The views from the air were beautiful. When we came here by ship, just over a week ago, it took a day and a half to reach the Marquesas, the most distant archipelago in French Polynesia. Now we would return to the largest island, Nuku Hiva, in a matter of hours. Before traveling here,…
Guests streamed up the dirt road and wound through trees and flowers to the site of the performance. The bleachers were almost full when we arrived. Dancers and musicians rushed through their final preparations, and then the scene was set. If this place had a roof, they were about to blow it off. This…
The Heiva i Tahiti runs for weeks. It is the largest, splashiest cultural festival in French Polynesia, and people come from all over the archipelagos to attend. It covers sport, handicrafts, and other cultural events, but the big nights are reserved for song and dance. The troupes are huge and they can perform here on…
Here is Meet the North’s next National Geographic story. With each new border and political shift, the indigenous women of Chukotka, Russia adjust to maintain their heritage and survive. Read about how they survive through my words and Eric’s photos. “We were eating more than I thought possible, including jellied whale casserole and fresh apricot buns,…
I was invited to talk with filmmaker/photographer Austin Meyer on his storytelling podcast. We spoke about Meet the North and finding stories. “In this conversation, Jennifer and I talk about how she developed a love for both writing and exploration, her fascinating 3-year project called Meet the North in which she attempted to make authentic…
In preparation for a return to the Russian Far East this summer with Lindblad Expeditions and National Geographic, photographer Erika Larsen and I answered a few questions. Erika: It is hard to say how this region will change travelers because I believe the way we interact with new landscapes and cultures is so individual. Jennifer:…
Lindblad Expeditions has been my main sponsor since 2015. Sometimes they ask Eric Guth and me to share some stories and images from our field work, and I wanted to share some samples with you. I’ve written about the Russian Far East: “The flight only took an hour; it’s hard to believe that two different…
I talked with Rob Rosenthal of Howsound about my CBC documentary “Meet the North.” We chatted about searching out people in the Arctic for their stories in “You Won’t Know If You Don’t Ask.” “In the doc, Jennifer travels the Arctic with no plan other than to interview people. That’s it. She interviews someone and…
I have the honour of being part of National Geographic’s Educator-Explorer Exchange this year. My educator partner is Kelly Koller from Washington Middle School in Oconto Falls, Wisconsin. A couple of weeks ago I got a packet of letters (real letters!) from her students. They had SO MANY questions for me, and Kelly and I…
I enjoyed working with the team at Hakai magazine on this story “Frozen Ocean: A photographic primer on the dynamics of marine ice.” It was a refreshing reminder that some media organizations still dig deep into every story with structural edits, fact checking, and copy editing. The editors went through every detail of this story…
An overview of somewhere new. Getting ready to explore Nuku Hiva, Marquesas, French Polynesia. Do you see the road down there?
Many outsiders think of these islands, the coral atolls of French Polynesia, as paradise, but there is no escaping the harsh conditions here. Although I LOVE to swim, I have never really explored the underwater world. Here, it was more than beauty that called to me from below the surface, it was a curiousity about…
“Meet the Elverums,” a documentary that I made for CBC’s the Sunday Edition, has won first place in the Radio Documentary, National Release category at the Gabriel Awards. It’s about a family in Pond Inlet, Nunavut, Canada, and I worked with documentary maker Dick Miller and the show’s documentary producer, Karen Levine, to create it….
Welcome to the Marquesas! I hope these islands will blow your mind the way they are blowing mine. It’s just too much to start with colour, so I’m easing you in with an almost black & white. We are way out in the South Pacific, on the edge of French Polynesia. Kaoha! Bonjour! A place…
We came to this atoll to take a break from the towns, but when we saw some small buildings in the distance, Eric and I took a zodiac over to check them out. We found two people working their coconut grove: harvesting coconuts and drying them. We stopped for a visit and met a little…