The Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author Paul Watson discusses his new book Ice Ghosts: The Epic Hunt for the Lost Franklin Expedition (McClelland & Stewart, 2017), with Joseph Planta.

Ice Ghosts: The Epic Hunt for the Lost Franklin Expedition by Paul Watson (McClelland & Stewart, 2017). Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: Ice Ghosts

Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, at TheCommentary.ca.

Paul Watson joins me again. The award-winning journalist has just published a new book, Ice Ghosts: The Epic Hunt for the Lost Franklin Expedition. It’s a fascinating book about the initial expedition to find the elusive Northwest Passage by Sir John Franklin in 1845, their disappearance, and the expeditions since to find out their fate. Paul was on the icebreaker that was part of the mission that discovered Franklin’s ship Erebus in 2014, and in this book he recounts the prejudice that the Inuit had historically encountered when their knowledge passed down through oral histories was ignored. We meet some of the remarkable people involved, folks that Paul encountered in his years of reporting. I’ll ask Paul about the meaning of these discoveries and the historical significance of what the discovery of Erebus, and Terror, just last year means for whatever claim Canada might have of the Arctic. For over twenty years Paul Watson covered conflict as a war reporter in Angola, The Balkans, Eritrea, Rwanda, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Somalia. He received the Pulitzer Prize for his photograph of a Somali mob dragging the body of an American soldier in Mogadishu in 1994. Among many other awards, he’s received a George Polk Award. His 2007 memoir Where War Lives was a bestseller. He is the subject of the playwright and poet Dan O’Brien’s works, The Body of An American, and War Reporter. Mr. Watson was last on this program in October 2015, when O’Brien’s collection of poetry New Life, based on conversations the two had, was released. This new book is published by McClelland & Stewart. The website for more is at http://www.arcticstarcreativity.com. Please welcome back to the Planta: On the Line program, here in Vancouver today, Paul Watson; Mr. Watson, good morning.

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