, even here in Alaska, where we have so many

(06:53):
different migratory species of some birds being able to sort of adjust accordingly and
others really struggling to make those things match up in the ways that they need.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
What does it mean to alter a migratory pattern of a bird?
Gosh, that's, there's a lot of, a lot of different ways to answer that.

(07:17):
I think it means there's sort of the, you know, the very sort of physical, how a bird
moves across a landscape, what all of their ecological interactions are, even their human
interactions, right?
We have such strong relationships to our wildlife, to our birds.
For a long time, I worked with a lot of participatory science.
So people in the community throughout Alaska and really throughout the country and other

(07:40):
parts of the world, reporting back on what they were seeing in their backyards or, you
know, sort of in their environments.
And so I know how strongly people feel about their sort of local birds.
So I think when you change migratory patterns, you're also asking how do people respond to
that and how does that change how we feel about wildlife?
Yeah.
But I think there's also a sort of a deeper piece of it for the birds themselves.

(08:04):
And so there's these sort of cultural patterns of migration and movement and how birds are
interacting with one another.
So you're changing not only, you know, where they go, but perhaps how they're interacting
with each other.
There's some examples where species have long relied on older individuals to sort of teach
where to go and how to do these things, whether it's, you know, how to forage or where to

(08:27):
fly and when to leave on migrations.
And in some cases, you see a shift toward favoring maybe younger, bolder animals that
can sort of be the leader.
So you see all sorts of different changes, both, you know, at that physical landscape
level and then also, I think, within animal communities themselves.
And of course, when the migratory patterns change, that also means that who they're interacting

(08:50):
with in terms of other species can change really dramatically.
So if they're showing up to places where they weren't previously, they may be encountering
new species that can be important from the standpoint of disease exposure and species-species
interactions.
One example that comes to mind is in the Arctic, where red and Arctic foxes are coming into

(09:11):
contact more and the red foxes are bigger and more aggressive.
And so that can in itself be sort of a threat to Arctic foxes, you know.
So you see all these sort of different species interactions.
And I think the complexity is sometimes underestimated and very difficult to sort of quantify.
But when we think about changes to one species, we really have to think about changes on a

(09:35):
community level.
And of course, there's many parallels to, you know, human movement and the human experience
as well.
But yeah, specifically for animals.
And is there a bird species you feel especially protective of, one whose story mirrors the

(09:56):
larger climate story?
I don't think I have one species.
So as a little bit of background on my work as a biologist with birds and with other cutters,
as I sort of started off very specifically in ornithology, and one of my very first field
sites was in Prince William Sound studying black-legged kittiwakes.

(10:19):
And since that time, I've kind of worked in shorebirds and waterfowl, passerines, just
about everything you can imagine.
But in that process, I started to get more and more involved and interested in wildlife
health and bird health in particular.
And so my graduate work was really centered around black-capped chickadees.

(10:39):
And they develop these very strange beak deformities, these overgrown beaks that limited their ability
to eat, to preen, to sort of do those basic functions of life.
And so in that investigation, I became more and more interested in wildlife health.
So I guess that in turn brought me to studying everything from parasites and polar bears

(11:01):
to harmful algal blooms and seabird species.
So a very sort of broad look at how disease and health and toxins and toxicants in the
environment can sort of overlap to have these different outcomes.
So I think for me to be a specialist on a given species, it's hard to sort of wrap my

(11:22):
brain around.
I would say I think looking across those sort of broader ecological patterns is maybe more
where my brain tends to go.
But I think there are certainly, I mean, looking to our backyard sometimes is a good place
to start when we're thinking about, you know, how are these changes happening on a broad
scale and black-capped chickadees, as you probably know, are not migratory.

(11:44):
So they tend to stick around in a fairly small geographic area.
But we have been seeing pretty profound changes in their population.
And it's not a species that's being actively studied most places, to my knowledge anyway.
So there's a lot of questions remaining.
But the last couple of years of the Christmas bird counts that Audubon organizes have shown

(12:06):
very steep declines in their occurrence.
And so that begs lots of questions of, you know, what's going on right here in our own
sort of backyards.
But I don't have a single species that I would point to, I guess.
Do we have any ideas why those populations are decreasing?

(12:27):
Not really.
I mean, there's there are certainly hypotheses out there as to, you know, if they're cavity
nesting birds, invasive species like European starlings can be one, you know, they can have
impacts on local birds.
But yeah, there's we don't really have the evidence, to my knowledge anyway.

(12:47):
And I'm not actively working in that field right now.
So I can't say what's changing, but just that there are many changes happening both on the
very broad global scale of birds migrating from Latin America up to the Arctic, and also
on that sort of local scale.
I mean, there have been several studies recently that have really emphasized the decline of

(13:10):
common species.
So there was a paper a few years ago that came out that talked about, I don't want to
just talk about declines and losses and sad things, because part of what I'm working on
right now is sort of like, what's an alternative narrative to the doom and gloom that I think
at some point we all begin to shut down a little bit when we hear so much bad news.
But I'll just mention this as sort of the backdrop is that there was a study several

(13:34):
years ago that documented the decline or the loss of three billion birds since the 1970s.
And just sort of the magnitude of that loss is a bit hard to comprehend.
But even more than that, we often look to these rare species or to these examples of
animals that sort of stand out for some reason or another and their declines.

(13:55):
But in this case, what the authors of that study found was that it's really what we consider
the common species that we're losing the most of.
So that whole premise of keeping common birds common, I think, is an important piece of
the conservation story, not just looking to the already endangered or threatened, but

(14:15):
those common birds that we almost take for granted, you know, trying to emphasize the
importance of those as well.
Earlier, you mentioned that you try to focus on alternative narratives, ones that steer
away from the doom and gloom.
Can you talk about that?

(14:37):
Sure.
So that's really what my sort of writing mind is trying to wrap itself around right now.
And it largely comes in response to my work in wildlife health.
And increasingly, I was documenting wildlife mortality events, which is kind of a fancy
way of saying these, like, large scale events where birds or other wildlife are showing

(14:58):
up dead.
And sometimes we know why, often we don't.
And it's, you know, very intellectually engaging and interesting.
But at some point, I felt like I was almost just this gatekeeper at the morgue, checking
in more and more dead bodies and felt increasingly discouraged.
And also, that sort of sense of overwhelm that I think probably a lot of us can relate

(15:21):
to right now.
And then at the same time, I had two young children at home who were sort of coming up
into the world curious and bright eyed and really engaging with their environment and
wildlife and trying to sort of reconcile those two realities.
And also my sense of why I'd gotten into biology in the first place, which really was

(15:43):
that same sense of wonder and curiosity.
And so not to diminish the importance of holding kind of the two truths at once, which
is that we are in a very difficult place from a wildlife and conservation standpoint.
And yet we also need something to hold on to that elevates us beyond just apathy and
overwhelm.

(16:04):
Yeah.
And so as I'm working through some of these questions in this book project that I'm in
the midst of, which is tentatively titled Upwellings, I'm really looking to those examples
where there's some kind of element of surprise or a different ending than what we thought
to be maybe true or possible.

(16:24):
And again, it's not to say, you know, look away from the hard stuff and just focus on
the rosy optimism, but instead that I think by recognizing what's possible in the natural
world, it sometimes helps us recognize what's possible in ourselves.
And to me, that's really important.
And it also kind of hearkens back to that child's perspective to a degree where kids

(16:47):
don't already know what all the bounds are or, you know, sort of what the predetermined
ending is.
But I think they're much more open-minded to what could be possible and how we might
live differently or find different solutions.
And I see that parallel with the natural world as well.
And so, yeah, I don't know if that answers your question, but essentially kind of looking

(17:08):
to these exceptions and extensions, I guess, in the natural world that then give us some
other ideas of how we might be on this planet besides where we are right now.
Do you feel like your children had, you know, any part in you starting to look at, you know,

(17:39):
the brighter side, the positive repercussions rather than the doom and gloom?
Absolutely.
Yeah.
100%.
I think that was a very strong thrust for me to sort of look beyond just my scientific
lens of, you know, I felt like increasingly I was showing up.
We were all showing up to these conferences and sort of predicting the end of the world

(17:59):
as we knew it.
And in some cases, even witnessing it.
And then we'd all walk away with that scientific veneer, but not really having anything more,
any other way to engage with it.
And I think when I would speak with my kids and see their excitement and enthusiasm, it

(18:19):
didn't really work to just say like, oh, well, actually, don't get excited because I've got
some bad news for you.
So it's, you know, this book project and also this like larger, I guess you could call it
sort of an intellectual and personal journey is driven in large part by that conflict is,
you know, how do you kind of go on when you have all of this incredibly discouraging and

(18:44):
depressing news and information?
And you know, how do we talk to our children about it?
Because they're coming up into this world that is, to them, is a brand new experience.
And it doesn't seem, yeah, sort of just holding that doom piece.
Anyone who's been around young kids knows that that doesn't last very long when you're

(19:05):
with a three-year-old or a seven-year-old or whatever.
Yeah.
So, yeah, absolutely.
My kids were integral in making me think differently.
I totally hear you on that.
I have a 22-month-old and I know with the news, with the way the world is right now, it can be

(19:34):
pretty depressing, but when you come home and, you know, you sit in your little person's room and
all they want to do is play with blocks or, you know, you take them to the park or the museum and
they are so happy to just experience things and press a button or, you know, just fill in the

(19:59):
blank, they're wide-eyed, they're happy and it's infectious and it makes you happier for tomorrow.
Absolutely.
And I think, too, they're so curious and they ask the obvious, which you realize as an adult,
you know, you're supposed to have all the answers or you think you'd have at least a few of them,

(20:20):
but they ask these very seemingly obvious questions that, for me, always, you know,
sort of push me to a different place and I'm like, oh, you know, I hadn't really thought about that.
Whether it's the mechanics of something or these larger philosophical questions, I think it just,
yeah, it really opens up the conversation in our own minds in the same way that watching wildlife

(20:41):
or birds often does for me is that, you know, things I hadn't thought about before or
problem-solving in ways that didn't, yeah, hadn't occurred to me. So, yeah, that sense of being
present and being sort of immersed in the wonder of the world, as trite as that sounds,
I think is so central to our connection to it and our motivation to act and maybe to

(21:05):
think of different ways of being. Yeah, yeah.
You know, in Alaska, environmental change isn't abstract. It's present and it's visible.
Have you witnessed anything in the field that fundamentally changed how you see the natural world?

(21:26):
Gosh, everything. I think being a biologist today, especially in Alaska,
it's, you can't not be immersed in that sense of change. You know, and it's not all terrible,
but there's certainly, yeah, just fundamental shifts in ecosystems, in landscapes, in how we

(21:48):
relate to our field. I mean, I started this work much more in that sort of Barry Lopez,
you know, sense of wonder and curiosity and climate change was a thing, but it was really
just kind of one of the many conservation challenges that it seemed that we faced.
And I think at the time, my strong belief and sense was like, okay, well, it's just a matter

(22:13):
of trying to understand the problems and get to the root of them and collect enough information
so that we have those tools to act. And I think increasingly we're moving away from that sense of
just needing more data and to like, okay, what's keeping us from sort of changing our own behavior
so that we, yeah, maybe these changes that are unfolding on the landscape can happen in a way

(22:37):
that is not utterly disruptive and destructive. But I guess to get back to your original question,
I had a pretty compelling experience not too long ago. So this last season, kind of the other role
that I, or other hat that I wear sometimes is as an adventurer. And my family, we've been on, living

(22:57):
on a boat intermittently for the last couple of years. And this last season, we sailed home from
Greenland through the Northwest Passage back to South Central Alaska. And so we were passing many
of the field sites that I had worked previously, in some cases almost two decades ago on the Arctic
coast. And so seeing those changes kind of unfolding in front of me were pretty profound.

(23:22):
One place in particular, I didn't work there originally as a biologist, but I visited there
on a long back country trip that my husband and I took in 2012. And this is Herschel Island. So
kind of just east of the Alaska border on the Canadian side. And seeing the changes in
that landscape unfold, you know, it was already changing quite rapidly when we were there in 2012.

(23:46):
And then 13 years later, to come back through and see much of that island underwater,
you know, really major changes. And when we were there in 2012, we actually saw
a nest of a rough-legged hawk that was, had slid down a mud bluff. And because of the
melting permafrost. And so you see, you know, a very sort of poignant example of these birds trying

(24:11):
to do what they've always done, which is to nest on these mud bluffs or these cliffs. And
as things are melting, these chicks were just sort of like sliding down into the water.
There wasn't much of anything their parents could do. So, you know, there's many examples like that
where you see something that's happening on a broad scale, but sort of brought to that individual
level. And I think those are the ones that tend to stick in our minds. You know, another species

(24:35):
that comes to mind that some people in Alaska might be familiar with are black oyster catchers.
So they're a really charismatic shorebird, these black birds with bright orange beaks and bright
colored feet. And they run up and down the beach and make lots of ruckus. I think Darwin had this,
Charles Darwin had this great quote that the birds are left to their own devices. They're

(24:57):
anything but Quakers. And they have these noisy courtship antics. But you'll see that if you,
you know, see them on the beach. They're always all excited about something.
But they have this unfortunate habit of nesting. It's unfortunate now, I guess, but of nesting a
bit too close to the tide line. And so one of the most common nest failures where they lose their

(25:20):
eggs, or I think typically their eggs are young or mobile, so they can move up above, but is that
when a wave or the rising tide essentially washes out their nests. And so in a lot of parts of the
world, there's Eurasian oyster catchers are sort of their old world equivalent. But these birds are
facing, you know, higher and higher tides and these bigger storm events. And so the washouts are

(25:46):
happening much more frequently. And so that's another example of a species I remember seeing a
pair in the Chilkat Islands, and I could tell that they were nested just a little too close to that
tide line. And when you get these big wind, plus tide events, you know, they'll get these sort of
washouts. And so it's this sort of visual sense of futility that I couldn't help but think mirrored

(26:07):
a bit how our human behavior sometimes seems where you're like, okay, you can see, for lack of a
better term, that writing in the sand. And yet, you know, we keep doing the same thing over and
over. And unfortunately, yeah, we're gonna meet that same end in some form or another. But yeah,

(26:27):
so I think there's lots of examples of these, the change happening. And like you said, in Alaska,
it's not hypothetical at all. It's very much lived. And you know, for many people, you know,
the most recent example in Western Alaska with two communities essentially being
flooded and evacuated, people are living it in very, very real and tangible ways,

(26:53):
with often, you know, quite destructive and disruptive outcomes. But yeah, I think,
you know, both the human component and that sort of wildlife and environmental component,
those changes are happening in parallel and equally profound.
When you witness these things happening to the birds, like them, you know, sliding down because

(27:22):
of the lack of permafrost, do you have any, you know, inclination or drive to help them? Or are
you strictly, you know, you're an observer? Oh, good question. So when I'm in when I'm wearing
my sort of science research hat, I think I've been very well trained to take that objective

(27:44):
stance of like, okay, this is unfolding. I'm here to bear witness, and you know that I'm not going
to intervene. That said, I think that that dichotomy has broken down a little bit in my
head. And so increasingly, when I'd be in these settings, whether it was, you know, witnessing
a particular individual or, you know, group of individuals, or even more so when I was at

(28:08):
conference, scientific conferences, where we were all standing up and presenting our, you know,
end of the world as we know it, papers and presentations. And then there was kind of the
polite applause, and we just go back to our seats and keep drinking our lemonade or whatever.
That's where I really felt like that purely being an observer objective standpoint was not enough.

(28:31):
And I was really having these kind of internal dialogues and conflicts as to like, okay, well,
as a scientist, you know, do I also have an obligation to be I don't want to say like a
straight up activist necessarily, but at least to stand up and say this is, this is not okay. And
what should we collectively do about it? And it's not to say to put it on, you know,

(28:54):
individual biologists to solve the problems, but at least to just articulate, like, hey, we have
a bigger role here than simply collecting data and putting it in the world and hoping that people
will act on it. And there's certainly been a lot of conversations, I would say within the scientific
realm over the past several plus years. But it has it has very much been a tricky, tricky

(29:19):
middle ground where you're, you're really expected to have that professional objective veneer, and
not to bring any emotion or opinion to what you're doing. And there's a reason for that,
you know, we try not to have so much bias when we're conducting studies. But the reality is,
we all bring our own baggage and science has long been a product of society at whatever moment

(29:44):
in time. So I think I'm increasingly interested in those conversations that engage all the different
parts of us and senses. And I think that's also why I'm drawn to storytelling, because I
feel like that's where some of this information can stick for people and for myself,
more so than just being burdened with more and more data and bearing witness that at some point,

(30:07):
we're clearly not acting in response to and in fact, more is sometimes less, I think, from
our capacity to absorb what this means and, and for our futures and for the futures of other people
and other organisms on the planet. I don't know if that makes sense. But it does. Yeah. And I'm
wondering if you think the future of being a scientist, whether it's a wildlife scientist,

(30:38):
or, you know, fill in the blank is getting involved. It's not collecting this data,
putting the data out there and expecting other people to act?
Yeah, I mean, I think there's a role for a lot of different things, you know, some of the work
that's done can seem very esoteric from the outside perspective. And there's a lot of truth

(31:03):
to that. But then also, you know, when you get so deep into whether you're studying virology,
for example, or, you know, a particular aspect of wildlife biology, there's, you know, there's a
there's a necessary sort of going very deep, because the field of knowledge sort of requires

(31:23):
that you have that expertise in this really specialized field. And that is more and more how
science is going. And there's something to be said for that, because we do have people who are
extreme experts in in these very nuanced things that then allows for new discoveries and, you
know, ways to develop vaccines that we otherwise wouldn't be able to things like that. But at the
same time, I think there's the need for that, that broader view, the sort of like big picture

(31:47):
ecological, how does this fit into not only the natural world, in my case, but society at large.
So I think for myself, absolutely, that's, that's my role as a scientist and storyteller. And
even adventure, you know, travelers is like bringing those different pieces together so that
that information means something. So the meaning making is part of my job, not just

(32:12):
the sort of bearing witness and hoping that something maybe will happen in the future.
I can't speak for all scientists, but I certainly would like to see that happen
more and more in sort of a cultural shift. We're in a very difficult time right now where
at least federal scientists, in my experience, have had the opposite experience where there

(32:35):
there's been this silencing of voices and of speaking out and of, you know, you don't want
to be the one who is that voice that others can then target and say, okay, well, you know,
it's very political, I guess, just to say it. And it's become a very charged environment. And it
is increasingly hard for these public scientists to be in a role where they can say the obvious,

(33:03):
because the obvious is being treated as though it's, you know, some sort of heresy. So I think
it's a very, yeah, it's both a sort of catalyzing time, and hopefully a time where we're starting
to see that those that just collecting more information and putting it out there is probably
not going to be what changes minds or helps us find different solutions. But at the same time,

(33:27):
we're stuck in this place where scientists are being villainized, as we've seen, you know,
throughout the country. So I don't know what the immediate future is. But I do think on the sort
of longer term trajectory are moving toward that place where I don't know many scientists,
particularly in the wildlife field who didn't get involved, because they care deeply about the

(33:48):
natural world and, you know, want to make a difference. But then what does that actually
translate into in terms of a job or a career in a field? And I think if we can move away from that
posturing of like, pure objectivity, which is a bit of a false hit to begin with, and into owning,
you know, that that meaning making piece of it, I think we would see a lot more progress for sure.

(34:11):
Yeah, yeah.
You know, after doing these long trips, the one in 2012, from Washington State to Arctic Alaska,
and the most recent one through the Northwest Passage, do you think about distance differently,

(34:32):
either literally or metaphorically?
Yeah, that's a great question. I think the short answer is yes, but not always in the ways that I
would expect, you know, so when you're covering what sort of are these arguably vast distances,
like on the order of 1000s of miles, there's this sense of like, grand scale. So there's this

(34:56):
one moment where this was many years ago, before we did that trip in 2012, where my husband, Pat,
was pinning up maps on the wall, like the paper, topographic maps, and trying to look at this
traverse of the Brooks Range, which was kind of the last part of our longer journey. And I should
just mention this one, we use rowboats and skis and foot and packraft. And so it eventually took

(35:21):
us up to the Arctic coast. And that was how I ended up stopping by Herschel Island at that time
was along that Arctic coastline before we dropped into the Brooks Range. But when Pat was putting
these maps on the wall, you know, I was like, Oh, it looks like you're doing it. You've got
them crooked. And, and then he's like, No, I don't think so. I think it's just at this scale,
it's the curvature of the earth. Okay, so that that sense of like, largeness, just in that sense,

(35:48):
where you have these maps that are, you know, tilting across your, your living room wall,
and it's actually because the earth is that big, and the Brooks Range is that big that it,
you know, you get the curvature of the earth in there. So I think on that sense, it makes me
really appreciate like, the scale of things like how big some of these, for lack of a better word,

(36:08):
like wild areas, or, you know, fairly intact ecosystems are and how, what a powerful sort
of statement that is that we have these places. But at the same time, by traveling through them,
it really makes everything feel so close and so connected. And I really strongly had that sense,
most recently, sailing through the Northwest Passages, I'd traveled quite a bit in different

(36:30):
parts of Alaska, including the Arctic and the Bering Sea and even the Gulf of Alaska.
And I'd spent time in Greenland, and we spent some time in other parts of the Atlantic Arctic.
But then to put that together, and you know, I am familiar with a lot of the history up there and

(36:50):
the sort of ecological connections, but to see it in person really does change my sense of
how connected we all are, and how connected, you know, these, these places are both, you know,
ecologically and culturally and from the standpoint of oceans and ice and movement and
weather. So I think that was really powerful for me to see how, how it all, how all those dots

(37:12):
ultimately connected.

(38:12):
So
was there a, a moment when all of that hit you, and all of those dots were connecting, and you

(38:47):
saw how, you know, all the way up there, away from the masses, you know, where, where most
people live, that what was happening up there could affect where everyone is and vice versa?

(39:08):
Yeah. So I think that, that sense of connectivity
from, maybe from a personal and ecological standpoint, really hit me when I got back into
sort of semi-familiar waters, and it was that Western Canadian and Eastern Alaskan Arctic that
it really stood out for me. It also helped that we were essentially following bowhead whales. So

(39:36):
bowhead whales, so there's the Bering Chukchi Beaufort population there that migrates from the
Bering Sea, you know, up and around and to the Amundsen Gulf and parts of kind of like around
Herschel Island and further east. And they were on their return migration, so heading west and then

(39:56):
south again. And so we were kind of paralleling these whales and, you know, bowheads, of course,
there's so many things that are amazing about these, these whales, and I've never studied them
personally, but I had the pleasure of kind of dipping in a little bit because I worked on an
article and got to meet some of the researchers who've, who've spent a lot of their lives studying
them. And I guess to get back to the point of why this felt like connectivity is that, you know,

(40:19):
some of these animals can live a very, very long time in, you know, some of them up to 200 years
or even more. And so the idea that a single animal could witness both such a vast distance,
but also this long arc of time and of change. And so Herschel Island was also a really important
site for, for whaling. I mean, it was a very important cultural site long before,

(40:43):
but in the late 1800s, I think there was a period of maybe five or 10 years where there were
a lot of European and American whalers based at this Herschel Island site. And it totally
changed the trajectory of that whole region. And obviously had huge impacts on the wildlife
populations, the human population, people who'd lived there for thousands of years before.

(41:07):
And so sort of like imagine this one animal bearing witness to this, you know, vast change
over time, and now kind of going through this, this really big change in terms of, you know,
climate and changes in sea ice and all of these different things. And so I think that that sense
of connectivity, not only across space, but also across time really stood out to me when I was

(41:29):
starting to see these, these whales and especially the moms and their calves, which I believe,
if I have this correct, I think they sort of are the first ones to start moving west again,
but those were, it was mostly mom, mother and calf pairs that we were seeing.
So anyway, just that, that sense of, you know, that the way back in the now, and of course,

(41:51):
we don't know exactly how old any of these individual animals were, but you can sort of
go down that imaginary journey anyway, of what one whale possibly has seen in her lifetime.
That was pretty, pretty powerful to me, I think. In terms of the changes happening and how those
reverberate across both the Arctic and, you know, much far beyond that, you know, you don't have to

(42:16):
do more than look at the changes in the sea ice patterns. We had one really, really intense storm
that happened when we were kind of in the Abencing Gulf or just beyond it near a place called Cape
Perry and well over 70 mile an hour winds. And I think at Tuktoyutuk, if I'm pronouncing that

(42:37):
correctly, they had some pretty severe coastal flooding. And so you're seeing these, these storm
systems that are happening. And, you know, the Arctic is, as many people will say, it's kind of
like ground zero for these, these changes, but they're happening, you know, same sorts of events
happening across the world. And so I guess, living through a moment like that, a pretty scary,

(42:58):
intense storm. And then also, you know, looking really carefully at all the ice charts, knowing
well how much these ice margins have changed over the years. And also that things just aren't so
predictable. We have this sense of, of climate change as being this, you know, steady upward
trend in, in temperature. But of course, it's really that, that variability or the volatility that

(43:21):
is a big part of, of a changing climate, just because one place has more snow in a given year
doesn't mean that it's not related to larger changes, you know, atmospheric changes in climate.
But I think we, our brains tend to think about things in that more linear fashion, but those
sort of extreme events are becoming much more common worldwide. And so having that happen in

(43:42):
the Arctic was just kind of one example of how, you know, these, these large events are
unfolding, and they're not necessarily in that really predictable manner, which is part of what
makes them challenging, I think, for people to plan for or to even wrap their brains around.
I think that sort of human psychology of how we respond to change or don't is, is really

(44:04):
fascinating. That's something I've been thinking about and reading about too, is like, okay, how do
other people, you know, social psychologists or computational biologists or all these, you know,
fields that are really interested in the specific question of like, we have all the information,
why don't we act? I think it's worth, for me anyway, to like understand some of the roots of

(44:24):
that or try to inquire about it, because it helps us maybe think about why we make the decisions we
do or don't. Have you found any answers? And I understand that there's so many variables,
so many moving parts. But have you, in your research, and your practical experience,

(44:49):
formed any of your own theories?
Gosh, I probably wouldn't claim to have them be, you know, my original theories. I feel like
they're all just different iterations of what other people have probably, you know, thought
about over the years or come to. But I've, there have been a few that have really stuck out into
in my mind. You know, one of them is, is this question of like, are we too good at adapting

(45:14):
or too good at normalizing? And I've definitely seen that within the sort of scientific field,
too, where there's this like mass normalization of what arguably really isn't okay. But because
there's, you know, this, the sense that so called gradual change, we can adjust to almost too well
that we don't, we don't sort of see those, you know, broader patterns unfolding. And we're like,

(45:37):
oh, it's okay, we just have to plant our tulips a little bit earlier this year, or, you know,
whatever silly examples you can, you fill in the blank. But that, you know, our brains don't do so
well with that really gradual change in the sense that we're just too willing to kind of accept
getting pushed a little bit further and a little bit further. So I think there's that argument,

(45:57):
that sort of like normalization of too much almost. So it kind of turns that idea of like
adaptation on its head, and that like, we're, we're too willing to adapt or too good at adapting.
So that was one interesting one, I hadn't quite thought about. And I think I might be mispronouncing
anything. Rashid Dubey was one of the authors of the study that I read that I thought was quite

(46:20):
interesting. And it was kind of a computational biology starting place. But it, it brought up
these questions of like, you know, when do our minds sort of wrap around this idea of change
being something that's too much or pushing us too far? And I think that idea of the, yeah,
that sort of gradual versus something happening on a larger scale that we can see, like something

(46:44):
that's more extreme, that tends to encourage us to, to respond or to react in some way.
I mean, I think another another piece of it, as I mentioned earlier, is these extreme,
what we call extreme climate events, or these almost like surprises, even though, arguably,
they're not that surprising, because we sort of know that range of variability is increasing so

(47:05):
much, but that there's this, you know, school of thought that we've looked back at history,
to predict the future for so long, that's kind of, you know, been a pretty good strategy for
a lot of human history, to some degree, anyway, that, you know, we're looking, okay,
this is what happened before. So we should plan for x, y, or z. But that increasingly, it's not,

(47:28):
it's not our past that's going to tell us how the future is going to unfold, because we are at this
sort of different place in terms of these extreme events, or these so called surprises. And so
needing to sort of shift that framework, but that we're very conservative by nature, in terms of
thinking about change and thinking about what's going to happen, we base that on our own lived

(47:48):
experience to some degree. And, you know, if we look back over time, well, maybe we're not going
to see these, you know, supposed 500 year storms. But now we're seeing them on a much more frequent
scale than 500 years. But we, you know, it's what our baseline is, and how that's shifting. So
that's all kind of philosophical. But those are some of the things that I've been, I've been
thinking about a little bit is like, what, what is, you know, how do we get out of that stuck

(48:12):
place, like the oyster catchers of just, we just keep go build it, you keep building our nests
too close to the tideline. And oh, shoot, there was another storm, and it washed out our nests.
Like, how do we get out of that? How can we sort of see ourselves in that allegory a little bit,
and hopefully, make different choices? But, yeah.
You know, I'm thinking about your writing now. And I'm wondering, what was more difficult?

(48:42):
You know, a blizzard in the Brooks Range, or sailing through the Northwest Passage, or,
you know, editing your own vulnerability and experiences on the page?
Oh, my gosh, the writing, hands down.
I had a feeling.

(49:03):
Zero question. I am in the throes of that right now. And if I could just go,
stay up all night and deal with storms, and whatever, push my physical limits, I would
do that in a heartbeat, because the writing is very, very hard. And you think that just because
you've done it before, that it should be easier, get easier. And maybe there's some truth to that

(49:28):
on a sentence level. But I think, conceptually, it's as hard as it has ever been for me. And
I don't know if that's a sign that I'm failing at my job, or that I'm doing everything right,
you know, depending on who you talk to. It's one or the other. But yeah, absolutely, the writing,
I think is, you know, that's the meaning making part of it, is that we can go and have these

(49:48):
experiences, and as profound as they might feel, if you want to share that in some way,
you know, it's your job as a writer to make that experience much more universal than just the
uber personal and, you know, oh, I felt this way. So therefore, I just have to write about it,
and somebody will get the same thing. So I think, particularly the project I'm working on right now,

(50:11):
it's not a linear sort of journey narrative. So there's the chronology isn't what's driving it,
and the structure is a little bit more nebulous. I'm kind of grappling with some of these larger
things that we've been talking about, thematically, and in some ways, you know, grappling
with my own sense of what does it mean to be a biologist and a scientist in this time and place,

(50:33):
and going from that, you know, counting bodies to something that hopefully is more than just
bearing witness. I think it's hard in part because it's, I don't have the answers, and it is my own.
Yeah, it's sort of my own challenge to make sense of this, and I don't have like a single theory to

(50:54):
just get behind and, you know, build a thesis from. It's much more of an exploratory journey
that I'm on, but letting the natural world and letting these encounters with birds and other
animals kind of guide me as ways to think differently. But, and I should mention, too,
and I should mention, too, that the title Upwellings is, it's sort of based on this

(51:19):
particular experience encounter I had on Lynn Canal in northern southeast Alaska outside of
Haines, where we spend a lot of our time with these gulls that were beating into a headwind, and
I don't have to get into the all the details of it, but suffice to say that these birds are flying
from, in some cases, hundreds of miles away into 70 mile an hour headwind, all, you know, seemingly

(51:40):
for this crazy, almost like suicide mission, but instead they're all coming to converge on these
upwelling events that happen when you get these strong downslope winds that sort of push the
surface water away. And so I was watching these birds trying to understand what the heck they
were doing and if they were, you know, totally nuts, but it turned out in the middle of the
winter they had a plan, and it was all about deferred rewards and made me start to question,

(52:06):
like, well, why do we not make decisions based, you know, why do we have such a hard time making
decisions based on these longer-term rewards and we're so driven by the immediate? And so
that's one of the chapters, but each of these, each of the chapters in the book is centered
around some kind of moment or encounter, which are upwelling, as you could think about it, of

(52:27):
seeing something in the natural world, seeing a particular species, and then trying to
make sense of it in a larger context. So as you can imagine, it's, you know, thematically,
there's lots of ways you could tell a story like that, and there isn't a single chronology,
but it's been challenging for me. Yeah, yeah, you said that this writing part is about meaning

(52:51):
making, and I'm wondering, are you making any new discoveries about your trip while you're writing?
Yes, so many. I think writing about something ultimately changes the way that I relate to it,
and that meaning that comes from it. So, you know, you might have a sort of a spark of something,

(53:16):
like, okay, this, watching this whale swim next to me and seeing it roll over, and I see its eye
from a distance, and then I start thinking about time and space and connectivity, but only by
really understanding more about that animal's life, which involves reading about it and
researching it and speaking to other people and kind of being in community, I guess, with scientists

(53:39):
and even other writers or people who are interested in some of these same topics. Does that meaning
start to, like, bubble up? So I almost think of, you know, this project as, like, having all these
little sparks out there, and I'm trying to hold on to them as they go past and then bring them
together into, like, embers so that you can build a fire, but, you know, you wouldn't just see this,

(54:00):
like, little passing firefly necessarily know that that is part of that, like, larger fire
until you figure out where it fits into the context of an idea or even a setting. So I find
it really easy to write scene, and I could do that all day. Like, I have so many incredible moments

(54:21):
that I, you know, I've captured or I want to capture, and I can think about those, but, you know, just
scene after scene after scene isn't, that doesn't make a book or even a story that means anything
to people. So I guess, yeah, that learning process, hopefully, you know, as a writer, I have the
pleasure of, like, inviting people to join me on that journey of figuring out what it all means, but also

(54:46):
I think as a writer, your job is to make it look like you already knew that all from the beginning.
You know, it's, like, supposed to look easy from the outside. Exactly. Yeah. You don't want to see
that, like, draft number, you know, 5006 that still isn't quite working. But yeah.
And how do you decide what belongs on the page versus what stays private?

(55:10):
Yeah. I mean, I will say that when I was working on my first book project,
I struggled with that, and I had a tendency to really lean on the science. I think my sort of,
you know, I have a background in creative writing, but it was quite a few years ago, and I
then sort of transitioned more full-time to science and did my PhD and was mostly writing

(55:32):
for scientific audiences. And so the easy thing is for me to write like a scientist, but
those are not the books that I necessarily want to read, nor is it true to, you know, whatever
experience that I'm having. It isn't just a, you know, objective, like, looking from the outside.
So I definitely had to be pushed a little bit to, like, bring my own voice into it. And

(55:55):
interestingly, in that book project, it wasn't until birds became a really central component
of it. So this is a book I'm referring to as The Sun as a Compass, and it's, you know,
kind of follows that physical journey that we took in 2012, but it also is about my relationship to
the natural world as a biologist and sort of a coming-of-age story, I guess, as a biologist a bit.

(56:18):
But birds are like a really central piece, and they were always there, but not in the way,
like, not as prominent as they ultimately became. And I found that when I kind of discovered the
bird element, it opened up my own voice. And so I think it's sometimes those surprising

(56:38):
questions that allow you to figure out, like, okay, what part of you goes on the page and what
part is more of that sort of... No, it's not so much of this objective, but, you know, more of the
science writing or the informational pieces that I think are really a big part of the book
project I'm working on as well. It isn't just about me, hopefully, or it shouldn't be, but

(57:00):
that as a narrator, you're kind of the guide to that. And I'm really drawn to the writing that
merges the personal and the scientific. So I think that's what I'm aspiring to.
But yeah, I think that the bigger challenge is that not so much how much of me goes on the page,

(57:20):
but how many sort of tangents can you ask readers to follow you on without coming back to what the
core of that chapter or the larger narrative is. You have to kill a lot of your darlings along the
way, as editors know. But I also say that having other readers and having an editor is absolutely

(57:45):
critical because you can't always see it for yourself. Like, does this belong or is this just
some intriguing tangent that you went on, but doesn't have anything to do with the chapter at
hand. You were just talking about your relationship to nature on that 2012 trip and

(58:11):
you and your husband went on that trip and you were alone for months. Do you think that that
isolation clarified anything about both of those relationships between you and your husband,
as well as you and nature? Yeah, I would say both. And as an aside, this wasn't really

(58:32):
intentional, but I've heard a number of people tell me that this is kind of a love story too.
It's like a love story between a couple, but also a love story with the natural world and
my engagement with it. So I think it's very much about both of those relationships. And I think
being alone or isolated, that definitely wasn't a new experience for my husband and I. And in fact,

(58:59):
I would say we are probably our best selves when we're in those settings. And now we have children,
so it's a different dynamic. It's not just Pat and I, it's we're together, the four of us, and
sometimes others as well. But that sense of partnership and shared purpose, I think that

(59:19):
was really what sort of drove our time together. And we fought very, very rarely. And it's not
because we have a perfect relationship or we never fight. But in that context, it's
yeah, that sense of partnership and of really being there for each other. And also that
combined with being really immersed in the natural world as you're seeing things and you have,

(59:44):
you know, there's something really special and amazing about just being the only,
you know, alone, I guess, in having these experiences. But I think for us having that
shared experience, it's like there's somebody always knew what it was like to be there in that
place in that moment. And that's like this really strong sense of connection that, yeah,

(01:00:07):
did sort of change, I think, our relationship together, but also, you know, experience in the
natural world. Through two sets of eyes, you see more, you see things differently. And, you know,
Pat and I come to think about things from totally different perspectives, like our brains work
really differently, our backgrounds are very different, our interests are quite different. So
I really appreciated having that other perspective to experience the world as we went through it.

(01:00:34):
Mm hmm. Yeah.
You know, I think there's a romantic idea of traveling or living off the grid,
but there's also the reality of labor and isolation. What parts of the romantic version

(01:00:57):
still hold true for you? And which ones fall away?
Yeah, I would say, you know, the romantic sense for me, I think, is less of, like being alone in
the world or, you know, being so isolated from everything else. It's more of that,
the senses that we were talking about earlier, like immersion and feeling connected and having

(01:01:21):
that space to kind of think beyond the really scripted day to day life. I think that part,
absolutely, there's still a romantic appeal to it or just a pure appeal. Like, I'm very drawn to
that experience. And I would say that Pat, absolutely, you know, same thing. And so
we share that very much today. And our kids, for the most part, I mean, you know, they're

(01:01:44):
right now they're nine and 11, and they have all sorts of ideas and interests of their own.
But so far, they seem to be pretty much game for those experiences as well. And so I think when
we're there as a family, yeah, you just you see things differently, you have time and space
to hold things that you don't maybe in your more traditional lifestyle. I think part of what can

(01:02:11):
be hard, though, as a family and what we've experienced, so we've lived, you know, on a boat
for multiple years and seasons. And we've, we spend a lot of time off grid, on Northernland
Canal, in a place that Pat and I built quite a few years ago, a log cabin that we built from
trees on the property. And more than anything, my boys want to go back there right now, that's

(01:02:32):
where they want to be if they had to pick one place in the world. Okay, one thing that like,
compels them more than any other, it would be to transport them to that place right now,
wherever they are, that is that that seems to be the truth. Yeah, at least at this moment in
their lives. But then there's just the reality to have, like having two little kids, we were there
all through COVID and beyond. And, you know, it's pouring rain and Lynn Canal is an incredibly windy

(01:02:58):
fjord. So commuting back and forth by boat, I should mention it's boat access. You know, there's
maybe you get one or two days out of two weeks that are commutable. So you're pretty stuck, you
know, you're pretty isolated. And yeah, that sense of being cooped up, it doesn't matter if you're in
your living room, or you're, you know, in a beautiful cabin in the woods, like, you're still

(01:03:18):
cooped up and trying to keep everybody you know, but that's, that's the sort of like, not so
romantic part of it. But some days you feel like you didn't do anything except clean up messes. And
yeah, try to keep people, you know, from driving each other nuts. And so yeah, there's, there's all
that, of course, you know, and then we're past the phase of diapers and those kinds of things. But

(01:03:39):
you know, you're probably still in the thick of some of that. There's just, yeah, kids have a lot
of needs, like, all the time that you know, and they demand that you stop whatever you're doing
and jump into that reality. And there's something really wonderful about that. And there's also
something very challenging. So I think, yeah, you take that with you, wherever you go, and
the labor and the other jobs that come with with living off grid or being remote,

(01:04:04):
just kind of compound, you know, you don't have a washing machine. And that means that
the laundry you do is requires three times as much, you know, effort and time and hauling
water and all those things, but
because of climate change, there are waterways that are now more accessible.

(01:04:27):
Does that accessibility feel like opportunity loss or both?
Well, the two that come immediately to mind that I've, you know, I mean, there's lots of waterways,
you could interpret that way. But certainly, the cruise ship traffic in southeast Alaska is,
you know, has a big outsized influence, I would say, on some communities there.

(01:04:51):
Haines doesn't get nearly as much cruise ship traffic as some communities, but it's very much
a presence. And it, you know, it's changed a lot since I was, you know, we first built our
place there in 2006. But I think more profound in terms of the scale and rate of change is up in
the Northwest Passage, seeing cruise ships up there. You know, there, that is a really, really

(01:05:19):
rapidly shifting reality for a lot of communities, and the places and you know, the resources
required to do that. But, you know, it's something that I don't have a single answer for. But it does
make you think a lot about, you know, Herschel Island, I keep coming back to this, because it
does seem to be the site of so many different changes unfolding, but they are receiving

(01:05:42):
cruise ships, and they don't really have the capacity for that. And it's not clear, you know,
how that's going to unfold. But, you know, one of the lead rangers there was explaining how they had
to build boardwalks, because just by having, you know, whether it's a half a dozen ships, or
whatever, that many people sort of trampling the tundra, it totally changes the nature of it. So
that, you know, was one very specific example of like, okay, you have all these people show up,

(01:06:06):
it has an impact in like, what are they going to do about it? How does that, you know, help the
communities or hurt the communities and the environment? So yeah, you're seeing these sort of
shifts. And I think, you know, the good thing about it is that people are, you know, they have
that opportunity, maybe to see some of these places and changes unfolding through their own eyes,

(01:06:28):
which I think you can't diminish the value of that. And yet, there are these really big impacts on
the places that were arguably like loving to death. And I'm not exempt from that, you know, I
also enjoy going to new places and traveling through and we try to have, you know, relatively
light footprint. But nonetheless, you know, we have an engine on our sailboat, and you know,

(01:06:52):
all those things are, are real. And I'm no more of a martyr with any of it than anybody else. So
I don't want to create that dichotomy either that I don't, I don't have immediate judgment,
because other people want to go to see these places, because there's a good reason for it.
They're incredible. But yeah, it does present a lot of questions about how we want to use

(01:07:17):
places on, you know, how communities want if they're inviting people in or not what that means
for their future. So that that sort of self determination piece is also, I think, a very
important part of the community for the conversation that sometimes emerges far too
late, you know, when it's already become commercialized, or there's already such an

(01:07:38):
influx of visitors that something has to give and it's not clear what
How has studying migration changed the way you think about your own movement,
the way you move through the world?
And well, it makes me feel quite pathetic, really. Because, yeah, our, our like, supposed

(01:08:06):
feats of endurance are like nothing compared to birds and other migrants that are covering these
incredible distances and, you know, have so many impressive adaptations, you know,
physiologically and otherwise to be able to do this. So I would say it just like much of
my experience, the natural world, it's very humbling, you appreciate just, you know,

(01:08:27):
how unimportant you really are. So I think that's a good thing. But it also, yeah, I think it sort
of harkens back to our conversation earlier about connectivity, and how landscapes are so important,
you know, we have a tendency to just see a species, like, on one end of the migratory path,
or the other, you know, we may be no sandhill cranes when they show up here, but we don't

(01:08:51):
think about what life looks like when they're in Nebraska, or, you know, other, other places
that they live. And the same is true on a much larger scale for many of these migrants that
travel quite literally across the globe. And so I think it's very important to always keep in mind
that this is just, you know, residents are a different story, but the migratory species,

(01:09:12):
this is just like one stop in their grand annual journeys. And so that's very, it's very important
that we do what we can to make sure that they have the habitats they need. But also, that we
have to think more broadly and more globally, if we if we do care about conservation, this is, you
know, taking it more in that realm. But I think, yeah, from my own perspective, it really just

(01:09:35):
brings up those questions of how connected we are across the globe, or even, you know,
on a much smaller scale, like how does a species move?
If migration is about instinct, moving towards something unseen, what are you moving toward?

(01:09:59):
Oh, that's a big question. I don't know.
I wish I did. Maybe my book would be easier to write. And I think I'm moving toward a point of
trying to hold both the very dark realities and also that that sense of possibility and
hopefulness together in a more cohesive fashion. So I'm not just vacillating between being this

(01:10:24):
sort of, you know, stony eyed scientist and, you know, a mom to my kids being out in the world
seeing wondrous things, but something that that merges those and I think that's true for me
professionally as well, that having that really dichotomous existence, it doesn't bring kind of
the sense of personal satisfaction, or also the sense of feeling like purpose, as much as bringing

(01:10:53):
those together. And so I'm still working on what that is going to look like. But I think by writing
about science, and hopefully finding ways to engage science and storytelling, which is something
I've had the chance to do, you know, some to some degree professionally, but
figuring out what that path looks like is part of my journey right now.

(01:11:19):
Well, Caroline, those are all the questions I have for you. I want to thank you for your time,
and for the way your work bridges the space between science, storytelling, and nature.
Well, it's been such a pleasure. Thank you. Yeah, I love to talk about and think about these ideas.

(01:11:39):
And it's always really wonderful to have such good questions to prompt that discussion. So
thank you. And thanks for being interested. And thanks so much for your time.
For more information about the Anchorage Museum, visit anchoragemuseum.org.
This podcast was produced by me, Cody Liska, for the Anchorage Museum,

(01:12:01):
with additional help from Julie Decker.
Chatter Mark's music is produced by Keys Open Source.
This podcast was produced by me, Cody Liska, for the Anchorage Museum,
with additional help from Julie Decker.
Chatter Mark's music is produced by Keys Open Doors.

(01:12:39):
Chatter Mark's music is produced by Keys Open Doors.