9:00 - 10:15 a.m.
THE ARCTIC NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE, THE GWICH'IN AND THE CARIBOU
Since September 11, the Bush administration’s all-out, arm-twisting campaign to get votes for opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling has left the Porcupine caribou herd, the Gwich’in First Nation, and one of North America’s most pristine wilderness areas at risk of survival. Sandra Newman joins us from the Vuntut Gwich’in First Nation in Old Crow, Yukon, to tell us of the threat to the Gwich’in traditional way of life should drilling be allowed in the Refuge. Joining Sandra were a number of individuals helping with the fight against breaking into the Refuge for a few barrels of oil. Karsten Heuer and Leanne Allison have recently returned from a 4000-kilometre walk and ski along the caribou migration route. Subhankar Banerjee has photographed the rich life of the Refuge, and Peter Matthiessen’s battle goes back to his first visit to the Arctic in 1957.

10:30 - 11:45 a.m.
RAY HUEY - EVEREST BY THE NUMBERS
Mountaineers typically have two pragmatic goals: to reach the summit, and to return home safely. On small mountains most mountaineers achieve these goals. On the highest Himalayan peaks, however, most climbers not only fail to summit, but some of them die trying to do so. Disasters on Mt. Everest and K2 have publicized the dangers of high-altitude mountaineering, but remarkably the actual risks have not previously been quantified or analyzed. Ray Huey’s studies constitute an evolutionary biologist's perspective on high-altitude mountaineering. Huey presented patterns of success and death on Everest and will show that some widely held views of the magnitude of risk are in error.

Noon - 1:15 p.m. Literary Lunch Break
Geoff Powter: The Man Who Would be First - The Story of Earl Denman