Sedna Epic: Women of the Arctic Leadership Program

In November 2020,  the Sedna Epic Expedition returns to Tromso, Norway, with a stellar team of 32 Indigenous and non-indigenous women from around the world!  Our circumpolar participants hail from Canada, the USA, Norway, Sweden and Finland, and include First Nations, Inuit and Sami women. 

We're seeking your support to host two successive, 2½ day Women of the Arctic Leadership Programs for Sedna's sea women who are divided into two cohorts of 16 women. In short, we need to raise $CDN 27,500 (that's $USD 20,600 or 18,500 Euros) to run these two leadership programs which are each followed by a one-week winter snorkel expedition aboard the M/S Freya.

Monies raised will pay for the two leadership programs in Tromso:

1) renting the venue with audio-visual equipment;
2) transporting the 32 women to and from the venue;
3) travel costs and honoraria for two (local) guest speakers from Europe;
4) providing coffee, tea and snacks during the program; 
5) purchasing art supplies.

Art supplies, you ask? Indeed...

The Arts will play a crucial role during the two Women of the Arctic Leadership Programs in Tromso, as well as during the two winter snorkel expeditions aboard the M/S Freya.

The Women of the Arctic Leadership Program will discuss women’s growing representation (and influence) in Arctic policy, development, exploration, Indigenous culture, climate change and STEMM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine) careers. 

In fact, the Sedna Epic far prefers the acronym ‘STEAMM’ to STEMM, where  “A” stands for integration of “The Arts.”

In other words, the Sedna Epic aims to create a common space where right-brained and left-brained people collaborate on substantive issues like climate change and gender equity, finishing each other’s sentences, science experiments and brush strokes, if you will…

We envision launching a Sedna Epic Art Exhibit in 2021—showcasing the visual arts, music, photography and videography from Sedna’s six all-female expeditions from 2014 to 2020 inclusive—to tell the story of climate change in the Arctic, a story which, we believe, has a human face.


SEDNA'S INAUGURAL WOMEN OF THE ARCTIC LEADERSHIP PROGRAM, NOVEMBER 2019 

In November 2019, the Sedna Epic Expedition held its inaugural, 2½ day Women of the Arctic Leadership Program in Tromso.  Nineteen Indigenous and non-Indigenous women, ages 21 to 78 years, attended our leadership program, exploring the intersection of climate change, ocean change, gender equity, food sustainability, culture, language, and Indigenous self-determination.

Sedna's women's leadership program continued aboard the M/S Freya,  our expedition vessel. Sedna's sea women embarked for a week-long expedition of Norway's northern fjords to conduct oceanographic research during the winter herring run and to snorkel with orcas and humpback feasting on these small bait fish.



What an incredible photo, captured at 70 degrees North latitude by Sedna's Australian photographer Pamela Martin of Pamela Martin Photography! This photo was taken during the Sedna Epic's winter snorkel expedition to Norway's northern fjords in November 2019,