In August 2011, Michael Byers sailed the Northwest Passage on two vessels: the Canadian Coast Guard research icebreaker Amundsen and the Russian expedition ship Akademik Ioffe. His photographs from those two voyages provide a vivid backdrop to a riveting tale of exploration, economic ambition, geopolitics and a looming environmental crisis – and yes – cooperation.

Speaker: Michael Byers

Michael Byers holds the Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. Professor Byers has led two projects for ArcticNet, a Canadian government–funded consortium of scientists from 29 Canadian universities and eight federal departments.

Michael is a regular contributor to the Globe and Mail, Toronto Star and Ottawa Citizen and has written for the international newspapers The Guardian, New York Times, Financial Times and London Review of Books. Books to Michael Byers credit are: War Law and the glowingly reviewed Canadian bestseller, Intent for a Nation (2007). His most recent book is from 2009, titled Who Owns the Arctic? Michael is a graduate of Lethbridge Collegiate Institute.

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