Why this conservationist is lauding Japan's return to commercial whaling

Guests: Paul Watson, Astrid Fuchs

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: Yoshihide Suga Japan's chief cabinet secretary - in translation - announcing yesterday that Japan will resume the commercial fishing of whales next summer. Japan also announced it was withdrawing from the International Whaling Commission - the IWC - which put a moratorium on commercial whaling back in the 1980s. Though the move was long expected, it is worrying to whale advocates and marine scientists who fear the Japanese government's decision may have a domino effect on the other 89 members of the commission. Paul Watson has been watching Japan's latest maneuvers. He is the founder and executive director of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. His controversial no holds barred confrontations with whaling vessels on the high seas have made him both an idol and an outlaw in the environmental movement, and so his views on the latest Japanese move may surprise you. Paul Watson joins us from Woodstock, Vermont. Hello.

PAUL WATSON: Hi, good morning.

PC: What do you think of Japan's decision to pull out of the IWC, the International Whaling Commission?

PAUL WATSON: Well it's not surprising. It's a very positive development. The Japanese have been able to [unintelligible] conservation efforts by the IWC for a few decades, now. With this move the IWC would be able to establish the South Atlantic whale sanctuary which Japan has blocked. Also they're not resuming commercial whaling. They never stopped. So they've been killing whales in the North Pacific and in the Southern Ocean. But this move means they'll have to withdraw from the Southern Ocean because they can't do their so-called research whaling, which is bogus anyway, but they can't do it in the whale sanctuary of the Southern Ocean. So they will be withdrawing. And so what this move really means is that there will be no whaling in the entire southern hemisphere which is a very good development.

PC: Okay, Paul Watson. So as an environmentalist, it seems a little counter-intuitive coming from you for a person who wants to save whales. So what you're saying is that this is a good move. I think you called it positive. So explain that a little bit more, Japan's decision to resume commercial whaling in its own waters but it's pulling out of the Antarctic waters as I understand it.

PAUL WATSON: Well our objective has been to protect the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. This will be realised with this move. Now, Japan is not going to resume whaling in their waters. They've always done it. So nothing has changed there.

PC: Meaning what? That they've defied their agreement under the IWC in its own waters.

PAUL WATSON: Yes but they've been doing that for 30 years. So nothing has changed. They killed whales last year, the year before. So again, they just join Iceland and Norway in opposing the IWC's law on the moratorium on commercial whaling. So they'll be joining those two countries. All three countries will be rogue whaling nations, much easier to deal with them when they're operating under some sort of guise of research whaling which is what Japan has been doing.

PC: And why do you think Japan has done this?

PAUL WATSON: I think it really comes down to expense. They have to retire the Nisshin Maru, their big factory ship. That's going to cost about 500 million. There's a lot of opposition in Japan against building that boat and they need that to go down to the Southern Ocean. They don't need it to do coastal whaling. The other thing is they've to spend millions and millions of dollars every year to stop Sea Shepherd from intervening by using military grade surveillance tactics, real time surveillance. That's expensive and they know that if they don't use that then we'll be able to interfere with them. So I think it really comes down to economics. The reason that whaling continues, so there's no money in it, it hasn't made money for years. There's thousands of tonnes of whale meat in stock and refrigerated warehouses in Japan, less than 1 percent of the Japanese people actually eat it. But the reason it continues is because Prime Minister Abe is from a whaling district. The board of directors of the company owned by the Japanese government are all former politicians who get six figure salaries and like not to lose those. And the union which supplies the crew for the whaling ships is a Yakuza controlled union, which has a lot of power with the government. So it's all political it's got nothing to do with economics but there is a lot of controversy in Japan about the amount of money that this is costing.

PC: I want to talk to you a little bit more about what Japan has been doing for the last three decades, because in 1986 there was the international moratorium on commercial whaling. Japan signed on to the IWC and you say, over the last number of years, despite signing onto that, it has been going into the Antarctic waters and getting whales anyway under - and I think you said - the guise of research. So explain that to me.

PAUL WATSON: Well they say that what they're doing is research whaling which technically would be allowed in the Southern Ocean whale sanctuary. But in 2014 the International Court of Justice ruled that that was bogus that it wasn't research whaling. For a year they quit that then they went back in, in blatant defiance of the International Court of Justice and the IWC. So they both have been doing their so-called scientific research whaling in the North Pacific. So all that has changed is that the whaling in the North Pacific continues with now it is what it is: commercial whaling, what it always has been. But the positive development: no more whaling in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary.

PC: Okay I want to bring in another guest. Astrid Fuchs is the program lead at Whale and Dolphin Conservation. It is a wildlife charity and she's in Munich today. Hello to you.

ASTRID FUCHS: Good morning. Thanks for having me.

PC: Thanks for being with us. Where do you stand on Japan's move to pull out of the IWC?

ASTRID FUCHS: Well I can certainly see the positive side of all this just mentioned which is the Southern Ocean whaling will cease, and that's certainly a positive move. But what we are really concerned about is just the precedent setting. So we have a country part of an international convention and the majority of that convention has been in opposition to what Japan wants to do, which is lifting whaling moratorium and now with Japan is doing is just leaving this convention going it alone. And we're just very worried that other countries might follow that lead by Japan. We're also worried because it is yet unknown how many whales Japan is intending to take. They say they want to take Minke [unintelligible] whales in the future next July onwards. But we don't know anything about numbers and if they are looking at matching the numbers they are losing in the Arctic Ocean now over just over 300 whales. And they are looking to take those whales in. That might be a real problem for some populations. And of course it won't be under any control so we won't really know what they are taking.

PC: Which countries do you think might follow in Japan's footsteps? Who are you worried about?

ASTRID FUCHS: Well particularly South Korea. South Korea still has a whale meat market. It's not allowed to go whaling in South Korea but [unintelligible] Minke whales mainly can be sold on the open market, and there is actually some demand there. They have expressed interest in the past of resuming commercial whaling and we were very very worried that if Japan really go slow with this and start whaling in its own waters under officially commercial claims, then they might actually follow that lead.

PC: Paul Watson, what do you say to that, where one country goes another follows?

PAUL WATSON: Well, first of all, Japan is not setting a precedent. The precedent has been set by Iceland and Norway. They've been blatantly killing whales for commercial purposes for the last 30 years and Japan is simply joined their ranks. By blatantly killing whales for commercial purposes, they come under pressure from governments like the United States government for instance. Under the US Department of Commerce regulations, the Packwood magnificently Amendment, any nation that defies the IWC can have their certain products embargoed. And that's where we have to focus right now, is to getting those products embargoed in Norway, Iceland and Japan and South Korea, if we want to go that way. I think South Korea is a little easier to deal with on that level. But I have to see that this is very positive. I mean no whaling in the entire Southern Hemisphere to me is a major step.

PC: And so, Astrid Fuchs, what do you mean Paul saying look it is good to work is going to save whales in the Antarctic waters what do you say to that.

ASTRID FUCHS: That's certainly true. No debate about that but we're just worried what it means for whales. Now specifically in the waters around Japan they have very vulnerable Minke whale population, the so-called J Stock which is under threat of extinction. And the whalers can't tell for example if they're taking Minke whales from that stock or if it's just other Minke whales. So we might see populations go apart of course from the actual cruelty and the impact it has on the ocean ecosystem. And if you have a best case scenario and if you know the market is now actually just left by the government, if there was subsidies for whaling in Japan, then we might actually see demand dwindling and dwindling. And you know it might not be profitable anymore. But we don't know Japan's plans yet they might keep pumping money into that market because the stakeholders will ask them to step in now and they are abandoning the Southern Ocean. And we don't know what effect that might have. Also new marketing strategies could come into place. At the moment it's just a big unknown. Certainly there is a best case scenario, but just looking how things have gone in the past with Japan we're really concerned at the moment.

PC: And as Paul Watson has explained and other critics have said, look the IWC has long been ineffective and toothless anyway, and that countries are flouting the moratorium as Japan has been doing for a number of years. So what do you see is the value of the IWC?

ASTRID FUCHS: Well so far it has really been-- it has been pretty hard to explain to people. I think the biggest success that we had is that the moratorium is still in place, though it has those loopholes. No doubt about that. But it has saved the lives of a lot of whales over the last decade. Japan always wanted to lift it. They never wanted it in the first place. The recovery we have seen in some populations is really partly due to that moratorium. And of course now we have a situation actually where the majority of countries just wants to see this zero quota stay in place indefinitely. And that's of course the hope. There certainly, at least was, an international mechanism to work with countries. If we have rogue whaling nations now we don't have any mechanism of holding them to account especially if Japan sticks to their [unintelligible] which we don't know yet, but if they all do that it will be harder for countries to engage. We will certainly see less opposition from Australia and New Zealand for example once they leave Antarctica. European Union has just made a million dollar trade deal with Japan. So the question is how eager countries will be to actually put pressure on Japan now.

PC: Paul Watson.

PAUL WATSON: Well we've seen a retreat from the pelagic whaling by Japan and whaling now exists only in the economic zones of Norway, Iceland and Japan. And we will continue to oppose that. We've been opposing Norwegian and Icelandic whaling for many years. We were there last summer will be confronting them again this coming year. So one of the reasons that Japan is doing this is that, at the last International Whaling Commission meeting, the IWC made it very clear that they are never going to entertain the idea of supporting commercial whaling. And that pretty much shut the door on Japan and that's why they are leaving. So I think it's the combination of they can't get their way at the IWC and the fact that it's becoming enormously expensive to take whales in the Southern Ocean. But I have to say again the fact is they're not resuming commercial whaling. Nothing has changed in that regard. They've always been commercial whaling.

PC: And Japanese officials say although the numbers have gone down, in terms of the number of people eating whales and how many whales are killed for meat, that it is part of their culture and diet. The same exemption exists for Indigenous people, that they are exempt from the whaling moratorium. How much do you think that played into the decision by Japanese officials, Paul Watson?

PAUL WATSON: They use it as an excuse, but let's take a look at the reality. In Japan the Ainu people, the Aboriginal people of Japan, were whalers. They are prohibited from whaling by the Japanese government. So that is their indigenous whaling. They don't allow it. If you want to use indigenous or cultural rights I think the United States probably has more of a cultural affinity for whaling than probably any other country but you know that's been long given up. So I think that's a bogus argument to say it's cultural. The first whaling station that was established in Japan was in 1911 by Norway, and it was General Douglas MacArthur who set up the modern day whaling fleet to go down to the Southern Ocean. So it has nothing to do with traditional culture. There's about three villages in Japan that kill whales for hundreds of years but that doesn't represent the nation of Japan.

PC: As you say, Paul Watson, from where you stand, this just makes Japan pull out of the Southern Ocean out of the Antarctic waters because it creates a whale sanctuary. I'm just wondering though, don't whales travel to other parts of the world where they would be endangered?

PAUL WATSON: Well the whales in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary do travel to Australia or to the South Pacific. They won't be crossing into the northern hemisphere. So that's what I mean that would be a complete protection of the whales in the southern hemisphere.

PC: In other words, they don't go into Japanese waters.

PAUL WATSON: Non those whales do not.

PC: And so to what extent does that make it easier for Japan, easier to regulate and police Japan's whaling industry if they're out of the Southern Ocean?

PAUL WATSON: Well it's going to be easier for Japan because they don't have to have that very expensive factory ship to send down there and a fleet of harpoon vessels that can be done from land. But it's also easier for us to oppose it because right now we're dealing with criminals or poachers, and that's a lot easier to deal with than hiding behind the mask that we're doing scientific research which they will no longer be able to do.

PC: Astrid Fuchs, will it be easier to regulate and [unintelligible] Japan's whaling industry if they're out of the Southern Ocean?

ASTRID FUCHS: Do you mean Japan or outside countries?

PC: Well for other countries.

ASTRID FUCHS: No I doubt that. Exactly for the same thing I said earlier. Because countries will say it's the sovereign waters of Japan now. And I think they will try to engage of course. I mean we've already heard opposition from Australia to this move and from the UK. But it will be very difficult for countries to actually evaluate what Japan's doing. Of course, like Paul said, in the past it was commercial whaling just in the guise of science. And also there were a lot of [unintelligible] and species were cought that they shouldn't have been catching. And I'm afraid we'll see that increasingly if they really restock raining in the way they are planning to, which is still a major concern in terms of conservation.

PAUL WATSON: And there is also an organized boycott of the Olympics and other economic pressure that has been and will be applied.

PC: What stands out for me was that, at the end of the day, your end goal is the same to protect and save whales. But you have distinctly different approaches to doing that. So let me ask each of you, Paul Watson, what more should the international community be doing to protect whales?

PAUL WATSON: Well you know the strength of any movement is in diversity. So I do appreciate that diversity. I think what we really need to do is get countries like the United States, especially, which has very strong laws in this regard, to implement those laws. And we will continue our interventions whether it be in Norwegian Icelandic or Japanese waters as much as we possibly can. And we've been very effective in the past in doing so.

PC: Astrid Fuchs what do you think that the global community should be doing? What more should we be doing to protect whales?

ASTRID FUCHS: I completely agree that especially our so-called conservation minded countries like European countries, The US and so on, should engage with Japan now and actually use the diplomatic and economic pressure they can apply, to change decisions made by Japan and the policy on whaling. We're also working closely with Japan. We seek growing opposition to whaling there. So I think at the end of the day, especially if this is going to be it much more of a local issue in Japan, in terms of the regions where they go whaling, we really has to work with the people there too grow the seed of opposition to whaling.

PC: Paul Watson, I'm wondering about Sea Shepherd because it's come under scrutiny for some of the extreme actions that you've undertaken in trying to save whales. You've been accused of putting other people's lives at risk. Are you and your organisation going to continue using aggressive protest to stop whaling?

PAUL WATSON: Well that's what we're all about, it is controversial. I'm proud of the fact that in our entire 41 year history we've never caused an injury or sustained an injury, and we will continue to do that. But I don't look on ourselves as being extremists or radical. What we're doing is very conservative; trying to protect the world's whales. I don't see how you can be any more conservative than that.

PC: And Astrid Fuchs what do you do now to put keep the pressure on Japan?

ASTRID FUCHS: Well we will now certainly engage, after Christmas break, with the countries we're working, with the groups in Japan to see what's the best way to tackle this. There's also an Eagle sight. We'll have to look at the unconventional law of the sea and see what Japan really intends to do. Because at the end of the day the IWC still convention recognised by the UN as the one to deal with management of whales and whaling. So there are legal questions left around this move by Japan and we will have a close look at that as well.

PC: Astrid Fuchs and Paul Watson thank you very much to both of you for your time.

ASTRID FUCHS: Thank you, Piya.

PAUL WATSON: Thank you.

PC: Paul Watson is the founder and executive director of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. He was in Woodstock, Vermont. Astrid Fuchs is the program lead at Whale and Dolphin Conservation. We reached her in Munich. By the way, we did ask for comment from the Japanese embassy in Canada and from the International Whaling Commission. We have not heard back from either of them.

Not just a number: One asylum seeker's journey from Afghanistan to Canada

Guest: Mohammad Amin Sadiqi

PC: Hi I'm Piya Chattopadhyay sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Thme]

PC: Still to come. The world traveling author of Monty Python fame, Michael Palin, dives deep into the legend of the Franklin Expedition. You'll hear from Michael Palin in half an hour. But first why some migrants choose to cross into Canada illegally?

SOUNDCLIP

IMMIGRATION OFFICER: Do you know that there is a legal port, not three kilometers from here where you can enter the country, legally, through the channels that are established. Yes. This is not a legal port of entry. This is an illegal point. This is not a way to come in.

MIGRANTS: Yes we know.

IMMIGRATION OFFICER: Is there reason why you're choosing here as opposed to try to go through the channels like everybody else does.

MIGRANTS: No we want to go through this one right here.

IMMIGRATION OFFICER: Okay. So you're aware that by crossing here you're committing an illegal act.

MIGRANTS: Yes, ma'am.

IMMIGRATION OFFICER: Are you sure you want the beginning of your life in Canada to start with an illegal act?

MIGRANTS: Yes. We want a future in Canada, that's why we are here.

PC: Well that's the sound of an RCMP officer talking to asylum seekers last year at Roxham Road on the border between Quebec and New York state. Around 38,000 people have entered Canada through illegal border crossing since 2017. The issue has become a hot button topic in Canadian politics, especially since the parliamentary budget officer put the total cost of this asylum claims process at more than 763 million dollars for this year and next. It is far more than the 173 million dollars the federal Liberal government had budgeted. But of course behind each border crossing is an individual story and the controversy has made the label of 'illegal' a weighty one for each person who crosses and Mohammad Amin Sadiqi knows what that can mean better than most. He came to Canada from Afghanistan via the United States on July 29th of this year but it was not his first time making an irregular crossing. Mohammad Amin Sadiqi joins us from Ottawa. Hello.

MOHAMMAD AMIN SADIQI: Hi, Piya.

PC: What does that bring back for you, hearing the sound of a police officer speaking to migrants crossing at rock some road?

MOHAMMAD AMIN SADIQI: Well it's kind of mind the day that I entered Canada in that way and that situation. The police officer told me that it's not the regular port of entry. I'm not sure it's illegal or irregular but I remember that and then I told him that yes I know that but you have to make these crossing anyway.

PC: I'm glad you brought up the terms illegal and irregular because they are highly debated in our country. Tell me about when you crossed. How did that work for you?

MOHAMMAD AMIN SADIQI: Well before that I did some search on the internet and found this way. The reason that they selected because there was police officer right at the border. I didn't want to sneak in a country out like anyone watching me or like going to a country without like the initial search. So I think that this was like the best choice for me. I just went there and the police officer, the border police were there and I told him that the reason I don't feel safe in my country. And I want to seek asylum in Canada.

PC: So the question that many people are asking is why didn't you just go to the traditional border points? You know the ones where we drive our cars through to go to the United States or come from the United States. Why not do that?

MOHAMMAD AMIN SADIQI: Well again the famous Google told me if you do that I'll be rejected back to the United States, And why I didn't do it in the United States because I didn't feel that the United States provide the right kind of support for a person like me. There was cases of deportations back from U.S. to Afghanistan and also the cases that takes years and years to be solved any kind of status.

PC: And so when you step foot over the border, from the United States to Canada, and you knew that you would most likely be approached by a police officer an RCMP officer. What were you feeling at that time?

MOHAMMAD AMIN SADIQI: Well to be honest I was mostly feeling about why I do this, about my own story, about my background and above all about my kids. You know I was talking to him like half an hour before. They were asking me where I was going. When would we meet each other next. And I didn't have any answer for them. My mind was all upset about my own struggle, and about my own family, and about this unfortunate situation that I was in.

PC: Were you scared when he did it?

MOHAMMAD AMIN SADIQI: Sort of. Yes. Yes. Scared, excited, frustrated, desperate.

PC: So let's talk about your backstory and your journey. Why did you leave Afghanistan and come to Canada?

MOHAMMAD AMIN SADIQI: Well Afghanistan has never been a safe country, it has been in war for decades, about 40 years now. It's older than me actually. But like past couple of years the security situation came in a new phase. And people like me are targeted because of religion and because of their ethnicity. And ISIS came to Afghanistan like a couple of years and they publicly announced that they would target Hazaras, which we are, and they would target Shiites.

PC: Which you also are.

MOHAMMAD AMIN SADIQI: Exactly. I'm a double minority in that country and we've been attacked in our mosque, we have been attacked in our cultural ceremonies and everywhere. I didn't feel safe when I was going to any public gathering with my friends and with my family. So that was the reason that, "Okay, let's stop it and just go somewhere to save my life".

PC: And then why did you come through the United States instead of coming to Canada directly from overseas?

MOHAMMAD AMIN SADIQI: I wish that was the opportunity but I didn't have that luxury of decisions and making it legally to Canada. I had applied for the visa and it was rejected. So there was no other kind of way for me to do that. Some people actually told me , 'because you have a master's degree, you speak the language well you could have applied for like a skilled migration and those sort of things'. But that's a good thing on the paper, but the reality is that for people like me coming from Afghanistan or similar countries it is not easy to make those kind of applications. True that you have those kind of kills and on paper but because we're coming from those countries it would be very very difficult. I don't know any of my friends or any people in my situation who have like the same or better qualifications than I do who have tried and they've never succeeded to that.

PC: And just to be clear you entered the United States legally, yes?

MOHAMMAD AMIN SADIQI: That's right. I had a visa to come to the U.S.

PC: And I bring that up because I want to talk about other borders that you have crossed, because coming to Canada wasn't your first time of crossing an international border. It wasn't also your first time entering a country illegally. Why did your family flee Afghanistan the very first time and where did you go?

MOHAMMAD AMIN SADIQI: Oh it was early 1990s when the civil war broke out in Afghanistan after the Soviet backed regime collapsed in Afghanistan. Different fighting partners entered Kabul and they were divided in ethnic lines and they started fighting each other in order to control power. And there was nothing left for us to stay. And it was fighting in our streets, the neighbors were attacking the neighbors. You know all the ethnic lines. So my family decided to leave the country and go to Iran. There was no Visa. There was no embassy because everything was shut down in those moments. So we had to walk, we had to like for days until we could we could make it past the border to Iran.

PC: You were how old at the time?

MOHAMMAD AMIN SADIQI: I was 11. I was a kid.

PC: A child.

MOHAMMAD AMIN SADIQI: I was a kid yes. I had just finished grade four in my country in Afghanistan when everything stopped and I was really hoping to continue my education when I was in Iran. But it didn't happen.

PC: When did you realize what it meant for you - you were 11, when did you realize what it meant for you that you were in a country illegally?

MOHAMMAD AMIN SADIQI: Well in that time in that age I didn't know these terms, legal or illegal or all these political debate. The day that I realized that was the day that I forced my mom to take me to a nearby school to register me. They knew that it was not possible. But I didn't believe that. So I forced my mother and both of us went to the nearby school.

PC: In Iran.

MOHAMMAD AMIN SADIQI: In Iran yes in Iran after like a month or so that we were in the country. We went to the administration office and we talked. And me and my mom told them that I want my kid to be able to register to school. When they realize that we don't have a status, they started saying nasty words, you know they insulted us, and they said we shouldn't ever again come to school. We should be appreciated that our life is safe in that country and education is a luxury for people like us. In that day, I realized that we are different. We as Afghan, we are the people from the other side of the border. We are labelled illegal and that illegality meant being deprived from education, on top of other civil rights that we didn't have.

PC: So what happened to your education?

MOHAMMAD AMIN SADIQI: Well not nothing. I was not allowed to go to school and I had to start working you know to support my family. But I didn't believe that. I didn't want to accept that as reality. True that everyone like the official policy of that country labels us illegal and deprived from education on other things, but that didn't seem right to me. Know that didn't seem like just so I decided not accept it and to fight it. How could I fight? You know by learning by myself, by self-teaching. You know by dropping book here and there and reading and trying to like self-educate myself and that's the way that I did.

PC: You homeschooled yourself, really is what you're saying?

MOHAMMAD AMIN SADIQI: I did like in the evenings. I didn't just sit down and homeschooled myself. I was like working full time all that 13 years that I spent in Iran, because we had to pay a rent because we had to feed ourselves. There was no support from other places for us.

PC: When were you finally able to go back to school?

MOHAMMAD AMIN SADIQI: After 17 years.

PC: So you were 28 at the time?

MOHAMMAD AMIN SADIQI: I was 28 when I made my step to the American University in Afghanistan for my bachelor's degree. I never forget that day and that was one of the very happy days of life that I'll never forget.

PC: I bet you self-taught yourself well enough to get into university and get a degree.

MOHAMMAD AMIN SADIQI: Yup yup that's it.

PC: So were people around you supportive of your dream to go to university, to get education?

MOHAMMAD AMIN SADIQI: Not really because I was encircled by people like me you know back in Iran my friends were most of those people you know who were deprived from school and they accepted that and they're just doing some labor works or not just passing the time like watching movies like the end of the day you know playing cards whatever that they could that be cannot do. It basically said if they accepted the fact that they just believed that they couldn't do anything because of their situation but they never accept that cost me a lot of things and I didn't have that much fun. I didn't have that much like the creation of the sort of things most of the time in my spare time I was doing studying. I was reading books with the hope that one day you will pay off.

PC: What made you different? Like what made you say, "you know what I'm not accepting no education"?

MOHAMMAD AMIN SADIQI: I don't know exactly what that was. It was a kind of self-motivations that they had. Partly because in the first 40 years that I was at school back in Kabul, I was very good in my studies. I was A student in all subjects and I was receiving a lot of in college men from my teachers and from my friends. I was helping my classmates to learn. So those were the time that I was feeling different. Not that I was kind of feeling gifted and privileged compared to others. And I made a very good relation with education. You know I found education is something that was really good that and in that way I could get respect and I could be like distinguished based on my achievements. So maybe that was like the kind of internal motivations that I developed from time. And because I was able to read and write, so that was I think key for self-educating myself when I was in Iran.

PC: What degrees did you finally end up getting and what work did you end up doing?

MOHAMMAD AMIN SADIQI: When I came back to Afghanistan in 2004 and I was 25, I had two objectives. First you know to have education and also first - because both of them were really critical for me - to get a job to support my family. So I got a job with international organizations and after three years I also made my way as evening student because I was a full time employee at the time to the American University.

PC: What degree?

MOHAMMAD AMIN SADIQI: Bachelor's degree in Political Science and Public Administration and I graduated in 2012.

PC: And then after that?

MOHAMMAD AMIN SADIQI: After that same year I participated to the Fulbright competition and I got a Fulbright scholarship that same year for my Master's study. So in 2013 I came to the U.S. to New York University and I started my master's studies in media culture and communication.

PC: Amin Sadiqi, I know I've asked you this before but let me just ask you it again at this point in our conversation right. With all that education and experience why didn't you apply to come to Canada as an economic immigrant? You fit all the requirements, I think.

MOHAMMAD AMIN SADIQI: That's true. I totally agree with you. But for people like me that was not possible. You know what I'm saying? Like many of my friends have tried that and I know no one in Afghanistan who could come to Canada this way. I'm not claiming that is for everyone because I'm saying for people that they knew. And I knew a lot of people who are educated, who have master's and Ph.D. from the U.S. and other countries, but they couldn't make their way through this. Maybe you can as Canada Statistics and ask you about this.

PC: I will tell you that in just a moment but I want to hear your story.

MOHAMMAD AMIN SADIQI: But that was the thing you know. It was not possible for people from those countries from that background to come as economic migrant.

PC: So let me tell you some of the statistics we got from Citizenship and Immigration. It says, in the last five years, 210 economic immigrants have been accepted from Afghanistan. Only 15 of the 3,455 people from Afghanistan accepted to be permanent residents in Canada and 2017 were economic immigrants. So I just want to say that to put the numbers on what the Department of Citizenship and Immigration have given us.

MOHAMMAD AMIN SADIQI: Right. I didn't claim that I know all the information about Afghanistan but I told what I knew from my friends and people that they knew.

PC: Absolutely fine. So as you know illegal border crossings have become a political flashpoint in Canada and many many other countries around the world. Even the word is contentious and many use the word irregular, I imagine the term illegal has a different meaning for you in Canada than it did in Iran. So what has that term meant for you here in our country?

MOHAMMAD AMIN SADIQI: Well I'm quite new and I'm kind of facing what that term means to me. Yeah I agree with you that a little bit different. For example in Iran that term meant that I didn't have any basic civil rights. But here I don't have to worry about that and I really appreciate that. But again it's a lot of challenges for me. Like the term legality, you know people being illegal in a country that is based on law, I think that has a huge consequences.

PC: It has a stigma.

MOHAMMAD AMIN SADIQI: Exactly it has a stigma. Exactly you know how do you want to live like in a country that you're already stigmatized. So that's exactly I think it's not right because we cannot do a group of people categorically, random and label them as illegal. We should know the reasons why they made these choices. Again like categorically like labeling any groups because we should understand the story behind each person.

PC: And that's why we're talking with you today to hear your story. That all said, the political debate has been hot and in parliament as well. And I would just want to play a bit of tape. This is conservative party leader Andrew Scheer speaking earlier this month calling Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for what he sees as flaws in the Prime Minister's handling of this file.

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He claims that Canada's immigration system should be compassionate and fair. There's nothing fair about crossing through an illegal border crossing from a safe part of upstate New York, into Canada, jumping the queue, skipping the line and forcing others to wait longer because more and more resources have to go to those coming into Canada illegally. Instead of just adding up the cost, will they finally do something to stop the crossings themselves?

PC: Mohammed Amin Sidiqi what would you like to tell Canadians about what you've just heard and why you came to Canada this way?

MOHAMMAD AMIN SADIQI: Well no I agree. I see the point that if just we label people as queue jumper, as people who opportunist, as people who come here don't want to be a burden on society and taxpayer. You know these are big claims, big arguments and I think lots of people who believe in that way. But as I said we shouldn't forget the other side of story. And I think that is the problem here that we just see those people as numbers, as queue jumpers. But we don't concentrate. We don't spend enough time. We don't debate enough that why they come here. If you are illegal, then why Canada has signed an international convention on refugee? You know there are laws within Canada and also their laws internationally that Canada is a signatory to it. So I think in that way, even like being illegal is something as you said is debatable. I personally don't agree that it is very illegal. This is the way that people claim here that would be illegal.

PC: There are many people who will write to me and say, "How dare you use the word illegal and not irregular?" And that is a contentious debate and one that we have had at this organization and we have all the rules and stuff that I'm following at this point. So there we go.

MOHAMMAD AMIN SADIQI: I understand. My point was that yes I used my legal right, I used my lawful right to seek asylum when I felt my life was in danger in my own country.

PC: I think a lot of people are curious. You've been here about you know not even six months. What does your life look like? Like as someone who's - and we'll talk about your asylum claim in just a minute - but what are you doing in the meantime? What can you do?

MOHAMMAD AMIN SADIQI: Well that's a good question. You talk like about my qualifications that I can be a perfect match for skilled migrant but I'm here with all my skilled you know, with my qualifications. I am applying for jobs and I don't receive any positive response.

PC: Can you legally work in Canada right now?

MOHAMMAD AMIN SADIQI: I do. Yes yes I have work authorization. I'm applying for different jobs. Even the jobs that I feel over qualified for that, but I don't receive any response. And the same time I'm doing some voluntary works because I believe that that's a contribution to the society. That's the way that I should know people, should know the culture of working and I hope that that helps me to find a job. So I don't want to sit in the corner, as some people claim, and be a burden, but I want to go and be an active society member. And I'm also like taking French class because I know if I want to be in the society I need to know both official languages of the country.

PC: Here you are again, getting education again.

MOHAMMAD AMIN SADIQI: Yes. I have to get it. I'm fighting for it.

PC: And so where do things stand now with your asylum application in Canada?

MOHAMMAD AMIN SADIQI: I'm technically a refugee claimant. So I submit that the day that I enter to Canada and steel I'm waiting for a hearing date.

PC: And you have no idea how long that might take. No.

MOHAMMAD AMIN SADIQI: And this is you know the kind of price that you pay as illegal, and some people say the queue jumper and the sort of things. But, no, we have to spend a lot of time with uncertainty, leaving our family and our kids behind. And this is a big price. I wouldn't do that if I had other choices, if my country were safe, if I could live there. I'm not here to use any kind of resources, whatever. I just came here because I had to. Even it was not the decision to come to Canada a year ago, I would say.

PC: You mentioned that your family is still not with you in Canada. You have sons. Yes?

MOHAMMAD AMIN SADIQI: I do have three sons yes.

PC: And a wife?

MOHAMMAD AMIN SADIQI: Yes of course.

PC: Okay. Some people do some people don't. So where are they all now?

MOHAMMAD AMIN SADIQI: They're all in Kabul, Afghanistan.

PC: And how old are they?

MOHAMMAD AMIN SADIQI: My older kid is 11. The second is seven. The third one is five. Right this morning before coming to studio, I was talking to my kids and they were telling me, "Dad, when can we meet? When we come to Canada or when you come to Afghanistan?" I said, "Well I don't know". I don't know, really. I don't know and I don't have any answer for them. They just each time each day that I talk you know they just asking the same question again.

PC: Here's the thing, your eldest son is 11, right?

MOHAMMAD AMIN SADIQI: Yes.

PC: That is the exact age when your family first fled, took refuge, in Iran.

MOHAMMAD AMIN SADIQI: That's exactly right.

PC: Not that you can't talk to your other children about this but you can firmly place your feet in your eldest son shoes in terms of what's going on. What do you say to him when you talk to him about your situation? And why he's there? Why you're here? Why you don't have answers for him? Why you can't tell him what's going to happen next?

MOHAMMAD AMIN SADIQI: Well I share some of my feelings but they don't want to over burden him with a lot of facts.

PC: He is a kid.

MOHAMMAD AMIN SADIQI: He's a kid yes, but I do want to moderate him enough as far as I can to get educated, to learn English, to be prepared for the life in Canada. Because education is key for us, for any people who come newly to Canada. They have to prove their skills, with the other ability, the language skills and whatever they can. I told him that this is a golden opportunity for your to do your school subjects well and to learn English well. And when you come here, there you go. You know everything is here for you to to be a successful society member.

PC: So you when you say, "when you come here", that's your hope that you will be able to stay in Canada that your family will be able to join you at some point.

MOHAMMAD AMIN SADIQI: That's my hope.

PC: Thank you very much.

MOHAMMAD AMIN SADIQI: Thank you for having me today.

PC: Mohammad Amin Sadiqi worked in the humanitarian sector in Afghanistan and is a refugee as well as an education activist. He crossed from the United States into Canada in July. And I spoke to him when he was in Ottawa. Well to add your voice to anything you hear on The Current we do like to hear from you. There are many ways you can get in touch. You can tweet us @TheCurrentCBC. You can post on Facebook book by going to Facebook.com/cbcthecurrent. You can also e-mail us by going to our Web site that is cbc.ca/thecurrent And once you're there you can click on the Contact Us link, once you're there you can check out pictures links, download the podcast. You can find it all at cbc.ca/thecurrent. All right. Well coming up Monty Python Michael Palin tells us the chilling story of the deadly arctic end of the Erebus and the terror. I'm Piya Chattopadhyay sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti. You're listening to The Current. And we're back in just a moment.

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Guest: Michael Palin

[clip] [/clip]

PC: I'm Piya Chattopadhyay, sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti, and you're listening to The Current.

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VOICE: And now for something completely different.

[Song: 'Northwest Passage' by Stan Rogers].

PC: The late great Stan Rogers with the ode to the mystery of the Franklin Expedition in his classic, Northwest Passage. Two ships, the Erebus and the Terror carried 134 officers and crew into the Northwest Passage in 1845. They never returned. Since then, scattered clues about the disaster have surfaced across the Arctic, but the ships were lost until a discovery in 2014. Prime Minister Stephen Harper rose in Parliament to share the news.

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VOICE: I'm delighted to confirm that we have identified ship from the Franklin expedition has been found. It is in fact the HMS Erebus.

PC: The saga of Sir John Franklin continues to be a source of fascination for people right around the world, including, the writer and world traveller, Michael Palin. Of course, Michael Palin is probably best known as one of the founding members of the iconic British comedy troupe, Monty Python, but he's also a prolific writer, and a former president of the Royal Geographic Society. His latest book is titled, Erebus: One Ship, Two Epic Voyages and the Greatest Naval Mystery of All Time. And Michael Palin sat down with Anna Maria Tremonti in October to talk about his own search for the legendary lost ship.

AMT: Michael Palin is with me in Toronto. Hello and welcome.

MICHAEL PALIN: Thank you. Nice to be here.

AMT: The Stan Rogers song, when you hear that, what is it about?

MP: Oh it moves me. It really does.

AMT: What did you think when you heard Prime Minister Harper announce that the wreck of the Erebus had been found and identified?

MP: Well that was a great moment for me because I'd picked up on the story about a year before that when I was doing some research on a man called Joseph Hooker who was a great botanist around Kew Gardens in the Victorian time. He had been on HMS Erebus on a previous expedition. I'd learned a lot about the first expedition Erebus had made to the Antarctic. Then to hear it went to the Arctic and disappeared, I mean there's a great story there of great success followed by catastrophe. But then to hear that the ship itself still existed, had been found, could be touched, could be seen, when that announcement came through, I thought that's when I got to write the book.

AMT: You needed to be in there.

MP: Well yes I wanted to be there. I've always wanted to go and scuba dive down to the wreck. I had this romantic notion of sort of being able to touch the sort of the oak of which it was built for myself, but Parks Canada have wisely not encouraged me to do that.

AMT: Well you did a lot of research for this book. Give us a bit of a rundown on what you did to get this story of the Erebus

MP: Well first of all, I went to various institutions where you would expect to find material like the Scott Polar Research Institute, the National Maritime Museum in London and the Royal Geographical Society. And they all had items there that sort of started me off. There were journals, there were letters, they made you then follow up on the story. I was given names of some of the descendants of the family, especially the Franklin family, who turned out to be incredibly helpful. There was a great generosity of the scholars, if we can call them that, of the north and indeed of the rest of the journey. So that was one way of doing it. The other way was to actually going to some of the places where the expeditions had gone. Far off places like Stanley in the Falkland Islands and Hobart in Tasmania and the Northwest Passage and be there and feel what it was like or what it must be like for them, but also to meet people there who knew about the story.

AMT: Did you feel transported back in time as you stood in some of those places?

MP: I tried to. I was trying to do that very much. I've got a very vivid imagination. And there were certain places like Hobart in Tasmania, which is now a modern city and yet where Erebus and Terror were tied up and where they spent a lot of their time. You know it's still not built over. The long estuary of the Derwent River, which was a haven for these ships when they came back from the Antarctic or escaped from the gales of the South Indian Ocean, has a lighthouse called Tinpot lighthouse. And this same lighthouse would have been seen by Franklin and James Clark Ross, the captain of the Erebus at the time, would have been seen by them when they came up and it's still there. And to stand at night on the point where the ships were board and looked down the Derwent and see the light from the lighthouse flashing and kind of feel that that would have been the last sight as they disappeared to Antarctica while that did affect me.

AMT: They called it the Erebus, which is the Erebus was the son of Chaos.

MP: Exactly.

AMT: In mythology.

MP: Yeah in Greek mythology, it's the son of Chaos. It's also, it's a place that really means you know the darkest pit of hell I think, which is an odd name for a ship. But Erebus and her, the other ships of her class, were all originally designed as bomb ships they called them. They had mortars onboard board, which fired heavy missiles at coastal defenses with a lot of noise and smoke and they're really designed to intimidate as much as sort of injured. They were called after various names denoting fire and anger and smoke and destruction. So there was a ship called Fury. There's one called Sulfur. Terror of course, which sailed with Erebus a lot of the journey.

AMT: Erebus and Terror was more like a twosome.

MP: They were like a twosome, yeah.

AMT: So it was outfitted as a warship, but it goes from a warship to be a polar research vessel, first for the South Pole.

MP: Yes.

AMT: So how did they change it?

MP: Well it was originally built, the thing about the bomb ships was that it had very strong howls and they had some diagonal planking and things like that on the deck, which a normal ship will not have, just withstand the recoil from the big guns they had. They were quite sturdy when they were built. And I think that's why they were chosen for the Antarctic journey. They didn't change them a lot. They made them more functional. They stripped the decks down, they took away all of the warships that had a lot of decoration. They took all that away and stripped it down to the basics and filled it with various things for gathering data on terrestrial magnetism was a big thing. And also flora and fauna of where they visited. It was a big scientific expedition. Sixty seven men squeezed on this fairly small ship. It's only about 30 metres long.

AMT: So by the time Erebus and Terror head off to the Northwest Passage, they have a very successful and a real sort of like you know by the skin of your teeth, excitement in the Antarctic. But Sir John Franklin is the man who's going to captain this. Tell us about him.

MP: He was an Arctic explorer of great note around about the same time as some others including James Clark Ross and Captain Derrimus in the Antarctic. He was an older man. He'd had a lot of experience, but mainly on land journeys and there would be one dramatic land journey where they'd been three years away and nearly died of starvation. He wrote an account of it and it was published with great success and talked about having to eat his shoes to keep going. So Franklin was known in the British press as the man who ate his boots. He was quite old, certainly by standards of exploration when he was made captain of the Erebus for the Northwest Passage. He was 59 years old. He was a very affable man. He had been for a while, Governor General of Tasmania, hadn't worked out. He wasn't good at politics. He wasn't really interested in administration like he was interested in just getting away and discovering places and life at sea. A lot of people felt he was too old for the expedition and a lot of people felt the expedition shouldn't have gone anyway.

AMT: He had a very ambitious wife. She was one of the driving forces behind getting him appointed to this one, was she not?

MP: Yes. She's a very very important figure in the whole story. Exactly. She was very energetic. She was a great networker. She knew lots of people. She liked to get things done. She was much more dynamic than he was really and when he kind of fell out with the administration for the people in Tasmania and was really brought home. It was seen as a failure and she said no it's not a failure. It's just they framed him, he's a good man and she pushed all she could to get him another appointment to the Navy and got him the position of the Captain of Erebus on the Northwest Passage.

AMT: And so the Erebus leaves May 19, 1845 with the Terror.

MP: Yes.

AMT: And how long was this expedition expected to last?

MP: Well it's interesting. There are letters from the officers, which say we'll see you in Hawaii in a year's time. They thought they just sailed through the Northwest Passage, down through the Bering Strait, into the Pacific. Job done. They were very, very optimistic. This must have been the buzz on board ship, except when you look at some of the letters of the crew and they were for me were the most fascinating things of all because they're not written in proper prose. They're not written as Admiralty reports. They're written by people very poor education in many ways, but they really tell you about what they're feeling. And there's one letter, just before leaving the Orkney Islands to go off into the North Atlantic and a man writes to his wife and says, you know every night in my hammock I think of you and my dear children. If we don't meet again you know look to God and all that sort of thing. But he was saying if and really suggesting that there were dangers ahead.

AMT: And the British Admiralty of course had some very optimistic view that they would sail right through, but there was one person who said to Franklin you're going to make the nucleus of an iceberg.

MP: Yes that's right. He's rather a good character. I can't find much about him. He's called Richard King. And he was very sort of testy, rather grumpy man, who nobody liked very much. But he had the problem with him was he was generally right. He'd done a lot of exploring in the Arctic and he felt that the expedition shouldn't go ahead in the form it was with two quite heavy ships. And yes he said sending Franklin up there, sending him to be there the nucleus of an iceberg, which is quite dramatic, but almost sadly true.

AMT: Let's talk about the ships being heavy. Some of the provisions you list like the thousands of pounds that you read and that like the having, they brought whole libraries onboard. Give us a sense of what they loaded that ship up with.

MP: Well a very significant thing was that when they went to the Antarctic, they were purely under sail. When they went to the Arctic, again against various people's advice, they fitted small motors, not very strong, 25 horsepower motors and those were really they got locomotives from local railways in London, put them in the ships and that would help to get through the ice. They thought in order to fuel these engines they needed coal. So you've added to the weight considerably just the coal and the engines themselves. And then Franklin was very keen that the men on the journey if they had to over winter that there should be an educational element to it. So lots and lots of books. There were those sort of carpentry room, where people could learn carpentry, languages, all that sort of thing. It was you know an enormous amount was invested in the journey.

AMT: They brought a monkey too. I forgot to ask you.

MP: They brought a monkey, yes. Lady Franklin gave a monkey to the officers and there was also a dog, a dog called Neptune on the I think it was on the Terror, but there was this monkey and no one knows really what happened to the monkey. I think there was a story that maybe he ran off, fairly early on.

AMT: And they should have really had more dogs because when they wanted to go overland they had to pull their own. The mean had to pull the sledges.

MP: Well this is the thing they had no, they made no allowance for having to leave the ship. They believe the ships were like fortresses. They had everything on board, so long as they stayed on the ships, everything would be fine. And of course it wasn't and in the end when the ships got stuck for so long, they had to leave the ships. As you say, they had sledges, but no dogs to pull them. So the men had to pull them and then by that time, when the men abandoned the ship in 1848, most of them were too weak to pull these very heavy sledges. So that again that was something, which had not been sort of thought out before.

AMT: When did people back home start to worry that something had gone wrong with the Erebus and the Terror.

MP: It was about two years after they left, which seems to us now extraordinary that people would just go and we wouldn't hear anything for two years. It must be a disaster. But as I say, there have been expeditions that have gone for two or three years. The first, one the first people to get really worried was ironically Lady Jane Franklin, who had persuaded her husband to go, take command of this vast age of 59 and she was the first one had an intuition that something had gone wrong. And she started to press the Admiralty for searches. The Admiralty wouldn't count any searches for about two and a half years.

AMT: And why was that?

MP: Again they thought well this is this will just, it's quite normal, they're probably on their way through. It's only the second winter. Give them another six months then perhaps we should worry. I think it was just this British of feeling that they knew everything about ships and you know they'd crack the Antarctic. They had their fleet was unconquerable and they defeated Napoleon. They knew a lot about the science of navigation and all that, they just didn't, I don't think they thought that this anything could go wrong, amazingly.

AMT: So what happened to the Erebus?

MP: Well so little is known of what happened because there was really no written evidence of any kind. Apart from one note, which was found on a place called King William Island, about 500 miles north of the Canadian mainland, in which there were two messages. One was written in 1848 saying all is well. Captain John Franklin captaining. This was 1847 that was dated. And then someone had written around this note 11 months later, obviously taking it out of its can and written around saying we abandoned the ships having been beset in the ice for 18 months and we're heading south now to try and find the river on the Canadian mainland.

AMT: And they said in that letter as well that something like nine officers had died and fifteen crew had died at that point.

MP: Yes. And also that Sir John Franklin had died and yeah.

AMT: He died two Years in, didn't he? Was it something like that?

MP: Yes that's about right. Yeah.

AMT: And then no one ever knows what happened to his body?

MP: No no. I mean that's one of them, if you can say these things, that's the sort of holy grail of inquiry at the moment. Now they found the two ships. So they don't know what happened to Franklin. They know what happened to some of the others. They've discovered the remains of what they think are 42 bodies of 129. But that's taking a long long time putting together, sort of matching bones and remains and all that sort of stuff.

AMT: So eventually the crew and the officers abandon the ships and we’re talking what year of this time?

MP: They abandoned the ships in 1848. Yeah.

AMT: Tell us a bit about what their trek across the ice would have been like that year.

MP: Well we know that they didn't get very far. The Inuits had already they'd told of seeing 40, as they call them foreigners, pulling a sledge south on King William Island. And this was later proved to be true by a search party in 1858. It was that far away from the from the disaster. But they found the ship. They found the boat and the sledge with the remains of two men in it. Lots of things they carried with them to go south, including old things like sort of curtain rails and soap and sponges and all that sort of stuff. And willow pattern plates and monogrammed teaspoons with the officer's initials on. Not the sort of thing you'd normally take south, if you're going south and you're limited for weight. So they found the sledge. They some of the men did get across Simpson straight, which is onto the Canadian mainland and died in a place called, what's been called Starvation Cove and that's the furthest south anybody got.

AMT: You write that there's almost like a trail of human skeletons along the route that they would have died maybe of scurvy or like they would literally like fall and they would just end up staying there.

MP: Yeah I mean the way they found the bones were just they'd fallen face downwards and laying there and nobody had attempted to sort of bury them, which seems to suggest that the men were very weak at the time. Why, no one is absolutely sure, there's been various theories including lead poisoning, which has now been largely discredited. The likelihood is that it was scurvy had set in, which is why people died quite fast for lack of the right foods. But also they were two of the bitterest winters in living memory in the Arctic and that was just you know they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. And by the time they left the ship, I think they were just, they had very little food and they weren't able to sort of trade. There was one meeting with the Inuit, where they traded some fish, but then there was sort of awful pathetic moment where the Inuit sort of described them exchanging the fish and they gave them some officers gave them something. I don't know what it was, sort of that might be useful to them, cooking utensils or something and then they just, they both left each other because they didn't speak the language. No one could communicate. And one wonders if they'd stayed with them, maybe those Inuit could have said well there some people here. This is where we can get more food for you.

AMT: At some point there are some, there are search parties and they find the bones of Europeans and tell us the story behind that. What happens? There's an allegation of cannibalism.

MP: Well yes I mean in 1854, a man called John Ray, who was an Arctic’s sort of surveyor and trapper from Hudson's Bay Company contacted some Inuit. They said yes we have found remains of the men and it's clear that they had to eat their comrades in order to stay alive and there were mutilated bodies that were sort of bodies and parts and bodies and parts and all that and cuts on the bones, which suggested that had been maybe prepared for eating. And Ray went back to London with this news and it was received with absolute total shock and horror and denial. And Charles Dickens of all people who could have, rose to Jane Franklin's defence at her urging and said you know how can we believe these savages. You know with their domesticity of blood and blubber. I mean awful awful things, racist stuff about the Inuit. I mean that was just their way of dealing with the most horrific knowledge, not just that the expedition had perished, but there had actually been cannibalism involved I mean in the British navy. It just it was almost too much to take in.

AMT: They just didn't want to believe it.

MP: They didn't want to believe it.

AMT: I'm also struck by the fact that when the Erebus is found, it is essentially found where the Inuit had always said, by the way, there's a boat over there.

MP: Yes and it was found a lot further south than where it was abandoned. In the note, the victory point note of 1848, they said exactly where they had left it. The northern part of King William Island. It was found a long way south of King William Island and no one had really bothered to look there and yet Inuit had described seeing the mast of a ship in the water. And just because there was an oral history, rather than written history, people tended to be confused by it or think it was confused whereas in fact it was fairly specific.

AMT: How close did you get to the ship?

MP: Oh frustratingly close. We got down into the Victoria Strait, which leads down to King William Island. If we'd been able to sail along, it would have been a matter of a day, we'd have been right in the area where the wrecks were found, but the ice was too thick. This was 2016 and I say last year when the search had to be abandoned after sort of a day and a half, we realized the ice is still there, despite global warming. There's plenty of ice up there and if it gets into those narrow channels and gets stuck, that's it. So we sort of had to turn away. It was very frustrating really.

AMT: But it must have given you a sense of you know like with all the modern technology, you were still stopped by nature.

MP: Yes. It gave me a great respect for nature and how difficult it is, even with a I mean I think the ship we were on has a 40,000 horsepower engine, whereas Erebus had 25 horsepower. So how vulnerable they must have been.

AMT: So you got close, but not close enough. Are you going to go back? Are you going to try to dive?

MP: I feel quite close to it all. And I suppose if there were a moment when they said, oh it's going to be a lovely summer, clear seas and Michael just get your gear on and come out and you can come down with us and sort of caress the hull of this ship that you love so much.

AMT: That would be something. Michael Palin, it was great to talk to you. Thank you.

MP: Thank you. Lovely.

PC: Michael Palin is a past president of the Royal Geographic Society, and a founding member of Monty Python. His new book is Erebus: One Ship, Two Epic Voyages and the Greatest Naval Mystery of All Time. Michael Palin spoke with Anna Maria Tremonti in October.

[Music: Theme]

The Current Transcript for December 27, 2018

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