The arctic ice queen: how a polar ship captain journals [inside my journal]

Sophie Galvagnon climbed the ranks of the male-dominated shipping industry to become the first female commander of a commercial polar ship. After 17 years of navigating ice, her new company, Selar, is designing the next generation of sustainable polar ships for Arctic exploration. 

She shares how she fell in love with the ice, how she uses her journal onboard, and the number of polar bears she’s seen (hint: it’s a lot)… 

Where are you from?

My mother was Swedish, my father was French. I mostly grew up in France but we spent three months every year in Sweden. I returned as an adult to work there from 2012 to 2017, and also to work specifically on the ice breaking ships and to train in the Maritime school there, because they have expertise in ice navigation which is much more developed than in France.

What drew you to the shipping industry?

I've always felt a strong connection to the sea. My father was a ship captain, so he gave me this need to go to sea for work. I was not a good fit for the navy or military, so commercial shipping seemed the right path for me. 

I started working in the engine rooms of cargo ships, so quite far from what I'm doing today. It was by working on cargo ships that I realised I was more interested in having a view of the horizon from the deck and also working on something less routine than freighters.

How did you become interested in the Arctic and ice breakers?

During training in 2008 I discovered the ice. I was on a cruise ship navigating to the Antarctic and I had a hard crush. It was the same feeling one would have for another human; a very strong feeling of attraction for this type of sailing and this striking ice environment. 

I knew instantly that it would guide the rest of my life. But I also knew I was not aligned with the large cruise ship model. So it was also the start of rethinking my career in order to go deeper into the technical expertise of ice navigation, and to try and find a model of sailing in the Arctic that fitted my values and offered a better way to discover these remote regions. 

After this first ice experience, I went back to Sweden and trained more in ice navigation  then entered the state icebreaker fleet and spent 10 years exploring the Arctic. 

As a female ship captain in a very male-dominated industry, you are a rarity. What has your experience been? 

I was the first ever female commander of a commercial polar ship but only 2% of people working on ships around the world are female. The polar cruise industry has a Scandinavian background and Scandinavia has always been a bit more equal with regard to gender in the working environment. 

Also, when you are on a ship in a remote and hostile area, you have to collaborate with your shipmates: you have to count them. I think that provides an opportunity to showcase that it's possible to make it even more equal within this industry. 

When I’m onboard, I'm fighting daily for the idea that we are not males and females, we are officers, crew members, captains, chief officers, chief engineers etc. We each have a role to perform and gender is irrelevant.

As a ship captain, how do you use your journal?

When I’m onboard a ship, I always have a notebook with me and I write a lot. Every time I discover something – a method, some learning, some feedback – I write it down. My journal started as quite a technical, factual record, but then I began to write about my personal feelings too. Because what struck me more than the exploration and discovery of the landscape and fauna, was this inner voyage; a refocussing on yourself and reconnecting with nature. This was so powerful that I had to write it down. 

Selar, the Arctic exploration company you co-founded, encourages passengers to disconnect from their lives back home, and instead connect with the here and now of the Arctic. How?

Yes that’s right. There is no Wi-Fi on our ships; we are cut off from the rest of the world. This enables passengers to connect with the present moment. We are providing all our passengers with paper republic leather journals to encourage them to record their experiences. I have found that being on an Arctic ship somehow inspires people to write a journal or diary. Communications with loved ones back home are not completely off limits though: you can send an old-fashioned telegram from the ship!

What is it about the Arctic that you love so much?

I'm obsessed by the ice. Whenever I’m sailing north, the first thing I want to do is get up in the ice as quickly as possible. I really love the roughness of this force; the fact that it's so powerful and makes you feel so small and vulnerable. 

There's a kind of poetry in ice because it's constantly changing. Not just over the years, but also during a day; the colour changes, the ice moves, drifts and breaks. It's a never-ending show.

You specialise in ice navigation to uncharted areas. Are there really still unexplored parts of the world? 

Yes. Even today, there are parts of the Arctic that have never been explored. Places where you don't even have the coastline mapped, and there are no depth charts, nothing. For me, these are really exciting. Every time I see a blank area on the chart, I think: let’s go and explore what’s there.

There's no specific school for this type of exploration but there are techniques you can learn by reading old explorer books. We've fitted our ship with a multi-beam echo-sounder, so it's going to be much easier and safer to go to these uncharted places. 

Selar have designed an incredible new generation of ship. Tell us about it.

Ship design has changed very little for decades but the world is facing new challenges and we need new thinking. So we’ve completely redesigned our ship from scratch. Everything from the hull to the propulsion system to the thickness of the materials has been rethought. We have drawn upon some lessons from the past, as well as taking innovations and making disruptive choices that we think are the right ones today.

We are using semi-fixed solar sails to provide both wind propulsion and also electricity.
They are covered with 20,000 square feet of solar panels; enough to provide all the energy we need on board, and when we are generating excess, we store it in a huge battery pack that can power the propellers. If we ever run out of electricity, we have bio-fuel engines as backup, and for heating we use waste-wood-pellet burners. 

With this new generation of ship, do you hope the rest of the shipping industry will take note?

Yes, my hope is that by demonstrating the success of our low impact ship, it will initiate a shift. In the same way that Tesla sparked the electric car revolution, we hope to accelerate a shift towards more sustainable vessels within the shipping industry. 

Finally, how many Polar bears have you seen?

More than 550.

paper republic worked with Sophie and her team to create a special Selar-branded grand voyageur for their Arctic passengers. Get a custom journal for your organisation or learn more about Captain Galvagnon’s inspirational new ships and Arctic explorations at: Selar.cc