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Tom Smith’s aboard the Canada C3

Retired provincial court judge Tom Smith is aboard the icebreaker Canada C3.
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Retired provincial court judge Tom Smith aboard the icebreaker Canada C3. Students on Ice Foundation photo.

Retired BC Provincial Court judge Tom Smith is on an icebreaker sailing expedition celebrating Canada’s 150th.

Smith, who lives at Rose Lake near Williams Lake, flew to the Canada C3 on Aug. 16 and will fly off the ship to Edmonton, AB on Aug. 26.

Canada C3 is a 150-day expedition from Toronto to Victoria through the Northwest Passage. Canadians invited to participate include scientists, artists, Indigenous Elders, historians, community leaders, youth, journalists and educators.

Smith is participating on leg nine of the 15-leg journey from Pond Inlet, north of Baffin Island to Cambridge Bay.

“I used to be stationed as an RCMP officer on Ellesmere Island, which is north of where we are going, for three years,” Smith said in an interview June 30 about the trip. “I’ve been to Devon Island with my dog team a few times, but I never made it south to Dundas Harbour where there was an old RCMP detachment that opened in 1924. It’s been abandoned for many, many years and is pretty derelict now, but it’s a place I always wanted to go and just never got there so I will be able to go there on the expedition.”

The Students on Ice Foundation, an organization established in 2000 to provide educational youth expeditions to the Polar regions, applied to the federal government for a grant and received commercial sponsorship as well to organize the expedition.

To follow the expedition go to https://canadac3.ca/en/homepage/ and view an interactive map, photographs and live feed video.



Monica Lamb-Yorski

About the Author: Monica Lamb-Yorski

A B.C. gal, I was born in Alert Bay, raised in Nelson, graduated from the University of Winnipeg, and wrote my first-ever article for the Prince Rupert Daily News.
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