This is Our Time

When we leave our comfort zones, something happens. If we agree to take on something impossible, we are changed by it. Meet Dyan deNapoli, otherwise known as “The Penguin Lady,” and hear her story about the Treasure oil spill, the biggest challenge she's ever faced, and how it changed her life. Dyan takes us back to the icy shelf of Antarctica to a field of penguins. How does your life connect to Antarctica and penguins?

Samantha relates her reading of Brené Brown's Braving the Wilderness to this experience. Original theme music by Gabriel Corindia. Field recordings: Carol Devine. Follow us on Twitter @ThisIsOurPod and buy our Podcast Listening Guide

How can women be mothers, and leaders, and scientists all at the same time? What if those categories don't apply? Does the concept of motherhood need to adapt to our changing world? Go back to that feeling, walking together at the Women's March. Take that with you as you go off into the world.
MiLCK’s song “Quiet” narrates this episode, recorded live in February 2017 in Toronto with Choir!Choir!Choir!, C!C!C! Original theme music by Gabriel Corindia. Quiet by MiLCK with Choir!Choir!Choir! Follow us on Twitter @ThisIsOurPod and buy our Podcast Listening Guide

Do we need doubt to make us better, stronger leaders? But what is the path that can take us through this doubt? Maybe girls are taught to think that leadership is a dirty word? Co-founder Fabian Dattner reflects on her dream of making the expedition a reality. She believed in her dream and she built it, one step at a time. How are you going to build your dreams? We walk in a dreamer, we walk out a dreamer. Even if that is incredibly difficult.

Original theme music by Gabriel Corindia. Piano Music by Sentuniman Field recordings: Carol Devine. Follow us on Twitter @ThisIsOurPod and buy our Podcast Listening Guideat ThisIsOurTimePodcast.com

In 2018, Samantha Hodder joined an all-women’s leadership expedition to Antarctica, as Podcaster-in-Residence.

The trip plan was to get all the way to the Rothera Research Station, part of the British Antarctic Survey...a place that’s so remote, it’s almost an illusion.

But they had a problem. Before they could reach the destination, they almost got stuck in the ice.

What now?

Do they risk going out into the dangerous open waters of the Southern Ocean with weather coming in?

Or, do they give up on our plans, their hopes and dreams, and head for home?

But maybe the strangest thing is this was actually a question, on a ship, in the middle of Antarctica.

Because, this question became a vote....a blind vote...with the passengers.

What happens next, when 80 women take charge of this dangerous decision, aboard a ship in frozen waters, in the most remote place on this planet?

Subscribe to this 5-part series.

It’s an emotional odyssey to the end of the world.

Images by Oli Sansom

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Find the Insta Reel HERE to see amazing footage of Half Moon Island

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The year I went to Antarctica, I was one of 42,711 people who walked on the frozen continent. That was in 2018.

This season, there will likely be none. With the global pandemic ranging, it’s hard to imagine flying to another country, boarding a ship, and then disembarking on a continent which is the only one on the planet that remains Covid-free.

IAATO, or the The International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators, is a non-profit alliance of tourism operators that monitors and keeps track of all the tourist activity for the entire Antarctic region. If you go to their website, IAATO.Org, you can see in stunning detail each and every footstep on the continent, because it is all tracked: By nationality, by location and duration and, in some cases, by precise activity. While they don’t govern any tourism, they do keep track of it. And they have been making COVID statements regularly.

Going to Antarctica this year seems like an impossible task....and potentially also very irresponsible.

Antarctica is much bigger than tourism, even though that’s what most people think about, after penguins that is. You see, December 1st marks the anniversary of the signing of the Antarctic Treaty, which was first signed in 1959, by 48 different countries. Notably, Russia and the US signed this Treaty together, despite the Cold War otherwise raging between these two nations.

It’s the only continent entirely dedicated to peace and science.

Since we’re doing everything virtually this year, from birthdays, to funerals, to graduations, let’s then also celebrate Antarctica virtually.

This episode brings you along for the ultimate social distancing walk, on Half Moon Island, part of the South Shetland Islands, part of an archipelago of islands off the Antarctic Peninsula, just about arms distance from the continent of Antarctica.

It’s also where the group that I was with, as podcaster-in-residence, on the second journey of Homeward Bound, took our first steps on the frozen continent.

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Thank you to the following:

Dr Helen Corney, Dr Marie Clarke, Mel White, Dr Rececca Doyle, Alice Ruhweza, Purvi Gupta, Xuehua Zhang, Nina Earl, Dr Justine Shaw, Sarah Anderson, and Dr Julieta Pedrana.

Also a shoutout to Fabian Dattner and the whole Homeward Bound team, who made this journey possible.

And to Kolya Salter for his help in mixing and mastering this episode.

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