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Woman's Hour: Women of Snow and Ice; Sheila Watt-Cloutier; Antarctic Women; Nancy Campbell and Cold Water Swimming

Women of Snow and Ice; Sheila Watt-Cloutier; Antarctic Women; Nancy Campbell and Cold Water Swimming

BBC Radio 4 - Woman's Hour, Women of Snow and Ice; Sheila Watt-Cloutier; Antarctic Women; Nancy Campbell and Cold Water Swimming

Women inspired to protect, write about, scientifically study and experience the cold.

Emma speaks to environmental campaigner Sheila Watt-Cloutier about her life protecting Inuit culture and the Arctic and we hear from the inspirational women studying Antarctica.

Sheila Watt-Cloutier, is a world renowned human rights and climate change activist, who has made it her life's work to protect her Inuit culture and the Arctic regions where Inuit live, in Greenland, Canada and Alaska. Sheila was born in Kuujjuaq in Arctic Canada where she lived traditionally, travelling only by dog team for the first ten years of her life. She was elected as President of the Inuit Circumpolar Council in 1995 and launched the first legal petition linking climate change to human rights - work that led to her being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Nancy Campbell is captivated by the stark, rugged beauty of ice and its solid but impermanent nature.  Her book The Library of Snow and Ice is about her time spent living in Upernavik, a small town in north-western Greenland and the traces left by explorers of the Arctic and Antarctic. Her recent book Fifty Words for Snow looks at the origins and mythologies of snow around the globe. She shares with Emma her fascination for snow, ice and its place in our world. 

British women were banned from visiting Antarctica until 1983 when Janet Thomson was finally granted passage by the British Antarctic Survey. But now scores of women are making major contributions to polar science, especially those working on the stability of ice shelves and sheets. So how did women break through the ice ceiling to create opportunities and become leaders in their fields? Emma speaks to Morgan Seag who has just submitted her PhD in gendered institutional change in 20th century Antarctic science to the University of Cambridge and Jo Johnson who has visited Antarctica seven times with the British Antarctic Survey. We also hear from Dr Alison Banwell, a British glaciologist  and research scientist who is currently based at the University of Colorado Boulder and her team conducting research on the ice right now; Rebecca Dell and Laura Stevens. 

Heading to the cold of the Arctic and the Antarctic wrapped up in the right gear is one thing but there are some women that actually choose to immerse themselves in freezing water, even in winter here in the UK. Hayley Dorian is one of them, she has set up a swimming group called Wild Sea Women who meet to embrace the waves in North East England and South-West Scotland . But are there benefits of cold water swimming?  Emma finds out from Hayley and Dr Heather Massey who works in the Extreme Environments Lab at the University of Portsmouth.

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Women of Snow and Ice; Sheila Watt-Cloutier; Antarctic Women; Nancy Campbell and Cold Water Swimming

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