Students on Ice: Meet the Students

Written By: Sue Novotny, Communications Officer, Global Arctic Program, WWF
WWF is part of a “Students on Ice” expedition from Arctic Canada to Greenland, both sponsoring students, and helping give the students useful skills. WWF staff member Sue Novotny is on board, and is sharing her experiences from the expedition in a special five-part blog series. 

Meet Panninguaq
Panninguaq is one of two WWF scholarship winners on the 2014 Students on Ice Arctic expedition. She is a high school student in Sisimiut, Greenland, just above the Arctic Circle. I spoke with her about visiting Canada, north and south, for the first time.
Tell me a little about visiting Canada for the first time.
It was pretty surprising at first because there are trees, a lot of them, and they’re really tall. In Greenland we have no trees. It was weird because it seemed like America at first, but you see [signs in] French and [Canadian] flags, and people are really kind. I had a really good experience.
Today you visited the Canadian Arctic for the first time, Kuujjuaq, Quebec. What similarities and differences do you notice between here and home?
Maybe the first thing is the trees again! And it was not as cold as I expected. There was a big difference in the tide. It’s bigger than back home.
What’s it been like for you to meet students from all over Canada and the world?
Very exciting. I’ve been talking to people from Nunavut and the rest of northern Canada, and it’s really exciting to me to see the similarities and differences too. And I really love that I can understand most of what they’re saying [in Inuktitut].
Tell me a little about your home, Sisimiut Greenland.
I love my city. There are 5,000 people living there. I love my school – we’re not sitting all day.  We have laboratory and we get outside. Even though some may say it’s depressing in the winter, with dark almost all day for almost half the year, I like it. I love that when the sun comes, you soak it all in and get positive. You can feel it at the school. When the sun comes there’s more laughter.

Meet Tatega
Tatega, or Tat, is one of two WWF scholarship winners on the 2014 Students on Ice Arctic expedition. He is a high school student in Pond Inlet, Nunavut, at the north end of Baffin Island – deep in the Arctic, in the Last Ice Area.
Far to the south in Torngat Mountains National Park, Labrador, signs of polar bears are everywhere. We’ve found countless piles of scat, a lemming warren torn apart by a hungry bear, and the skeletons of seals dragged onto the beach. Today, we encountered two polar bears in the fuzzy flesh – luckily, from the safe distance of our ship. It was the first bear viewing for most students, but Tat is no stranger to these Arctic icons.
Home for you is also home for polar bears.
[We see them] really often [in Pond Inlet]. When we go on the ice, we often see one at the floe edge. They’re pretty much there all the time, but you see them anywhere, any time.
Do they ever come into town?
Yeah, in summertime, but not very often.
What happens?
When polar bears try to come into town, the town[speople] make it run away. The town talks about it on the radio and someone scares it away. It happens once in a while.