701a The US Civil Rights Trail; Wild Arctic Svalbard

26:14Rick Steves:Civil Rights Trail. Our guest is the director of tourism from the state of Alabama, Lee Centel. Lee and his team were behind the campaign to create the Civil Rights Trail, and Lee has written a book about it, and it's called The Official United States Civil Rights Trail. What Happened Here Changed the World. Okay, so now we carry on, and we go to Kansas, Topeka. And this is the site of the Brown v. Board of Education lawsuit. How do you humanize something like that? I mean, we've heard of the lawsuit that challenged school segregation, but a visit to Topeka really would help us humanize that. That was the first place I went to sign books.

26:57It was the only place that I had not visited in doing my research. And so I felt like I owed Topeka something because what they did in that community, Linda Brown's father, and there were a handful of fathers and students, you know, they took a bold leap. Their good marshal had five different lawsuits to work from. When he looked at the details that each one of those suits brought, some were about the money spent on schools, others were about the distance that people had to travel. And they picked the Topeka school suit because the argument that a black couple proposed to the school, they did a test.

27:52They had little white dolls and they had black dolls. And separately, they let children pick the dolls that they wanted to play with. I don't know that history records what the white students did, but the black children wanted to play with white dolls. They didn't want to play with black dolls because the professor said that this illustrated how young black children didn't feel that they were equal in worth.

28:21Rick Steves:to the white students. That's a poignant story. Lee, I wish I could talk long, long about this. There are so many interesting stops, but I'll just mention that we have 100 landmarks across 15 states. And I'd just like to finish off with a stop in Birmingham, which happens to be your state, Alabama. What historical significance does Birmingham have for the Civil Rights Trail, and how, as travelers, might we have a more vivid experience by visiting it? Birmingham now has an area that President Obama made a national monument. So you've got the 16th Street Baptist Church where four little girls were killed in 1963.

29:00Right next to that, you have the Gaston Motel, which was Martin Luther King's headquarters during the Birmingham movement. But in a pretty large sense, I think most historians will agree that Birmingham was sort of the heart of what made people care about African-Americans, certainly through the bombing of the church

29:24Rick Steves:that was used as the headquarters for the marches. Lee, it's such a great opportunity to be able to share this. I'm so thankful for having you join us today on this interview in this very important season. Can you just take a moment and think about perhaps the most inspirational single stop on the Civil Rights Trail, where we really have an opportunity to recognize the importance of Americans grappling honestly with our heritage and how travel to these spots can be a great first stop? Well, Rick, you more than anybody can understand the appreciation of experience and the emotion of important stops.

30:07Thank goodness for Ava DuVernay's movie Selma. People now come in large numbers and on buses to drive to Selma to walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge because that symbolizes bravery and defiance more than any other site. and a number of national guidebooks. A pixel must bridge now as one of America's 10 greatest landmarks.

30:32Rick Steves:And Lee, the photograph you chose for the cover of your book, of course it is the Edmund Pettus Bridge, and the angle, it invites you to walk over that arcing bridge. And then when you look deeper into the book, you find about the brutal welcome that awaits you over the crest of that bridge. And then you have to wonder, as a privileged white person, what would you do? What would I do if those policemen with those clubs and those hateful faces were awaiting me on the other side of that bridge? And to walk over that bridge, it's something we all need to do. They were brave people. They knew that some of them were going to die.

31:11And the fact that they still went forward and you had hundreds and several thousand people who would be involved in marches like that.

31:19Rick Steves:Well, it's an ongoing fight and their valor is still getting traction to this day, in part thanks to people like you who are dedicated to making sure that we look at this with open and honest eyes. Lee Centel, thank you for joining us, and thank you for riding Civil Rights Trail. Thank you so much. Whatever you want, freedom! Whatever you want, freedom! Whatever you want, freedom! Now! Now! Now!

31:49Rick Steves:There's more in the radio section of our website at ricksteves.com. You're listening to Travel with Rick Steves. Are you ready to be bitten by the polar bug on the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard? It's not a local bug there, but it's rather a term the locals use to describe that deep desire to return after landing there for your first time. Its frigid climate, extreme light variations, and the staggering natural beauty of its glaciers and fjords have been draw for explorers and adventures for generations and now for researchers and tourists as well. Ecologist and conservationist and bear enthusiast Chris Morgan goes to Svalbard once a year to lead an Arctic expedition for polar bears.

32:36Rick Steves:Chris has worked as a wildlife researcher, wilderness guide, and environmental educator now for more than 30 years, and he's traveled to every continent where bears live. Chris joins us now in our studio to give a glimpse into Svalbard and its most iconic inhabitant, the polar bears. Chris, thanks for joining us. Hey, Rick. Great to be here. So first of all, Svalbard. That's basically a Norwegian island halfway between the Norwegian mainland and the North Pole, right? Exactly. Top of the world, basically. Top of the world. For someone who's never been there before, just describe it. What kind of world is that?

33:10It really does feel like the top of the world in more ways than one when you're up there. It's an icy landscape, you know, so you definitely feel the Arctic. One of my friends a few years ago described it in the best way I've ever heard. He said, if you sliced off the Swiss Alps, placed them in the Arctic Ocean, and sprinkled polar bears on them, you'd have Svalbard.

33:30Rick Steves:Well, I was just in the Alps, and it was way up there, and I guess you could park a boat about where I was up in Svalbard. Yeah, and it's got, I think, about a billion years of uninterrupted geological history. So it's literally like this sort of living landscape museum there, and about 60 % of it is glaciers, you know, so it's highly glaciated. Biggest glacier in Europe is there. So mostly ice, 3 ,000 people, and I guess the economy is, what, either coal mining and tourism? Is there fishing or is it coal mining and tourism? Coal mining and tourism pretty much sums it up. It started with coal mining and then it transitioned quite rapidly to tourism for some of the reasons that you were explaining earlier on.

34:12It is a dynamic place where you just, you feel this, It's funny to use the word magnetism, isn't it, when you're talking about the Arctic? But it has this magnetism to it where you go once and you want to go back. So I feel lucky. I get to go back fairly frequently.

34:24Rick Steves:But you go back not for the culture. You go back for the nature. Yes. I suppose. Exactly. I mean, I would imagine the commerce, if you got 3 ,000 people there, is a couple of streets, a couple of hotels. Is there like a gift shop actually? Yes. In fact, there's a whole strip of them now. Because cruise ships are stopping there or something? They do. They're limiting some of the sizes of the cruise ships, so the smaller ships are preferred because it's less impactful on the wildlife and the environment there. But it has taken it off enough to be its own little industry and to employ a size of a number of people there.

34:55Rick Steves:So there's indigenous people. There's people who have always lived there and they've got to earn a living somehow. Not indigenous. There's no indigenous history there, interestingly enough. Oh, really? So they're very much missing the sort of Inuit component that we have in North America. Just to give you a sense from a North American perspective of how far north this is and how high up into the Arctic it is, it's about 550 miles further north than the north coast of Alaska. Now that really puts it in a, because if you go to the north coast of Alaska, that seems pretty desolate. Livable, but just barely.

35:25Right.

35:25Rick Steves:And then you split the distance from there to the North Pole, and you've got yourself Ice City. Exactly. With polar bears. Yes, and the interesting thing is you're able to access part of the archipelago of Svalbard, the eastern side mostly, because of the Gulf Stream. The Gulf Stream comes across the Atlantic, heads north, and becomes the Norwegian current that keeps it ice-free a little earlier. So that moderates the cold. Exactly. So you can get in, you can access it a little more easily there. So the east side of the islands is usually locked in ice quite a lot longer each year. I understand it's part of Norway, but there's some fine points there where you can actually go to Svalbard and live there or work there or whatever without the same red tape you'd have to go to Norway?

36:07Rick Steves:I think so. I've heard the same thing. I'm not 100 % sure, but it is a sovereignty of Norway, and I think they have looser regulations for sure. So you get a really interesting mix of different nationalities there. There's a lot of people from the Philippines there, and there's Thai families there, and they've made a life in the north, which is kind of unexpected. It is interesting, isn't it? I talked about the polar bug, and apparently that's a desire to go back to a place like Svalbard. What is the polar bug? I think the Arctic and the polar regions and the animals that are there have this magical essence to them, this mystical essence to them, where you can't feel it and sense it and understand it until you've got boots on the ground or boots in a boat on the water.

36:51It does feel like something that you don't experience anywhere else. So it has this quality that feels different, feels magical and mystical, and has a draw that wants you to keep coming back because you might initially land in a place like Svalbard and think, oh, it's a barren wasteland. A lot of people think of the Arctic in that way. There's nothing here. Why protect it? Why appreciate it? Why visit it? But you don't have to spend much more than 24 hours in a place like it to really start to understand it and what unfolds. One of the things up in Svalbard is that in the summer, it's a land of perpetual light.

37:22It's like a day that is four months long. The sun comes up in April and doesn't set, not an inch below the horizon until August. So for four months, it's bright and sunny usually, you know, blue sky and the midnight sun. and you have these long days which throw you off, but it's one of those magical things and it gives you lots of time to explore. And every little thing that you discover, whether it's a bear or a walrus or a bird colony, these massive colonies of millions of birds descend on this place every year. There's something that makes you want to find out a little bit more, see a little bit more.

37:56And as you're discovering things, you realize there's a lot more than meets the eye to a place like this.

38:01Rick Steves:This is Travel with Rick Steves. We're talking with Chris Morgan and he's helping us explore the Arctic outpost and polar bear haven of Svalbard, halfway between the top of Norway and the North Pole. Chris is the host of The Wild with Chris Morgan. It's a podcast about wildlife, conservation, and the wonders of our wild planet. His website is chrismorganwildlife.org. Now, Chris, you go there once a year to Svalbard to lead a tour. I would imagine you're there generally during that four-month-long day. Yes, exactly. So you've probably rarely seen darkness in Svalbard, even though you go there every year.

38:39Rick Steves:That's it. I've never been there in the dark. Yeah, I've never thought about it. You've never been there in the dark. I've never had a real night in Svalbard. Now, my experience in the north of Norway is it's a real headache when the sun wakes you up at 4 o 'clock in the morning. Yes, you have eye blinds, and some people take travel, sleeping tablets, you know, and to help them through. I bet hotels have good blackout shades. They really do. They're primed for it. Tell me a little bit more. There's probably basically one community with 3 ,000 people, and that's a springboard for the nature-loving that goes on up there.

39:11Exactly. Longyubian is the name of the town, really the only functioning town there. There's science research communities. There's still some coal mining communities as well, and the original coal mining communities were Russian, actually. But now it's mostly Longyubian, and it is this hub for the tourism there, but it's a real operating town as well. It's very colorful. The buildings, like in a lot of Arctic towns, the long winter nights are as long as the long summer days, right? So they have these very colorful buildings there that I think are designed to bring a little bit of life and zest to the place.

39:43Rick Steves:So if you did go in the middle of the winter, you'd be like walking around with street lamps. Exactly. In the middle of the day. And the northern lights lighting you up. And the northern lights. Yeah. Fiery green spikes of light that go from the horizon. Yes. I have a friend, one of my co-guides over there, and he does dog sled trips in the winter under the northern lights in Svalbard, which would be amazing. I've never experienced it, but he's told me many stories. How do you get there? You must have to go to Norway and then leap off from there. Is there regular commercial flights up there? Yes, you fly into Oslo, and then Oslo, not direct to Longyearbyen in Svalbard, but you fly via Tromsø.

40:23You jump off the plane at Tromsø, which is on the tippy-top coast.

40:26Rick Steves:Tromsø is kind of like the city of the north in Norway, I guess. Right. Yeah. And it's just, it's the wildest feeling, feeling like, okay, here I am in Tromsø, the north coast of Norway, and I've still got a long flight to go northwards before I get to my destination. It's incredible, yeah, because for most people, Nordkap, the very top northern cliff of the Norwegian mainland, is it's the end of the world. Right. But it's not the end of the world. In fact, you wrote that Svalbard has the northernmost civilian settlement in the world. Yes. With the northernmost everything going on there. But I guess when you say civilian settlement, that's kind of implying there are non-civilian settlements further north.

41:04Yes. It's an important research base for scientists. So there's a couple of places that are like that in some of the isolated fjords. Because it's on the front end of Arctic research there, the impacts of climate change and habitat loss and how these polar bears and other species are reacting to our changing planet. And they're on the front end of that research there.

41:25Rick Steves:Chris Morgan's telling us what he's been finding in the Svalbard Archipelago in the High Arctic, where he leads wildlife viewing expeditions. Chris also hosts and narrates a number of wildlife TV shows, and his podcast is The Wild with Chris Morgan. His documentary films include Bear Trek and The Path of the Bear. We have links to his work at ricksteves.com slash radio. Now, you're pretty well known for your passion for bears. You study bears all over the world, and you track the challenges and the ups and downs of the polar bear community all across the north. If there were no polar bears in Svalbard, would you ever go to Svalbard?

42:06Oh, I think my paws actually give the answer away, doesn't it? It would be a lot less of a draw. I mean, I can't even imagine a world without polar bears, but I'm having to these days, right? Because you think about the impact on these creatures that have been around for hundreds of thousands of years in places like this. A place like the high Arctic that's had ice on it for two and a half million years consistently. And that ice is disappearing quickly and with it, the polar bears potentially. So the idea of a Svalbard without polar bears is a hard one for me to get my head around.

42:37Rick Steves:It's kind of heartbreaking because you're saying you'd be an Arctic without polar bears. Exactly, yeah. But the attraction of the island is in part because it's a springboard for you studying polar bears, but also you as a guide introducing other people to polar bears. And maybe they'll get that polar bug in the sense of having an empathy for the struggle of the polar bears. They're sort of what they call the canary in the mine shaft up in the Arctic for climate change, aren't they? Absolutely are. Now, how so? Because you hear about that. And why are the polar bears special in regards to keeping an eye on climate change?

43:10That's a great question because you do see them everywhere. Every climate change poster or project or mission is accompanied by a photograph of a polar bear on an iceberg.

43:21Rick Steves:Is it just because they tug at your heartstrings like little koala bears or something like that? Well, I think partly that. They're these charismatic megafauna, right, that we call them, them and grizzly bears and other creatures around the world. These charismatic megafauna are amazing flagships for the places where they live. charismatic hold on charismatic mega fauna so that I'm just flora and fauna okay so flora is vegetation fauna is animals these are mega fauna so that would be the bigger animals instead of a marmot which is not a mega fauna right lovely as they are marmots are not charismatic because little cuddly things are more charismatic maybe so this is a big mega fauna that has charisma exactly exactly nice so you can attach messages to them and conservation missions because people are drawn to them Yeah, I mean, I'd argue there's no cuter creature on the planet Earth than a polar bear cub, for example.

44:11So there is that heartfelt side of the heartstrings that you're talking about. But there's also something else, and it's the practicalities of the ecology here that the polar bears live every day. In Svarabhad, it's a five-step ecosystem. It's very simple, but also very fragile. And that five-step ecosystem all starts with ice. On the ice, on the underside of the sea ice, grows algae. That algae is eaten by zooplankton. That zooplankton is eaten by polar cod. The polar cod is eaten by the seals, and the polar bears eat the seals. So if you were to take any one of those little jigsaw pieces out, the system would collapse, and there would be no polar bears, and it all starts with ice.

44:51There'd be no fish, there'd be no polar bears, there'd be no seals, nothing in that chain would exist if it wasn't for the ice and the algae growing on it.

44:58Rick Steves:I didn't dream that ice was part of a food chain. there's actually algae growing under the ice Yes, it's an amazing thought, isn't it? And it all starts there And when the ice is gone, the whole thing falls down It's a house of cards built on ice That's exactly it Oh my goodness, this is Travel with Rick Steves We're talking with Chris Morgan and Chris is helping us explore and understand the Arctic outpost and polar bear haven of Svalbard, Norway Chris is an ecologist, conservationist filmmaker, wilderness guide with a focus on bears and the environment worldwide. You can find out more about the projects that Chris is working on at his website.

45:36Rick Steves:It's chrismorganwildlife.org. Chris, we're talking about polar bears being threatened by climate change, and as a traveler and a travel writer and somebody who cares about the environment, I find myself collecting physical, visual examples of why climate change is not something that may happen, but it's here right now. You've been going to Svalbard for years. How have you seen the environment change, and what indicates to you, in the context of Svalbard, that climate change is actually here? Just given that Svalbard is this land of ice, it's a tenuous-feeling place. It's made up of massive mountains and rock, but over it, these ice caps form, and they are shrinking all the time.

46:24And we all hear about shrinking ice, but you notice it's so much there. In fact, you know, when we're sailing around the archipelago on the ship, we have marine charts, the old-fashioned paper charts, right next to all the high-tech maps on the computers and laptops. Looking at those maps, you can see where the ice charts used to be. So you go into a fjord, and a fjord used to be filled with ice, even six, seven, eight years ago, can be miles back now. They've retreated miles. And so it's a very quick thing that has happened. The glaciers are nowhere to be seen. No, and these are on the maps, on the bridges of the ships that we use there.

46:58How poignant. It really is, to the point where some of the captains are literally nervous to go into these fjords because their maps tell them not to. These fjords are massive, and so the glaciers that fill them are huge as well. Some of them are 8 or 10 miles wide, these glaciers, and 40 miles long. And they're shrinking on all sides.

47:16Rick Steves:I would imagine everybody in Svalbard is clued into the environment because they're in the midst of this ongoing tragedy. I think you're right. You do see it and you feel that sense when you're there. People are living right on that front line of climate change every day. And I think you feel it very much when we're out. We take out Zodiac boats, which are semi-inflatable rigid-hulled boats, right? So you can fit eight or ten people into them. And you get really close to the real world there. Sometimes we actually go on land as well. So what's that like? You're going to take me on a little excursion because I'm in your group and we pile into this inflatable Zodiac.

47:47Yeah, and we go cruising. And oftentimes it's in a fjord that's filled with ice of various sizes and shapes. There's actually words for that, isn't there?

47:55Rick Steves:You've got, what, icebergs. But then there's small ones. What are the small ones? Bergy bits. Bergy bits. Doesn't sound very technical. No, but that's the technical name, isn't it? Bergy bits. Then you've got pancake ice, and then you've got pack ice, and you've got multi-year ice, single-year ice, all these different terms. See, where I live, there's one word for ice. It's called ice. but if you lived in Svalbard, you'd have a whole vocabulary, a whole list of words for ice. Yes, yeah. One of the most important ones is the fast ice. And the fast ice is sea ice, so it's frozen salt water that is attached to the land.

48:28And that's exactly where you'll find the ringed seals. The ringed seals use breathing holes in the fast ice to come up and breathe. And they have four or five of these holes. It's strategic because they know that at one of those holes, a polar bear might be waiting for them. And when it is, it's lights out for the seal usually. so they have to have lots of different holes to go to in this fast ice. So we'll cruise through on the Zodiac boat and the other thing that really strikes you is the sound. It's this kind of... and it's the sound of bubbles bursting from the glacial ice that you're cruising through as it's released and melting in the seawater and the crazy thing is that some of those bubbles were formed 10 ,000 years ago at the base of a glacier so we'll often hook them out into the boat, crack them open with an ice axe and there's nothing better than 10 ,000 year old ice and a glass of scotch when you get

49:17Rick Steves:back to the ship. Oh my goodness, a little briggy bit in your scotch. Yes, yeah. Ah, it must be so gratifying for you as a tour guide and a person so passionate about the environment to take people who are so sheltered from the dramatic changes that are going on right to the front lines. Yes, definitely. It's one of my greatest pleasures is to take people to these places and first firsthand inspire them and see the tears in their eyes and understand why these places are important that we all need to protect and care for. It's my whole mission in life, you know. The trips are wonderful, but if it doesn't result in some bigger appreciation and a big step towards the right mission for people and planet, then it's not worthwhile, right?

49:58So you've always got to focus on that side of it.

50:01Rick Steves:And by the way, at your website, chrismorganwildlife.org, you really give people a vivid peek at what you're talking about. Thanks so much for all you're doing, Chris, and best wishes. Thanks so much, Rick. I appreciate it. Someday we'll have a nice drink with a little bit of iceberg in it. I like that idea. And we'll celebrate how we've turned the corner on climate change and the polar bears are doing fine. Here's to that. Travel with Rick Steves is produced at Rick Steves Europe in Edmonds, Washington by Tim Tatton, Kaz Mera-Hall, and Donna Bardsley. Affiliate relations are by Sheila Gerzoff.

50:35Website uploads are by Andrew Wakeling in Cherry Court. Our theme music is by Jerry Frank.

50:47You can find links to our guests, listen to a podcast version of the show, and search the archives at ricksteves.com slash radio. We'll look for you again next week

50:57Rick Steves:with another Travel with Rick Steves. Hey, I'm Rick Steves. I teach Europe, TV shows, guidebooks, and bus tours. And I wrote a book called travel as a political act as well because I've learned that the very best souvenir is a broader perspective. You can broaden yours by watching my travel specials. TV shows on Iran, Palestine, Israel, the story of fascism in Europe, that'll blow you away, and Hunger and Hope, lessons learned in Ethiopia and Guatemala. I've got shows ranging from Martin Luther and the Reformation all the way to Cuba. I love how 1 ,400 years ago Mohammed said, don't tell me how educated you are, tell me how much you've traveled.

51:39Rick Steves:You can stream these shows and many more for free at ricksteves.com.