From the Ice to Baja,and Points Between
Spring is the season of thresholds — the moment between what was and what comes next. And as I sit down to write this, I'm aware of how many thresholds I've crossed in the last few months. Conversations that opened doors. Salt water on my face, both Pacific and Baja. The quiet honour of being seen by people I deeply respect. And, underneath it all, that steady drumbeat: keep moving, keep curious, keep connecting.
Here's what's been filling my heart lately. I hope some of it fills yours too.
🎬 PIONEERS OF THE POSSIBLE
A Brilliant Conversation with Angela Hawse
Last month on Pioneers of the Possible, I had the honour of sitting down — virtually — with someone who embodies the very title of our show. Angela Hawse is a mountaineer, guide, and leader of extraordinary calibre, and our conversation reminded me why I started this series in the first place: to pull back the curtain on what it takes to pursue a life of purpose in the outdoors, and to do so with integrity, humility, and joy.
If you haven't watched it yet, I hope you'll pour yourself something warm and settle in. Angela's words about leadership, risk, and the mountains we climb — literal and metaphorical — stayed with me for days.
WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH · MARCH 31ST
Join Us Live — Timber Framing with Jenna Pollard
We're closing out Women's History Month with someone who taught me to look at wood, sky, and structure with completely new eyes. On March 31st at 2:00 PM Eastern, Pioneers of the Possible welcomes master timber framer Jenna Pollard for a live conversation that I've been looking forward to for months.
I had the deep privilege of learning under Jenna at the Will Steger Center, where we worked together building the trusses for the Shackleton Hut replica — a project that was part honouring history, part practicing the ancient craft of joining wood without a single nail, part sheer hard work. There's something profound about building with your hands alongside someone who knows what she's doing. Jenna carries that knowledge with the quiet confidence of someone who has spent years refining her craft. I came away changed.
There's a kind of wisdom that lives in the hands. Jenna taught me that building something that lasts requires patience, precision — and trusting the wood to tell you where it wants to go.
To understand the world Jenna moves in, and the legacy of the place where we worked together, I encourage you to watch this beautiful 20-minute documentary on The Legacy Will Steger Built. It's the kind of film that makes you want to go outside and build something.
🌊 WILD WOMEN EXPEDITIONS · BAJA CALIFORNIA
Sea Lions, Sea Turtles, and the Salt-Dried Magic of Baja
I am still, weeks later, carrying the warmth of the Sea of Cortez in my chest. A group of us recently paddled through Baja with Wild Women Expeditions — camping on beaches where the stars felt close enough to rearrange, snorkelling through clear turquoise water alongside playful California sea lions and the unhurried grace of sea turtles, hauling ourselves onto kayaks at dawn with sand still in our hair and grinning like kids.
It was exactly what a trip like this should be: rooted in physical effort, steeped in beauty, and threaded through with the particular kind of friendship that forms when you're far from ordinary life. You share a tent. You read a map together. You push each other through a headwind. And somehow, between the paddling and the campfire conversations, you become more yourself.
The sea lion didn't care who we were or what we'd achieved. It just wanted to play. Sometimes that's the best reminder of all.
If something in you is tugging toward water, movement, and the company of brave women — follow it. The Baja trip is one of Wild Women's finest offerings, and it delivers exactly what it promises: adventure, connection, and the particular satisfaction of earning your sunsets.
🏅 THE EXPLORERS CLUB · CANADIAN CHAPTER
Honoured with the Stefansson Medal
I've been sitting with this one quietly for a while, turning it over in my mind like a smooth stone you find on a beach — surprised by its weight, by its warmth. I'm deeply moved to share that I have been named the 2025 recipient of the Stefansson Medal by The Explorers Club — Canadian Chapter. It is the Chapter's highest distinction.
Named for the remarkable polar explorer and ethnographer Vilhjalmur Stefansson, this medal recognizes outstanding contributions to exploration and field sciences. To be placed in the same breath as explorers who came before me — explorers who shaped what it means to seek, to document, to wonder — is an honour I don't take lightly.
"Through your distinguished career, you have exemplified the qualities this medal represents — courage, resilience, intellectual curiosity, and a profound commitment to advancing understanding of the polar regions. Your pioneering expeditions, leadership in citizen science, and global educational outreach have contributed meaningfully to both exploration and field-based knowledge." — The Explorers Club, Canadian Chapter
I am grateful — grateful to the Canadian Chapter for this recognition, grateful to every person who has walked alongside me on a frozen plateau, in a lecture hall, on a podcast, or in a canoe. None of this happens alone. The expeditions, the science, the storytelling — it's always, always a collective effort. This medal belongs to all of us who believe that exploration is not a relic of the past but a living, necessary practice for the present and future.
🎙 KEEP WALKING WITH ME · PODCAST
On Slowing Down in a World That Won't Stop
I recently had a conversation that felt less like an interview and more like a long walk with a thoughtful friend. The Keep Walking with Me podcast invited me to sit down and talk about something I care deeply about: not the expeditions themselves, but what happens to a human being when the noise falls away.
We talked about what nineteen months of overwintering in the Arctic teaches you about silence. About how extreme environments don't make you heroic — they make you honest. About the kind of courage that isn't about danger, but about choosing presence over performance.
But here's what I really want to say, to you, right now: turn off the news. Just for a little while. Step outside your door — wherever that door opens — and look at something you've never looked at carefully before. Travel somewhere new, even if 'somewhere new' is just a different trail, a different street, a different conversation. Use your beginner mind — that open, curious, undefended way of seeing that children have and that adults forget they're allowed to use.
We are all so busy consuming the world that we forget to inhabit it. Your backyard, your neighbourhood, the faces of people you pass — they are all worthy of your full attention.
If you need a companion for a walk, a commute, or a quiet morning — I hope this conversation keeps you company.
✈️ COMING SOON · WILD WOMEN EXPEDITIONS
Follow the Pull: Scotland, the Faroe Islands & Iceland
The north is calling again. If Baja lit something in you — or if you've been watching my adventures from your couch and feeling the first whisper of 'what if I did that' — I want to invite you to something truly extraordinary.
Wild Women Expeditions is heading to the North Atlantic: Scotland, the Faroe Islands, and Iceland. Think ancient Viking landscapes. Dramatic sea cliffs. Thermal pools. Puffin colonies. Waterfalls that fall sideways in the wind. The kind of raw, weathered beauty that reminds you the Earth is still wild and still remarkable.
• Walk ancient paths through the Scottish Highlands. Explore the dramatic, windswept Faroe Islands.
• Soak in Iceland's geothermal wonders under the midnight sun. Travel in a small group of adventurous, curious women.
• Be guided by the same team that makes Wild Women trips feel like coming home
I'm a firm believer that we are all shaped by the places we go, the people we travel with, and the moments we let ourselves be genuinely moved. This trip has all of that in spades. Don't wait too long — trips like this fill quietly, and then suddenly they're gone.
→ Register now — North Atlantic Saga
Until the next dispatch — keep moving, keep curious.
With gratitude,
Sunniva xx
