Sunniva Sorby’s Arctic isolation

Explore: A Canadian Geographic podcast

During the pandemic, it’s safe to say most of us spent some time self-isolating, but not quite in the way our guest today did.

Polar explorer and RCGS Fellow Sunniva Sorby spent over a year and a half, including two long winters, in an uninsulated 1930 trapper’s hut on the Arctic island of Svalbard, which is halfway to the North Pole from northern Norway.

Along with her Norwegian colleague, Hilde Falun Strom, they set a record with their all-women project, called Hearts in the Ice, for their time spent in their isolated outpost while doing scientific research for NASA, the Norwegian Polar Institute and the British Columbia Technical Institute, among others. Their work focused on bringing attention to the massive impact climate change is having on our polar regions.

And now they are about to do another Hearts in the Ice project, this time at Cambridge Bay in Canada’s High Arctic.

Born in Norway and raised in Canada, Sunniva Sorby has spent decades carrying out expeditions in the Arctic and especially the Antarctic. She was part of the first ever all-woman team to reach the South Pole.

You can learn more about the Hearts in the Ice project at www.heartsintheice.com/