Wintering in the Wild

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Original Air Date: 
December 21, 2019

What can we learn from the natural world — from animals, from the water — about surviving and even celebrating the cold?

walrus
Audio

Knowing how animals survive winter is good, but how do animals sound in winter? For that we turn to Douglas Quin, an award-winning sound designer and composer whose album "Fathom" contains underwater field recordings from the polar regions of the earth.

Length: 
7:09
reindeer
Audio

Piers Vitebsky is an anthropologist who studies the Eveny — also known as the "Reindeer People of Siberia." He tells Steve Paulson they keep herds of reindeer for meat, but also have personal, consecrated reindeer animal doubles, which they believe will die for them.

Length: 
10:18
TC Boyle
Bookmarks

How does a hummingbird survive in subzero winter temperatures? Why endure them at all? Author T.C. Boyle couldn’t understand why the small bird would be anywhere near his mountain writing retreat, but he found the answer in Bernd Heinrich’s “Winter World.”

Length: 
3:01
Polar bear
Audio

Depending on where you live, winter can be tough to get through.  It’s cold, it gets dark early, the weather’s messy.  Naturalist Bernd Heinrich shares some amazing stories about the ingenious ways animals survive winter.

Length: 
8:19
A historic Amundsen Tent in Antarctica.
Audio

Lucy Jane Bledsoe is a novelist who's made three trips to Antarctica as part of the National Science Foundation's Artists and Writers in Antarctica Program. She tells Anne Strainchamps that the place is addictive.

Length: 
9:57
Lynne Cox swimming.
Articles

Lynne Cox is an extreme swimmer. At 18, she swam between the islands of New Zealand. She broke the men's and women's records for the English Channel. Then she did the unthinkable — swimming to Antarctica.

Length: 
10:22
Show Details 📻
Airdates
December 21, 2019
December 19, 2020
January 08, 2022
January 14, 2023
January 20, 2024
Guests: 
Music Composer and Sound Designer
Lynne Cox
Long-Distance Open-Water Swimmer and Author
Categories: 
Last modified: 
January 18, 2024