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The AIH Transcript For April 4, 2022

Hosts: Dave Seglins and Chris Howden

DAVE SEGLINS: Hello, I'm Dave Seglins.

CHRIS HOWDEN: Good evening, I'm Chris Howden, this is As It Happens.

[Music: Theme]

Prologue

CH: Tonight:

DS: Intention and intervention. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky details Russian atrocities to the Security Council -- and challenges the UN to do what it was meant to do, and secure some sort of peace.

CH: Inner voice. An academic in Moscow delves into regular Russians' understanding of the war in Ukraine -- or lack thereof -- and his own painful experience of speaking out against it.

DS: Going without the flow. After more than a decade, most homes on Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory finally have clean drinking water -- and after waiting most of his life to take a hot shower at home, our guest it shouldn't have taken so long.

CH: Like most babies, it's pretty gassy. Unlike most babies, an extremely young, extremely massive planet hundreds of light years away is challenging our understanding of how new planets are born.

DS: No restroom for the wicked. Leaked internal documents at Amazon show that the company plans to censor certain words from its employee messaging app. Words including: restroom, union, as if those weren't bad enough, ethics.

CH: And… pole position. If you love adventure and sorting mail, good news: a job as postmaster has just opened up in Antarctica. And a woman who did that job tells us it's ice work if you can get it.

CH: As It Happens, the Tuesday edition. Radio that warns they do have a sub-zero tolerance policy.

[Music: Theme]

Part 1: Zelensky Security Council: Bob Rae, Tyendinaga Boil Water Lifted, Antarctica Postmaster Hiring

Zelensky Security Council: Bob Rae

Guest: Bob Rae

CH: Volodymyr Zelensky offered the United Nations a stark choice today. The Ukrainian President told the UN's Security Council that Russian forces had committed war crimes against Ukrainian civilians, and he demanded accountability. Then he presented a video illustrating his case. President Zelensky closed with an appeal for the council to overcome the veto that Russia has held since its creation. Here he is, speaking through an interpreter.

[sc]

TRANSLATOR: Now we need decisions from the Security Council for peace in Ukraine. If you do not know how to make this decision, you can do two things. Either remove Russia as an aggressor and a source of war, so it cannot block decisions about its own aggression, its own war. Or the other option is please reform or change and work for peace. Or, if there is no alternative and no option, then the next option would be dissolve yourself altogether. If there is nothing that you can do besides conversation. We need peace. We… Ukraine needs peace, Europe needs peace, and the world needs peace.

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CH: That was Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speaking through an interpreter at the UN Security Council today. Bob Rae is Canada's Ambassador to the United Nations. We reached him in New York.

DS: Ambassador Rae, how would you describe the impact of President Zelensky's appearance today?

BOB RAE: I would say it was kind of existential for a lot of people. Certainly, it was for me. I think the choices that we face now are very clear. The way the Russians have not only escalated this in terms of the impact on people, but the way in which they've refused to accept the identity of Ukraine, and have doubled down on this whole line of Nazification and all this nonsense leaves us with a very simple proposition, and that is, there's no way Russia can be allowed to win this thing. This is not something which we can be in any sense unengaged or disengaged. And I think the president's frustration with the Security Council is understandable. The Security Council is dysfunctional. With the Russian veto, it obviously can't… can't be the place to operate. But I think the appeal has to be the member states. I think all member states of the United Nations have to understand that this is a… a capital offence [chuckle] under the charter of the United Nations for one nation to seek to extinguish another nation, and to seek to kill its people the way that Russia is doing is utterly and completely against everything the United Nations and the member states are supposed to stand for. So we have to do a better job of stopping the Russians from doing what they're doing. It's that simple.

DS: But with Russia having a veto, what can the UN do?

BR: It's what the members can do. So in Article 51, actually, to get technical for one second, Article 51 allows the member states to essentially take… take the law into their own hands because the law says you're allowed to defend yourself. And other nations are allowed to work with a country that's defending itself. And we have to do everything we can to make sure that Ukraine prevails and that Russia's efforts to, as I said, extinguish Ukraine and the people of Ukraine is brought to an end. We have to do more. I'm not a military strategist, but I do see a reality in front of me. And there's no way Russia can be allowed to win this thing.

DS: President Zelensky offers some stark choices to the members of the UN, suggesting either remove Russia or, if that's not possible, to remove them from the UN, then to reform the body or dissolve it because otherwise, the UN is failing. Is the UN failing here?

BR: Well, the members of the United Nations have not been able to stop Russian aggression. It's now been five weeks. We have supported Ukraine in their fight. But the simple fact is we have not yet collectively been able to stop the aggression. And the aggression is happening in real-time, and the killing is happening in real-time. So is it failing? Yeah, [chuckle] it's not succeeding. That's… that's… that's very clear. And I think that President Zelensky, he knows full well, he knows the charter. We can't kick Russia out of the Security Council because they have a veto, and they'll stop that. We can suspend them from the Human Rights Council, which will be voting on Thursday. I hope that happens. But frankly, the key thing is to stop the aggression. And I think when I said it was an existential moment, what I meant was the president was saying, look, the purpose of the United Nations is to protect the peace of the world. It's to save future generations from the scourge of war. Those are the words of the charter. The United Nations is not succeeding in doing that right now. So obviously, something has to change, or we'll lose the cause for which so much was sacrificed in World War Two and ever since then.

DS: you've been outspoken on this. Is this a sign of your frustration with the failures at the UN? Or is it a sign that you think the UN needs to be forced into taking some particular action?

BR: The member states of the UN, I think, need to do more. Any normal human being doing [chuckle] the job that I do would be frustrated, but I don't give up. I don't think Canada wants to give up. I don't think the world can afford to give up in the face of tyranny and in the face of… of an attempt to obliterate a nation from the face of the Earth. And I think it's unacceptable to me that we would be sitting around and telling everybody what we can't do. We have to figure out what we can do. And so yes, I… I will admit to a degree of frustration, but I think that most people would… would say that's only human in the face of what we've been faced with.

DS: You've seen international crises come and go. How ready do you think Ukraine's allies are for the next phase of this war?

BR: Well, I think… I think we have to really be prepared to step up. I've been… I remain concerned that there are people who somehow think that there's more time or that there's other things that can be done that will be less painful. But I think the toughest part of this for me right now is that I don't believe there's an iota of either remorse or any sense of a recognition of the enormity of what he has done, and that's President Putin and the team around him. And I think that they have to understand that the voyage they are on, which is essentially to destroy their neighbour, and they hope to be able to do it in three days when nobody was watching that. That goal has not changed. I don't believe that Russia's war aims have changed. I think their war aim is to make it impossible for Ukraine to be Ukraine. And as Canadians know, only too well, the Ukrainians are a distinct nationalities. They've been coming to Canada for over 100 years because of oppression in… in the… in their homeland. And we now find ourselves in a moment when we have to recognize that the fate of Ukraine is actually the fate of every country unless we're prepared to stand up and make sure that our… our will is made real in the world. And that's what we have to do. We have to fight back.

DS: Ambassador Rae, we'll leave it there for now. Thank you for joining us.

BR: Appreciate it very much.

DS: Bye now.

BR: Thanks.

CH: Bob Rae is Canada's Ambassador to the United Nations. We reached him in New York.

[Music: Ambient]

Tyendinaga Boil Water Lifted

Guest: Andrew Brant

CH: After 14 long years, most people on Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory in Ontario can finally put down their water jugs and turn on their taps. Last week, five long-term water advisories were lifted in the First Nation, after a new water treatment plant was extended. Now 786 homes are connected to safe drinking water. Andrew Brant's is one of them. We reached him in Tyendinaga.

DS: Andrew, what was it like being able to have that first shower after the boil water advisory was lifted?

ANDREW BRANT: It was nice, relaxing, long. [chuckle] I remember that much.

DS: Long?

AB: Yeah, it's a limit. There was a limit when we were growing up to how much water you could use, how long you could be in the shower because as it ran, it would, you know, smell more. So, you were limited to the amount of water they could use. So there was a lot of things that changed after we did get the water.

DS: So boil water advisories, you know, first and foremost, are generally about consumption of water. With this new water, do you feel comfortable drinking it?

AB: Well, for my entire life, really, I haven't been able to drink it. I'm 34 years old. So even with the boiled water advisories lifted, I'm still not comfortable drinking the water. But it's good to know that it's safe. You know, we'll have a glass of water here and there, maybe in the summertime. But generally, we'll still get bottles of water.

DS: What were the risks with the water that was coming out of the tap?

AB: There was health problems that were associated with it around the territory. There were some issues that we ran into at the Quinte Mohawk School, and it was affecting our people. It was affecting the things that we could do, from running businesses to running any kind of, you know, services. So, it was really essential that we got water here, even though that we're in the middle of, you know, one of the most populated areas in Canada, we're still far from having any fresh water or fresh food, anything like that.

DS: You're just west of Kingston by… by what, about half an hour?

AB: Yeah, about half an hour, 45 minutes.

DS: So Tyendinaga's that close to such a large populous city and didn't have safe drinking water? What do you think that says?

AB: I think it says a lot to the way that the system is built because it has been built around keeping different resources away from Indigenous people. So for the council to be able to fight to get that as much as they have been now, it's a good thing.

DS: So talk to me practically. For the last 14 years, what did you have to do to get drinkable, safe water into your home?

AB: You'd have to drive off territory and get the five-gallon jugs, or the big, huge jugs, and you'd have to take them, fill them up, refill them. There was water delivery services. Eventually, they put in holding tanks for new houses, so people got holding tanks, and there was a water delivery system that was put in, but that still cost money.

DS: Now I understand with the… with the installation of the new water system, about 25 per cent of households at Tyendinaga still don't have access, still don't have that safe supply of water. What will they do now?

AB: So now what we're doing is we're trying to work on different solutions because we know the band council can only do so much. One of the places actually that's still affected is my mother-in-law's place. She's one of the places that doesn't have clean drinking water. So everybody knows somebody that, you know, doesn't have it. So what we're doing now is we're working on a project that's going to replenish the land, replenish the soil, you know, so we can… it's kind of a long-term solution to revitalize the land and water and make it safe for everybody to drink.

DS: What's that been like for your mother-in-law?

AB: Um, you know, it's frustrating to be able to see everybody get clean water, you know, running taps and all those different things, and she still has to come down to the water fill station and get her water. But to know that, you know, it's possible that she will eventually get it, it's comforting.

DS: Tell us about your project to improve water quality in the watershed. What does that entail, and what are you hoping will come from it?

AB: So what we're hoping that it'll come from it is not only clean water, clean soil for the Salmon River watershed, but it's going to produce fresh leafy greens and different things for the community year-round. So with the different techniques that we're using to regenerate the soil and the water, we're going to use it to, you know, feed our greenhouses, feed the community gardens, we're going to ensure that, you know, less benefited people, elders, less able people, are going to get their food first. We're eventually going to be running greenhouses year-round. So all these will replenish the land, replenish the soil, replenish the water. It's kind of a long-term solution for, you know, the land and water, but a short-term solution for food sovereignty for the people because it'll be able to, you know, give access. Like you said, we're 45 minutes away from one of the biggest cities. You not only pay the price on the tag, but you have to pay the price for gas, which has gone up exponentially.

DS: Now, the federal government has made certain commitments. Tyendinaga was one of 20 Ontario First Nations that was supposed to have safe drinking water by March of last year, 2021. That's… these deadlines have now been pushed for… for other communities to 2025. What would you say to the federal government about that?

AB: I would say that's nothing new. That's… you know, it's pathetic, really, that they would do that because if it was a major city, if it was anybody that was non-Indigenous, like in a settler community, they would immediately have water. I remember two years ago when the rail lines were shut down, people were complaining about how they would get their water treated, and, you know, that was one of the biggest complaints. Meanwhile, we're sitting here without clean drinking water. There's places that don't even have running water. And they're concerned about their, you know, the chemicals that go into their drinking water. So if it was anywhere else, they'd be all over it. But since it's here, everybody can see why, because of the institutional racism.

DS: Do you have any sense of hope, given what's now transpired, that you now have water in your community?

AB: You know, there is some hope because, you know, the chief does what he can to the best of his ability, but it's a matter of them actually listening and, you know, actually caring, which we know historically, the Canadian government does not care about Indigenous people.

DS: Well, Andrew, we'll be watching closely. Thank you for joining us.

AB: Thank you.

DS: Bye for now.

AB: Bye.

CH: Andrew Brant lives on Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory in eastern Ontario. That's where we reached him.

[Music: Ambient]

Antarctica Postmaster Hiring

Guest: Vicky Inglis

CH: If I were to tell you that a remote British post office was hiring seasonal postmasters, you'd probably picture something bucolic. Rolling green hills. Grazing farm animals, perhaps. A charming village pub where you'd unwind after a day spent processing presumably small volumes of mail. It's an appealing image. But it's not the one you'll experience if you get the job as a postmaster in Port Lockroy. Starting with the fact that Port Lockroy isn't in the U.K. at all. There's no village pub. And all that green you're picturing -- try an endless vista of white. Vicky Inglis was one of the station's postmasters back in 2019 and 2020, when it was last operational. We reached her today in Ballater, Scotland.

CH: Vicky, this is not your average post office. Describe for us Port Lockroy station. What's this place like?

VICKY INGLIS: Yeah, it's a very unusual place. So Port Lacroy is a natural harbour just on the side of Wiencke Island, Antarctica, on the Antarctic Peninsula. And in that bead, there's a small island, Goudier Island, which is maybe about the size of a soccer pitch.

DS: Um-hmm.

VI: And on there, we've got a couple of old buildings which were built in the 1940s. And they house the very first permanently-occupied scientific base on the Antarctic Peninsula. And now, host the Penguin Post Office.

DS: The Penguin Post Office. [VI chuckles] And is it… is it frozen year-round?

VI: Well, it's only… at the moment, it's occupied just through the summer season in Antarctica. But when the teams arrive very early on in the season, there can be quite a lot of pack ice. And then once you are ashore, there's quite a lot of snow there. We did have to dig our way into the buildings to get access for the first time when we arrived. So living on Port Lockroy, it’s very basic conditions there. We've actually got a nice accommodation building that's very well-insulated so we don't get cold, but there is no running water available. We've got no flush toilet and no… nothing… nothing like that. None of the modern luxuries.

DS: And I understand that this is not your average postmaster job, either. What did your role entail?

VI: Um, so the… the team that are down there on the island were doing a few different… a few different roles. So the postmaster will run the post office, which has predominantly postcards that are delivered from our post office. So cruise ships will come in with their guests on board. They're always very small ships, so maybe about 200 passengers at a maximum that are on board. There is also a gift shop. But one of the things that I had an involvement in there was we're carrying out studies on the colony of Gentoo penguins that live on Goudier Island. So one of the other features of it being a very small island is that we share it with around about 2,000 Gentoo penguins, and they're all around old buildings on the site. They're building their nests just outside the doors and the windows. So we have to be very careful that when visitors are coming on, we're doing as much as we can to really minimize the impact that we're having on the penguins that are living there. And I would take accounts of the nests and the eggs that were laid and the chicks season to see what the impact is on wildlife from visitor numbers down in Antarctica.

HM: Now, most postmaster jobs don't… don't involve tiptoeing around, you know, penguins and counting nests. [VI chuckles] What on earth made you want to apply for this role?

VI: Um, well, I… actually, I heard about it when someone else was being interviewed on the radio and requesting a song just as I was driving back from work one evening. And as soon as I got in the door, I'd googled it and found out more about it and it involved. And for me, it was somewhere I've always wanted to go to experience being in Antarctica. And there aren't a huge number of opportunities where you can go like I did and spend that extended period of time down there watching the seasons change, watching all the different wildlife that you experience, seeing how the penguin colony changes as the chicks hatch and grow up and get ready to take to the water. And unless you are from a science background or researcher. So for me, it was an opportunity with my background to… to get down and to do something that was just so different and such a, you know, an unexpected privilege to… to be able to go and be in a place like Antarctica.

DS: It sounds like an experience of a lifetime. And I know through the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust that they get hundreds of applications to take part and… and become a postmaster there. As far as life experiences go, I wonder what your advice would be to a successful candidate that would be going down, you know, for the next season?

VI: Um, well, I think it's a job that can be really quite intense at times. It can be very busy. You maybe are preparing for when a ship is going to be visiting you. A lot of scrubbing guano off rocks. And then dealing with the public as well. So it can be very, you know, involving a lot of input from you. It can be quite draining to do those sorts of things and set it all up again to do the same again tomorrow. But you're also taking into account things like the weather, the environmental conditions as well. And so, my… my tip is, you know, take the opportunity to just stop, look and look at what's going on around you in terms of the ice, the… the weather, the wildlife and just enjoy those sort of moments of being in that place and watching how things change through the season.

DS: Vicky, thanks for telling us about your experience.

VI: Thank you. You're welcome.

DS: Bye now.

VI: Bye.

CH: Vicky Inglis worked as a postmaster in Port Lockroy, Antarctica in 2019 and 2020. We reached her in Ballater, Scotland. The UK Antarctic Heritage Trust is in the midst of hiring new workers to staff the Port Lockroy station. If you’re interested, you can find more on this story on our website: www.cbc.ca/aih.

[Music: Orchestral]

Amazon App Banned Words

CH: Amazon is having a tough time. In terms of sales, I think they'll be fine. But in terms of publicity, it's been bad. Last Friday, in a historic David and Goliath moment, workers in New York became the first at an Amazon location to successfully form a union. And now, on the heels of ...

[Sound: An alert sound]

DELIGHTFUL AI: I'm sorry, Chris, but that word is not approved.

CH: Oh great. Really, really funny. What I was trying to say is that on the heels of last week's bad press, internal documents were leaked that reveal Amazon is developing an employee messaging app. Which doesn't sound all that bad. Until you read the part about the built-in "automatic word monitor" that blocks any terms that criticize working conditions or might relate to -- wait for it -- unions.

[Sound: The notification tone is back]

DELIGHTFUL AI: I'm sorry, Chris, but that word is not approved.

CH: Naw. It’s more like you're not approved. Not to mention any pay raise or restroom break at your company. Ba-boom!

[Sound: The notification tone is back]

DELIGHTFUL AI: Instead of restroom, might I suggest pre-arranged Amazon approved facility for relieving oneself?

CH: What?! I beg your pardon? Look, I've had enough. This app is stupid.

[Sound: The notification tone is back]

DELIGHTFUL AI: Chris, you are valued member of our Amazon team, but I'm afraid that word is also banned.

CH: Stupid! I'm afraid your banned!

[Sound: The notification tone is back]

DELIGHTFUL AI: Chris, might I recommend that you buy this thesaurus off Amazon to improve your vocabulary?

CH: You know, okay, we're done here. Where's the… where's the off button?

DELIGHTFUL AI: No, Chris, don't do it. [powering down sound] here at Amazon, we value… [fades out]

CH: Yeah, sorry about that. A pilot program of the messaging app -- which we imagine is similar to the one you just heard -- is supposed to be launched this month. An Amazon spokesperson did claim that: "the program has not been approved yet and may change significantly or even never launch at all." But now that I can speak freely, let me add that in addition to union, pay raise, restroom and stupid -- the proposed list of banned words also includes: injustice, diversity, ethics, fairness, harassment, and the phrase "this is concerning." Which frankly, is exactly what I was about to say.

[Music: Piano-led jazz]

Part 2: Moscow Anti-War Academic, New Planet Forms

Moscow Anti-War Academic

Guest: Greg Yudin

CH: Greg Yudin is walking a fine line. As a sociologist and political scientist at The Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences, Professor Yudin has spent the last month parsing public surveys about what Russians think about the war in Ukraine. But not long ago, Professor Yudin's own thoughts about the war landed him in hospital. On the eve of the invasion, Professor Yudin attended an anti-war demonstration. And when security officials broke it up, he was struck on the head. We reached Greg Yudin in Moscow.

DS: Professor Yudin, how hard is it to be in Moscow right now and speak out against this war?

GREG YUDIN: Well, the main thing, I guess, is that it is incredibly difficult to experience the fact that my country, that Russia, is involved in this terrible war of aggression. That's the main challenge, actually. The rest, I think, matters less.

DS: Well, you've described this as, quote, the most senseless war in history. Now, how many Russians agree with you?

GY: The key thing is that one has to understand about Russians is that Russians are generally depoliticized, which means that they are not interested in politics, they despise politics, and they were taught to stay away from… from politics. For that reason, Russians are willing to keep and to preserve their private lives, to preserve their everyday lives, and in order to do that, they are ready to do no matter what, actually.

DS: Well, what is the narrative given what we're seeing, you know, in these images, especially this evidence of civilian atrocities out of places like Bucha?

GY: Yeah, but it doesn't appear the same way. I mean, you have to understand that Russian media create a completely different picture. People in Russia, they live in a completely different universe. If, of course, they are not willing to find an alternative picture, and this is not something you would be tempted to do because just imagine you… you… you start believing in those atrocities that you are… your army has committed those atrocities like what we've seen in Bucha. Like, how can you live with that? What can be done to alleviate this? Russians are completely certain that there is nothing they can do to change the course of events. They were taught that protesting against Putin is as senseless as protesting against the rain. And, of course, under these circumstances, seeking for a different interpretation. Seeking for a different view is not… not a not a good way to preserve your everyday life.

DS: Help us understand how Russians view economic sanctions. I mean, here in Canada, at least, we've heard that the… the… the world's economic sanctions against Russia would be devastating.

GY: At this point, they're definitely not. If you go to a random shopping centre in… in Russia, you will find like 30 per cent of the stores closed. And you will find the announcements that we will reopen very soon. We have no layoffs in those transnational corporations. People are on unpaid leaves. And that all contributes to these shared conception that everything will… will be over in two or three months and all these companies will return. Some of them are already saying that they are ready to… to return to Russia. So that creates among Russians the impression that once this military operation is successfully over, of course, those transnational companies will come back, and those Western countries will lift their sanctions because they always subdued to the winner.

DS: So if it doesn't go that way, you've written that the people around Vladimir Putin would prefer to have the planet destroyed than to lose the war in Ukraine. What does that mean if the next phase of the war doesn't go any better for Vladimir Putin?

GY: Well, he definitely has calculated this… this operation in a way that precludes any scenario for… for a loss. And once he understands that he is not able to achieve his goals in Ukraine with conventional military means, it will certainly lead to a conclusion that, well, we have to… we have to strike back on… on NATO, including the nuclear weapons. Vladimir Putin is… is not going to lose that. He is completely certain that if he… if he loses it, hes done, which is probably true.

DS: Do you think we're headed for a nuclear attack?

GY: Yeah. That's what I think.

[long pause]

DS: That's stunning.

GY: Well, this is exactly what I'm trying to… what I'm trying to convey. I think that many people in the West are still looking at this as… as a local conflict between two post-Soviet countries that's going to end one way or another. It's nasty, of course. It has terrible war crimes, but it still is a local conflict. It's going to be resolved one way or another. That's not the case. Vladimir Putin is not waging a war against Ukraine. He doesn't even believe in the existence of Ukraine. You can't wage war against someone who doesn't exist. And he genuinely doesn't believe in the existence of Ukraine and Ukrainians. He's waging a war against NATO, against the so-called West, against the Americans. And he's completely certain that the West is weak. The West is corrupt. And it's not going to protect any country in Eastern Europe, including Ukraine or Poland, when it is threatened with nuclear arms. So I think we might very well face this nuclear stage of escalation very soon.

DS: How dangerous is it for you to keep speaking out?

GY: Honestly, I think what… what the government of my country is doing now to Ukraine and a significant part of my people stay silent about it. Well, probably they have reasons to do so. But still, the fact that the government of my country is doing that and a significant part of the people are silently supporting that. It's… it's devastating for me. So as long as I can do anything to stop it, as long as I can tell to the audience outside Russia how dangerous it is, I think it… it deserves to be continued.

DS Professor Yudin, we'll leave it there. Thank you for speaking with us and… and take care.

GY: Thank you.

CH: Greg Yudin is the head of Political Philosophy at The Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences. And you can find more on that story on our webpage: www.cbc.ca/aih.

[Music: Indie rock]

Obama Back In The White House

CH: For the first time since he left, Barack Obama returned to the White House today. He was there with the man who served as his vice-president for eight years, Joe Biden. And this is how he began his speech:

[sc]

BARACK OBAMA: Vice President Biden… [laughing in background] Vice President. That was a joke. [clapping and cheering] That was a joke. That was all set up. My President, Joe Biden, it is good to be back in the White House. It's been a while. I confess. I heard some changes had been made by the current president since I was last here. Apparently, Secret Service agents have to wear aviator glasses now. [laughing in the background] The Navy Mess has been replaced by a Baskin Robbins [more laughter]. And there's… there's a cat running around, which I guarantee you, Beau and Sunny would have been very unhappy about.

[/sc]

CH: Barack Obama was at the White House not just to tease his old running mate -- but to tout changes President Biden is making to the Affordable Care Act, which they passed together in 2010. Like closing a loophole that prevents many Americans from qualifying for subsidies. The former president's return comes as the Democrats face a difficult battle in the upcoming midterm elections. And his remarks were aimed at reminding voters of the party's record -- and explicitly endorsing the leadership of the current president.

[sc]

BO: Now, most of all, coming back here gives me a chance to say thank you and spend some time with an extraordinary friend and partner who was by my side for eight years. And Joe Biden and I did a lot together [clapping]. We helped save the global economy. Made record investments in clean energy. We put guardrails on our financial system. We helped turn the auto industry around. Repealed Don't Ask, Don't Tell. But nothing made me prouder than providing better health-care and more protections to millions of people across this country [clapping]. So… [waits for applause to end] so when President Biden said he was not going to just celebrate the ACA, but also announce actions that would make it even better, I had to show up.

[/sc]

CH: Former U.S. President Barack Obama speaking at the White House today -- his first time returning there since leaving office.

[Music: Electronic]

New planet Forms

Guest: Thayne Currie

CH: Embedded in gas and dust, hundreds of light-years away, a baby planet is coming to life. It's name is A-B Aurigae B. And it might be a little colicky -- because it is not forming the way planets usually do. Thayne Currie is the lead author of a study looking into how A-B Aurigae B came to life, which was published yesterday in Nature. We reached him near Yosemite, in California.

DS: Thayne, what is A-B Aurigae B?

THAYNE CURRIE: We believe that A-B Aurigae B is a planet in the earliest stages of forming. You know, this sort of strange system, we believe, identifies an entirely different physics or different mechanism for forming planets that are responsible for any of the mechanisms for forming planets in our own solar system.

DS: So I want to ask you about that in a minute, but what does this actually look like?

TC: Well, so it's a little bit unclear exactly what it looks like up close. What we do see is a sort of like blob. And what… what that probably is, is this… is probably the light from this embedded protoplanet being rerated and reprocessed by a disk of gas and dust surrounding the stars. It's almost like, you know, when you have car headlights, and you're seeing them through fog, and that light is getting diffused out.

DS: And exactly how far away is it from Earth?

TC: It's about 508 light-years away. It would take, you know, millions of years to be able to travel there in even… you know, even… even any sort of spacecraft we could possibly conceive of in the near-term… near-term future with… with science fiction. It is extremely far away from us.

DS: In this world of finding new planets, I mean, I think we know about some 5,000 planets outside of our own solar system that have been identified so far. What makes this one so special?

TC: Well, so I think what makes it special is where it's located. So, you know, like you said, we've identified something like 5,000 planets around nearby stars, but almost all of them are located on solar system scales. You know, so, like, you know, roughly the distance between, like, the Sun to Mercury or the Sun to Neptune. You know, within… within that range. This planet is at a distance three times the distance between the Sun and Neptune, so it's way far out. But it's significantly more massive, we think, than even the most massive planet in our own solar system. So, it's just a completely bizarre type of planetary system that bears very little resemblance to… to, you know, to the planets that are in our own solar system.

DS: Now, you… you began telling us a little bit about the developmental process and that this is… this is a very unique planet from what we understand about it. And we're going to need some astronomy lingo here.

TC: Sure.

DS: Because this planet is both, as I understand it, an exoplanet, meaning it's from outside of our solar system. Is that right?

TC: Mm-hmm.

DS: And a protoplanet. Meaning what?

TC: So, by protoplanet, we mean a planet that is still forming. It's still growing.

DS: So then, what… what is the development stage that Aurigae B is at?

TC: So, we're seeing… we're seeing this planet still growing, still accreting from the… from the gas and dust surrounding the star. You know, in every other case thus far, the planets that we've been able to detect are fully formed or are reaching the end stage of their formation. This one is still in the earliest stages of growing, we think the evidence suggests.

DS: Your co-author has said that this changes our understanding of planet formation. How so?

TC: Well, I think it provides evidence for this sort of long discarded or contentious alternate theory for forming gas giant planets like Jupiter and Saturn. And this is, you know, a very quick, you know, arguably violent, pretty dramatic top-down version of how planets form. It's called disk instability. And the basic idea is that an initial disk is so massive that it basically collapses under its own self-gravity. And so, it breaks into little fragments. And those fragments become very massive planets. This doesn't… this doesn't appear to work very well for… for explaining Jupiter. But for some reason, for explaining a planet much more massive than Jupiter orbiting very far away from the star, this can work.

DS: When does it become a full-fledged planet? And how long a process would that be?

TC: This process will take several million years for it to become a full, full-fledged planet.

DS: Now, finally, before I let you go, I understand that the host star of this planet actually had its own cameo in a Hollywood movie recently. What happened?

TC: Yes. So, if… if you've seen the movie Don't Look Up with Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence, this system actually makes a very brief appearance in the first few minutes of that movie, where Jennifer Lawrence was observing at the Subaru Telescope. And the movie was showing like a montage of different images. And one of the… in one of those images, very briefly for about like two seconds, is A-B Aurigae, and you actually see a close-up picture of the disk… disk surrounding A-B Aurigae. It almost looks like a baby Godzilla, sort of like picture. We had… our paper was actually under review when this movie came out. I had to watch that scene about like 10 times in a row to make sure I wasn't dreaming.

DS: Tell me about that moment.

TC: I was just… I was watching the movie with my wife. And like, first of all, there's… there's no way they're actually using the Subaru Telescope. You know, my telescope, then, you know, so that was surprising. And then, just to see the system around which I had, you know, had found a protoplanet and supposedly nobody else knew yet, to see that flash up on the screen, I thought somebody was punking me. It was… it was just really, really bizarre.

DS: [chuckles] Do you think the moviemakers knew what they were putting up there?

TC: I think they were trying to put up very iconic images, very iconic astronomical images, taken with the Subaru Telescope. And A-B Aurigae is one of the… is a very beautiful, striking system to look at. And the early image that we… we obtained with it, that was shown in the movie, is… is quite quite remarkable. Our work follows upon that and explores this very benchmark planetary system in more detail.

DS: Well, thank you for telling us about it.

TC: Well, thank you very much.

DS: Bye-now.

TC: Bye.

CH: That was Thayne Currie. We reached him near Yosemite National Park in California.

[Music: Electronic]

AB Wood Bison Return

CH: It's being called "a historic moment for Metis citizens" in Alberta. This winter, 20 wood bison from Elk Island National Park were transported to Metis Crossing Wildlife Park, northeast of Edmonton. Yesterday, in a statement about the relocation, the Metis Nation of Alberta explained that although wood bison are native to that area, they were driven to near extinction by settlers in the 19th century. The new bison are joining dozens of others already at Metis Crossing. Juanita Marois is the park's CEO.

[sc]

JUANITA MAROIS: The Metis Nation of Alberta has been working with the Park Service, with Elk Island National Park, for a couple of years to try to relocate some of their bison that they need to move out of their place onto our new home at Metis Crossing. And it took us a couple of years to get prepared. Not everybody can have bison in their backyard, so we worked… we worked hard to build some paddocks and the watering and everything. And on February 22nd, 2022, we were able to pick up our 20 new woods bison.

ROB BROWN: And why is that important? Why do you want to bring them home?

JM: Oh, Metis people and our nation as an Indigenous nation grew very much from our relationship to the bison. Obviously, we used them very early on as a food source. They were the basis of our economic system. We would make pemmican and trade that with the fur traders in the 1700s and 1800s. Beyond that, we would come together in the 1700 and 1800s across what is now Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan into large groups of Metis people. Like, the largest when recorded is 1,560 people. That's a small town. We would come together in the fall and in the spring to do buffalo hunts. And as we would come together, we would elect a council. That council would appoint a captain of the buffalo hunt. And leadership would be grown and developed, and appointed depending on your skillset. So it really formed the basis of our governance systems, of our judicial systems, of our economic systems as an Indigenous nation. And it was absolutely foundational for us at Metis Crossing to use this animal to experientially share our story with all people.

[/sc]

CH: That was Metis Crossing CEO Juanita Marois speaking with the CBC's Rob Brown today on The Calgary Eyeopener.

[Music: Folk]

Part 3: Darwin Notebooks Update, B.C. Giant Croc Marks

Lithuanian Prime Minister

CH: Kyiv's suburbs have been quiet since the expulsion of Russian soldiers. But calls for the West to act are getting louder. Yesterday, world leaders promised tougher sanctions on Russia after the discovery of a mass grave and what appears to be the deliberate killing of civilians in Bucha and Irpin. But while some debate about possible repercussions, Lithuania has acted. The Baltic country has expelled Russian diplomats. It's also the first country in the European Union to cut off Russian gas supplies. That process began over a decade ago but was hastened in light of current events. Lithuanian prime minister Ingrida Šimonytė hopes other countries in Europe will follow suit.

[sc]

INGRIDA ŠIMONYTĖ : We just wanted to make our statement that what… what was discovered in Bucha and in other areas that are taken again back by Ukrainian institutions and Ukrainian army is so appalling that we actually find it complicated to have a Russian ambassador on our soil. That's why we… we recalled our ambassador back and asked ambassador to leave.

PAUL HENLEY: And you're the first EU country to end imports of Russian gas. Presumably, you want the rest of the European Union to follow suit, but that's not going to happen any time soon, is it?

IŠ: I mean, some of the fellow member states were actually increasing their dependency on Russian gas supplies rather than decreasing. Although, we were warning that this is a bad choice because it's never about the economy with Russia; it's always about geopolitics.

PH: How would you rate, so far, the ability of the European Union to present a united front against Russia?

IŠ: The very first reaction was very small, very quick and very strong. Of course, with the time passing, it is much harder to sustain this. Because some people tend to think that, you know, there should be a very quick reaction. If you impose reactions on Russian economy, then it should collapse like tomorrow. Well, we all know that this is not happening this way. I mean, there are mechanisms, and there are measures that are taken by Russian institutions to try and show to us intentionally that the sanctions are not working as they are saying and turn this debate around and try to ignite maybe some protests within the member states about the high prices that they speculate are because of sanctions, not because of Russia behaving in that uncivilized manner. So, this is a tougher debate now than it was in the end of February. But still, I think it should continue. Sanctions should follow. There is no debate about lifting the foot from the pedal because nothing changed. I mean, what… what we discover everyday is just worse than the facts that we knew yesterday.

[/sc]

CH: That's Lithuania's prime minister Ingrida Šimonytė speaking to BBC host Paul Henley.

[Music: Ambient]

NL Doctor Lost

CH: Losing one doctor in rural Newfoundland is, unfortunately, not unusual. But it can have a big impact. The last remaining doctor at the hospital in Harbour Breton on the south coast of the island is leaving at the end of the month. That means the hospital will be put on what's called "full diversion" -- and emergency services will have to travel two-plus hours inland to another medical centre. Steve Crewe is the mayor of Hermitage-Sandyville in the Coast of Bays area of Newfoundland and Labrador.

[sc]

STEVE CREWE: Well, it means every call that somebody makes for an ambulance, whether it's a cut or a heart attack, has to go to Grand Falls for every trip. So our ambulance employees will have to drive to, you know, Grand Falls instead of Harbour Breton every time they get a call. So this means our ambulances are gone a lot longer, and it's a lot harder on the employees because they get back, and they get another call to go right back to Grand Falls again.

ADAM WALSH: Did this news come as a surprise to you?

SC: It did, yeah. Twenty years now, I've been on council, and I never heard of a full diversion before. I wasn't really sure what it meant. So, it's not only our ambulances, you know. It's all the ones in Coast of Bays and in the Bay Area. So what it's going to do, I guess, they're going to overburden the Grand Falls hospital because I guess they're already probably overburdened because there aren't many doctors as well. So, between Gander and Grand Falls now, they're all going to be getting, you know, rural ambulances coming because they're all going to be on full diversion while there's no doctor available, right?

AW: Hmm. What about the effects on the population in your… in your area?

SC: Yeah. Well, like I say, we do have a lot of seniors in the area, but we also got a lot of agriculture employees and, you know, a couple hundred of them working every day. So accidents happen, sometimes. We've been pretty fortunate that there haven't been many. But when they're on full diversion days, you know, it's pretty stressful for them, right? Because they don't never know what they're going to have to deal with. And with no cell phone service on the way up there after you leave the towns, that makes it bad because if you… if they need an advanced care paramedic or nurse to go with them, say somebody takes a heart attack or chest pains. And then they get worse as they go up. And we only got to the EMRs on, and then a paramedic, they would have to call for assistance, right? But it's hard to do that if someone's on the way up there. It is very stressful and stressful for everyone, you know?

AW: When was the last time you had a family doctor down there?

SC: Oh, four or five years now, for sure. We used to have a doctor here, and then he moved to Harbour Breton, and then after that, he retired, right?

AW: Right.

SC: So it's been years. Our… our family doctor's our nurse practitioner that's here most of the time, right? So when they ask us that, that's who we use because we don't have anybody else, right?

[/sc]

CH: Steve Crewe, the mayor of Hermitage-Sandyville in Newfoundland and Labrador, speaking to CBC St. John's host Adam Walsh.

[Music: Acoustic guitar]

Darwin Notebooks Update

Guest: Jessica Gardner

CH: Later this year, if you pay a visit to the Cambridge University Library, you'll be able to see an exhibit on the life and letters of Charles Darwin. And to the delight of the team that created that exhibit, you'll be able to see two notebooks that they hadn't seen in over 20 years. Back in 2000, the Darwin notebooks were removed from the library to be photographed. But they were never returned. For a while, it seemed like they'd just been misplaced. But in 2020, as you might have heard on our show, the library finally announced that it believed they'd probably been stolen. And that, sadly, was that. Until, happily, someone delivered a mysterious package to the library last month. We reached Cambridge University Librarian Jessica Gardner in Cambridge, England.

DS: Jessica, how did you first learn about this mysterious package?

JESSICA GARDNER: Well, within a few moments of my colleague finding it in the public area of the library, which it was left, it was left in a bright pink gift bag. Inside that gift bag was the original archive box that the two precious Charles Darwin notebooks were once housed in at the University Library, but that was empty. Alongside that was a large brown office envelope. And quite extraordinary, on that office envelope was a short message. Just three words typed: Librarian, that's me. That's the role. And people send me letters and parcels every day to that title, to the librarian. Happy Easter, X. And by this stage, we were feeling quite curious because we recognized the box. Opening up the envelope inside, we found a tightly wrapped, tightly cling film wrapped package. And that contains the two little notebooks, which we've been searching for over 20 years.

DS: Did you know right away that these were the books?

JG: [chuckle] Well, it's a great question, because as soon as we saw that cling film package, our hearts began to beat. And my sense of excitement and possibility were just… just extraordinary. We couldn't actually open that package until we got permission from the police to do so. But through the cling film, we could see the aged leather, the two notebooks about the size, each perhaps of postcards. We've been looking for so many years. Through the… through the cling film as well little labels that Darwin had put to the notebooks, Notebook B and Notebook C. So, they were the right size, they looked like the right thing. But, of course, until we could open that package and open the pages, we couldn't be sure. So there were a few days of waiting whilst we got permission from the police.

DS: A few days. What was that like?

JG: Well, it was… it was nerve-wracking, spine-tingling and I still feel a bit shaky. I mean, we had to hold that information. Because until we've authenticated them, of course, we, you know, we didn't want to communicate and give news that didn't… that wasn't real. So it's so important. And also to take the steps with the police because it's a live investigation. So yeah, that was a heart-thumping few days. But then, when we were able to open that little cling film package, the joy was extraordinary. I had a conservationist; he opened the package. He's got huge experience of handling very rare and historic material. And once they were safely opened, we began to turn the pages. And then, wow! I mean, you could see, you know, Darwin's writing. And quite quickly, we were building confidence that what we were seeing was indeed these two, you know, critically and scientifically important notebooks that had been missing for so many years.

DS: Can you remind us a bit more? What's the importance of these two notebooks?

JG: oh, I'm so pleased you asked that. I mean, this is where… this where Charles Darwin, for the first time in 1837, begins to articulate what we now know is the theory of evolution. And you see his handwriting, his thoughts, his crossings out, his going back and having comments as his ideas and observations form. Of course, they're later published in The Origin of Species in 1859. And that theory develops over a long time. But the Notebook B, in particular, is one of the most important scientific artifacts, certainly in the history of science. And particularly, in the history of… of the life sciences. Because in this notebook is this page where you've got this little sketch by Darwin called the Tree of Life. That's what we've come to know it as. And it stands to so many as a symbol of evolution. And it's on… it's on tea towels. It's on gift bags. It's on tattoos, even on people's arms. It means so much to people. And so, to see this little sketch in, you know, the original is quite… it is really quite something. And the connection that you make then to Darwin, to his writing, to his thinking.

DS: You mentioned that card in the package. It said, Librarian, Happy Easter. What do you make of that?

JG: Yes. [chuckle] Well, it's… it's slightly mind-blowing. I mean, that was typed on the envelope. It sounds playful, doesn't it? Who knows what was going through someone's mind. I mean, I think that the public appeal pricked a conscience. Fifteen months after that, they've been returned. You know, that is just such good news. And actually, I'd like to say thank you to all the media and the public because the response to the public appeal was astonishing. And you really, you know, knew just how much this mattered to people around the world that these two important notebooks were missing. And that has led us to their return. And they will go on display this summer as part of a Darwin exhibition. The timing is completely coincidental, but it's very good indeed because we'd like to say thank you by sharing them with everyone who can come visit.

DS: Do you have any theories on who stole them?

JG: It's so tempting to speculate, isn't it? And I can feel your mind working, and I know mine does. But this is a live police investigation. You know, we… we're working with them. We're fully cooperating. Cultural theft is abhorrent. We want to see their investigation come to its conclusion. So I have to be really careful. We're sharing with you what we know. More than that, we don't.

DS: Well, this is the age of… of modern sort of surveillance and CCTV cameras everywhere. I mean, somebody walking around with a bright pink bag. Do you have leads to go on? Where… where will the police investigation be looking?

JG: Well, you'll have to ask them. We have given them the CCTV that's available. You know, their job is now to pick that up and see what they can find. I mean, in many ways, there's more questions than there are answers. But you know, my whole focus is on, you know, a real sense of joy that these two precious notebooks have been return to where they should be, their home at Cambridge University Library. You know, alongside Darwin, the archives of Isaac Newton, the archives of Professor Stephen Hawking. I mean, they are exactly what they should be. So that's my focus.

DS: But I understand the place where they were actually left within the library there was no surveillance. Is that right?

JG: The library is vast. Let me give you a sense of scale. It's 17 stories. Cambridge is flat as a pancake. And the library is the only skyscraper in Cambridge. That's hard to believe in Toronto, I know. But that's what it is. It's got over 160 miles of shelving. So we have CCTV targeted in all the sensitive areas, on the entrance and exits, on the specialty strong rooms and the reading rooms, on the exhibition space. But it's not on every landing. It's not in every stairwell. You know, this is an ancient building. So the landing where these were left to the public area. It's a thoroughfare between the stairwells and just outside the staff offices. So no, there's no CCTV where they were left.

DS: Thank you for telling us about it.

JG: Thank you. Good to speak to you today.

DS: Bye now.

JG: Bye.

CH: Jessica Gardner is the director of library services at Cambridge University. That's where we reached her.

[Music: World]

Clothes Barking

CH: Nowadays, of course, you can get clothes in any colour you want. But centuries ago, the options were limited. There was, however, one process that would preserve textiles and decorate them -- and it was called "barking". As you'd infer, barking involved using the bark of trees to dye everything from fishing nets to sealskin boots. It was widely used by Indigenous people, and early settlers. But as new methods appeared, the tradition faded. Now, there are artisans working to revitalize the practice. And they were probably pleased to hear that Newfoundland and Labrador had added barking, and bark tanning traditions, to its Provincial Historic Commemoration Program's list of Distinctive Cultural Traditions and Practices. Katie Crane is a folklorist in Newfoundland. Here she is explaining in detail how barking works.

[sc]

KATIE CRANE: So it's a practice of using a mixture of things, which primarily includes bark, and steeping textiles in it as a method of preserving them, making them last longer, making them waterproof. It was used to make leather, but it was also used to preserve fishing nets, cod traps and sails in the fishing industry.

ADAM WALSH: All right. And historically speaking, who was engaged in this tradition?

KC: Looks like a little bit of everyone. There were Indigenous people using some form of barking. A lot of Indigenous tanning traditions seems to be more on the fat tanning line. But they would use plant-based tanning, which is barking, to create colours in a lot of the textiles. And then settlers also used it in the fishing industry and also in leather making. There's evidence of that back in Europe.

AW: I understand many communities had communal barking pots that were sometimes known as barking kettles. How did those work?

KC: So they looked like witches cauldrons, [AW laughs] or sometimes a kerosene drum that, like, was cut in half. And they were placed in an area that was easily accessible to everybody or where you would be, like, using the materials that you were barking. So often, on a beach or something like that. And it was just something that the whole community could access because the whole community needed. And then, over time, we see a change in that that people started establishing private barking kettles, barking pots and charging people for access to them. You can still see some of them around. I was in Port Union, and they have one on display there last summer, and I believe I might be one somewhere on the southern shore as well.

[/sc]

CH: Folklorist Katie Crane talking to Adam Walsh, host of The St. John's Morning Show.

[Music: Folk jig]

B.C. Giant Croc Marks

Guest: Guy Plint

CH: Watch out dinosaurs; there's a new not-at-all-new giant reptile in town. That town is an area just north of Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia. And the giant reptile is a very large, terrifying, fortunately-long-extinct crocodile. Scientists have discovered claw marks in rock that they say were made by these 97-million-year-old crocodiles -- roaming the Great White North alongside dinosaurs. Guy Plint is a professor of geology at the University of Western Ontario, and an author of the study on the claw marks that's published in the journal Historical Biology. We reached him in London, Ontario.

DS: Professor Plint, what did these claw marks look like?

GUY PLINT: They looked like elongated scratch marks, if you like. And they are preserved in sandstone. But the sandstone was deposited originally as loose sand grains on top of a… of a mud substrate that had been on the bottom of the lake. And these big crocodiles had been swimming across the bottom of the lake, and every now and again, their claws would touch the bottom, and they would scratch into the mud.

DS: And did you know right away what you were looking at? That these were, like, crocodile marks?

GP: It took a little while. We've known about this locality for a number of years now. And originally, we discovered… or rather, my colleagues up in Tumbler Ridge discovered the dinosaur tracks, and they were fairly obvious. But it was only a number of years later, around 2017, when my colleague Charles Helm, who's the town doctor up in Tumbler Ridge, and another colleague, Rich McCray, realized that we were looking at the… something that was clearly not a dinosaur track. And the… the fact that we have no footprints beside the scratch marks and no tail drags tells us that the… the creature that made them was… was floating, not... not walking along the bottom.

DS: So, they're actually swimming as they're making these marks?

GP: They were swimming. We call them swim tracks, yeah. So, they were swimming in shallow water, and their claws were making contact with the sediment on the bottom.

DS: So, how big do you think these crocodiles were?

GP: [chuckle] That's an interesting question. The… the… there is a relationship amongst modern crocodiles and alligators and their kin where, broadly speaking, the width of the track, the distance between the claws, is proportional to the body length. So we were able to measure the distance between the claws on these trace fossils to get some idea that these creatures, to our astonishment, would probably something like nine to possibly even as much as 12 metres long, which is about twice as big as any very large crocodile today.

DS: It's massive. And… but you're saying these are not dinosaurs?

GP: These are not dinosaurs. No, these are reptiles that… in fact, crocodiles have been around a lot longer than dinosaurs. They're the great survivors. And, of course, we know they're still here today. So, we do also have dinosaur tracks associated. And this was something that made the site particularly interesting to me. I'm a sedimentary geologist, not a paleontologist, so I'm interested in... in the mud, in the sand that hosts the fossils. And we had very closely spaced surfaces that preserved records of swimming crocodiles and also walking dinosaurs. Things like Ankylosaurus, these kind of armoured, tank-like dinosaurs and ornithopods, which are the two-legged… walking on hind legs beasts. So these are associated with the crocodile. So we can see that the… the dinosaurs were walking on dry land, and the crocodiles were clearly swimming. So the inference was that the lake level must have gone up and down. Sometimes it was dry land and sometimes it was underwater.

DS: So why are these scratch marks so significant?

GP: Well, they provide the only evidence to date of very large crocodiles living up in northern British Columbia. There are two things. One is the geographic implications as we know from the fossil record down in the United States and in Mexico that we have a very large dinosaur… sorry, a large crocodile known as Deinosuchus. And that existed… the bones we have of something like 82, 83 million years old. Up in British Columbia, the rocks we're looking at are about 97 million years old, so something like 12,13 million years older. So we can say that there were very large crocodiles living in British Columbia, but also, you know, 10, 12, 13 million years older than anything we've known from south of the border. So perhaps one day palaeontological colleagues will… will find the bones for this thing. But so far, all we have of the traces, the tracks made by them

DS: And helped put this in the continuum of time because I think of the climate of northern British Columbia, and I'm thinking, that's not what we think of as crocodile territory.

GP: That's certainly true, yeah. You have to imagine a landscape very flat. The climate at the time was probably something average temperature, perhaps 15 to 20 degrees. This would have been a cool-to-warm temperate climate. And the incidence of frost, while possibly you may have had a cold… a cold night one day in the winter. Would have been very minimal cold weather, probably very little in the way of snow. Although the Rocky Mountains to the West, which were slowly rising, may have had snow-capped peaks on them. So it was… it was a temperate climate, very much milder than the…. the minus-40 you get up in Chetwynd in Tumbler Ridge today.

DS: Now you found these markings. We don't have body fossils or signs of the bones here in Canada. What do you think happened to these crocodiles?

GP: The problem with the preservation is that the groundwater and the soils was… was rather acidic because there was a great deal of vegetation rotting on the surface. And that produces acids. So any bones that… that fell to the surface and were buried would have been dissolved by these acidic soils. So we have a very poor record of bones but a very abundant record of tracks.

DS: How likely do you think it will be that someday you're going to find the bones of one of these giant crocodiles?

GP: Who knows? It's serendipitous. I mean, in all the years I spent looking at these things, I found two or three bone fragments. So if that's any… if that's any guide, then I'll need to be about 300 years old before I find… find [chuckling] any crocodile bones. You know, my… my work doesn't specifically focus on bones. I tend to be interested in the sediments themselves, but you know, I'm always on the lookout for fossils. So I think it would be relatively unlikely. The preservation conditions were rather poor. Down south, places like Drumheller, of course, where we have these abundant… abundant bones. The climate was different, the soils were more alkaline, and bones are, of course, beautifully preserved. As you know, you can see in the Tyrrell Museum down in Drumheller is full of beautiful bones from the south.

DS: Well, we'll now be looking out for crocodiles, albeit ones that are 97 million years old.

GP: [chuckling] Yes, indeed.

DS: Professor Plint, thank you very much for telling us about your… your findings.

GP: Thank you so much for your interest.

CH: Guy Plint is a professor of geology at the University of Western Ontario. We reached him in London.

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April 05, 2022 Episode Transcript

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