Chuck Bergman and Susan Mann: A Story of Penguins, Hope, and Resilience

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I’ve turned away several white guys on my podcast. When I started this podcast, I wanted to invite people who do not get a platform to share their stories. I’ve interviewed 50+ people, including 38 women, 24 people of color, 12 immigrants, 12 who identify as LBGTQIA+, and only 7 men. 

Dr. Chuck Bergman is the first white man I have interviewed, along with his wife Susan. When I was a 20-year-old junior at PLU, he inspired me to become a writer and taught me an important lesson about resilience. 

Chuck has won several awards and published 5 books and 150 articles in prominent magazines. He has led PLU student tours to Ecuador, Argentina, Mexico, Chile, Tanzania, and Uganda, and six tours to Antarctica.

Susan is a professional coach and leadership consultant who has worked with Dr. Brené Brown and The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She has researched and written about resilience in the workplace and in life.

Every Penguin in the World: A Quest to See Them All is the story of their effort to see each of the world's 18 species of penguins in the wild. It is a story of overcoming challenges and health issues. They believe penguins are creatures of hope and resilience.

Penguins also offer the therapeutic effects of laughter. “You can't watch them without laughing. There's just something about being in their company that is really gratifying and restorative…they will definitely make you laugh.”

Chuck recounted an intimate encounter with a King Penguin on South Georgia Island. He got down on his stomach to take a photo, and a penguin started pecking at his boots and biting his pants. He looked him in the face and made a loud, hoarse call. Each penguin has its own call, and children recognize their parents through their calls. “When the penguin does that call, it's saying, ‘this is who I am’ and asking who are you. Your job is to answer. That really put me on notice. Who am I, really? And who am I in relationship to all these penguins in the earth that we love?”

On Susan and Chuck’s 10th wedding anniversary, they were volunteering to study and conserve African Penguins on Robben Island in South Africa. Susan was holding a penguin chick, and she realized it was their tenth species of penguin. Chuck noted it was their 10th anniversary and they had a “10 for 10” record. “That's when we decided to go for all 18.”

Susan recounted one of the grueling stories in the book involving a life-or-death river crossing in New Zealand. Another memorable story involves their journey to see Emperor Penguins in Antarctica. Chuck almost missed his once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Listen to the podcast or read the book to hear these stories.

“The big threat for climate change for penguins is warming oceans…the cold water current is shifting 200 miles to the south…the penguins have to swim farther to get food for their babies, and it makes it harder for them to catch fish and to get it back to their babies…their babies are malnourished so it's harder for young penguins to grow to adulthood.”

Susan survived Stage 3 breast cancer, and Chuck revealed in the book he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. When Chuck got diagnosed, he describes it as a sobering moment. “All of us are only one doctor's visit away from our mortality… penguins live in such daunting circumstances and can be such delightful creatures…it just became a model for me.”

Chuck views their penguin quest as a spiritual journey.  “I began thinking of it as a pilgrimage…for me this became a deepening interest in seeing more deeply into the mystery of things.

Listen to the podcast to hear their memories of low and high points of their quest.

Transcript

 Marie

Hello Chuck and Susan.

 Marie

Thank you so much for being on the Finding Fertile Ground podcast.

 Marie

It’s an honor to have you with me.

 Susan

Happy to be here.

 Chuck

Hi, it's good to see you again Marie.

 Susan

Thank you.

 Marie

Yeah, you too.

 Marie

So I read your book Every Penguin in the World during a series of two insomnia filled nights.

 Marie

I've been having a lot of insomnia lately and I knew the book would have gorgeous photography and writing, but what surprised me was the suspense that you wrote into you.

 Marie

Stories and when my when my husband woke up, I told him that I couldn't put the Penguin book down that it was gripping and he was surprised to say the least.

 Marie

I found the book to be fascinating.

 Marie

I was really surprised by how much.

 Marie

I really yeah I couldn't put it down.

 Marie

So congratulations, right?

 Chuck

Thank you, well, I can tell you that when I pitched the book to the publisher, I described it as story driven and fact friendly and so it was meant to tell stories and to use those as a way to engage people in the whole idea of Penguins and why we should care about Penguins.

 Chuck

So I'm glad to hear that this story is made a difference for you.

Dad.

 Marie

Definitely, so I always start out my podcast by asking people to tell us about their childhood.

 Marie

So where did you grow up?

 Marie

What were your family and childhood like and when did you discover your love for animals and the outdoors?

 Chuck

We're both Pacific Northwest people.

 Chuck

I was not born in the Pacific Northwest.

 Chuck

I was born in Minneapolis but came out to Washington and.

 Chuck

Seattle's a baby with my parents who moved in and moved out from Minnesota. My dad got a job at Boeing and I've always loved that city Northwest went to the University of Washington as an undergraduate and got a pH. D in English Renaissance literature from the University of Minnesota, and people are always interested in somebody who writes about Penguins who did a.

 Chuck

PhD dissertation on.

 Chuck

Poetry of the 16th century.

 Chuck

There's quite a little transition that happened over the course of the years there, but that may be a different subject.

 Chuck

Anyway.

 Chuck

It fell in love with animals when I was a graduate student.

 Chuck

I had a history of liking animals as a kid, but it was really as a graduate student and learning to Birdwatch in Minnesota as a kind of form of relaxation, really.

 Chuck

While I was studying to take my exams and putting together my dissertation, birds really really became a passion for.

 Chuck

I mean then.

 Marie

Nice so.

 Susan

For me, I'm a fourth generation seattleite and grew up in the forest kind of protected land in the northeast part of Seattle with undeveloped acres back in the 60s and 70s, and there were pheasants and.

 Susan

Salamanders and skunks and all kinds of animals and birds.

Sure.

 Susan

And so really from the very beginning.

 Susan

I loved animals and spent a lot of time outdoors.

 Susan

I'm the oldest of five kids.

 Susan

My parents were great about getting us out in the natural world regularly.

 Susan

Kind of winter and.

 Susan

Summer and for example, in this summer we always took camping trips up to the San Juan Islands to Mount Rainier.

 Susan

Over to Sun Lakes in Eastern Washington.

 Susan

An so lot of time outdoors and in nature.

 Susan

Growing up.

 Marie

So did animals or Penguins bring you together?

 Marie

Did you ever imagine you'd marry someone who had the same fascination with animals and Penguins?

 Susan

Well, you know, not specifically Penguins.

 Susan

No, actually before I met Chuck, I had a particular affinity for Penguin.

 Susan

But that wasn't really something we talked about early in our relationship.

 Susan

I would say it was more kind of higher order in that we knew from our early days that we both shared a passion and a love for the natural world and for wild animals, and so that that certainly was a common on from the beginning and.

 Susan

Has been enduring for now 25.

 Chuck

Years, yeah, I would say that.

 Chuck

Certainly Penguins did not bring us together.

 Chuck

I didn't see my first Penguin till some.

 Chuck

Seven or eight years after I met Susan, but they quickly became something of a shared passion for us and we realized this.

 Chuck

This kind of journey to see all 18 species of Penguins in the world gathered momentum over the course of the years.

 Chuck

It really deepened the bond between us and we became a shared passion that I think was sort of.

 Chuck

It's hard to describe the impact of it, except that it was just so wonderful that this was something we could do together and really define our relationship in a lot of ways through it.

 Marie

That's great, so Chuck.

 Marie

I met you when you were my advanced composition professor at Pacific Lutheran.

 Marie

And you change the trajectory of my life by encouraging me to major in English. So I really give you a lot of credit for what I do for a living and you also helped me discover one of the keys to resilience. The therapeutic effects of telling one's vulnerable story. Do you remember what happened in that advanced pop class?

 Chuck

Yeah, I think I do, but do you wanna say something about it?

 Chuck

I mean, I think it's really I remember a conversation with you and encouraging you.

 Marie

Yeah, yeah.

 Marie

Yes.

 Marie

Yeah, so you wrote on one of my papers.

 Marie

Have you ever thought about majoring in English?

 Marie

So that was, you know, huge 'cause.

 Marie

I was an education major my junior year was kind of late to change my major, but also the other thing that really life changing for me was that you had us write my turn style essays and I wrote a story about being ******** assaulted when I was 13 years.

 Marie

Called and it was really, you know, very difficult to write.

 Marie

But when you saw it you said, would you read this to the class?

 Marie

It's my personality when I'm asked to do something difficult.

 Marie

It's very difficult for me to say no.

 Marie

So so I kind of rise to that occasion.

 Marie

So I actually read it to the class was the first time I'd ever shared that story publicly.

 Marie

That's partly what I try to do with this podcast is.

 Marie

Have people tell their stories.

 Marie

'cause I really believe it's therapeutic to be vulnerable.

 Marie

Well, so anyway, I just wanted to give you a huge shout out for that.

 Marie

It was really really life changing for me.

 Chuck

Thank you for saying something about that Maria.

 Chuck

I will say as the course of Mycareer developed at PLU as a teacher and professor, the role of mentoring students really took over.

 Chuck

I saw teaching Morris kind of mentoring and working one on one with students more than kind of classroom performances.

 Chuck

And it's one of the things Penguins actually grew to play something about.

 Chuck

Large part in that because I started taking students all over the world, including to Antarctica and seeing Penguins and those are life changing events.

 Chuck

And I love that about that kind of.

 Chuck

Travel the way it could change a person's life, and I think that's one of the key things about writing is that you find your story and it's very empowering.

 Marie

Yeah, I really enjoyed those anecdotes you had in your books about your trips that you took the students to see the Penguins and other animals as well.

 Marie

So let's talk about your article the Penguin glow Penguins teach us about hope and resilience.

 Marie

That you wrote for Penguins International.

 Marie

You say Penguins offer living lessons in hope and resilience.

 Marie

Can you elaborate on the three ways Penguins can help provide hope and relieve the gloom?

 Chuck

Sure, as I thought about it, Penguins really are wonderful.

 Chuck

If you think about a Penguin and where they live and what they go through to conduct their lives, it's pretty astonishing and they are models of resilience in very difficult ways, difficult environments, and hope to sort of Springs from them.

 Chuck

What I described those three ways as being.

 Chuck

An intimate connection with animals.

 Chuck

It's possible in Antarctica.

 Chuck

This is one of the great things about Antarctica to see animals, but they don't hide from you.

 Chuck

They don't flee from you.

 Chuck

In fact, you can walk among them and have these kind of intimate experiences with animals.

 Chuck

And it really is.

 Chuck

There's something about that that's deeply grounding, so that was one of the first things.

 Chuck

The second was the necessity of awe and wonder.

 Chuck

And Penguins will take you.

 Chuck

To that, because they live in these vast and kind of hostile landscapes, and they make people feel the Antarctic environment and the Antarctic landscape will make you feel small, and Penguins can.

 Chuck

Make you feel small in that way too, and that they can manage that landscape in a way that we probably never could, but they don't make you feel insignificant and it's one of the things students often commented about it.

 Chuck

Seeing Penguins and being in Antarctica, you feel small but not insignificant.

 Chuck

You actually feel bigger in the bigness of the whole and so that.

 Chuck

Sense of awe and wonder.

 Chuck

I just think it's really crucial and is life changing.

 Chuck

Clarifying for values and finding purpose and meaning in life.

 Chuck

So an intimate connection with animals, a necessity of on one.

 Chuck

And then the therapeutic effects of laughter.

 Chuck

Yeah, this is just really simple.

 Chuck

But Penguins are just can't watch them without laughing.

 Chuck

There's just something about being in their company that is really gratifying and restorative.

 Chuck

I guess you could say they will definitely make you laugh.

 Chuck

They seem so self important and they're walking along and then all of a sudden they'll trip.

 Chuck

A notes to a face plan that.

 Chuck

No, they're very social and they are always seen with other Penguins and then.

 Chuck

They seem like they're getting along and all of a sudden one of the Penguins just slap the other one with Flipper and this man. The laughter is something that I think is restorative as well. Susan and I have a term for the feeling you get in the company of Penguins, which is really like the feeling you get with no other animals that we know we call it the Penguin glow. It's actually Susan's term and that's her.

 Marie

Why not?

 Susan

Uh-huh my Instagram names.

 Chuck

Right Instagram name.

 Marie

Ah.

 Chuck

So you come away with this feeling that is hard to describe, but it's the combination of ah, an affection that they invoke.

 Chuck

And it's there's just nothing like it.

 Susan

For real.

 Susan

Time.

 Susan

 Marie

Time, yeah, it seems like you had a couple of really great Penguin to person encounters, like when one of them called like did.

 Marie

I don't know it was like a mating call.

 Marie

I'm not sure.

 Marie

Gonna call it wasn't and you decided to respond with the call.

 Chuck

And experience with the King Penguin on South Georgia Island.

 Chuck

South Georgia Island is this gorgeous island, one of the great discoveries of our lives is how beautiful.

 Chuck

South Georgia Island wasn't how much we loved going there, so we did about a 3 1/2 week trip to the Falkland Islands in the South Georgia Island, South Georgia. For those may not know is about 900 miles East of the coast of Argentina. You can only get there by boat. At least. Civilians can only get there by boat and it's just a spectacularly beautiful wild landscape and it's full of.

 Chuck

Penguins and there are beaches like Saint Andrews Bay that fill up with breeding King Penguins 3 foot tall Peng.

 Chuck

Runs with pewter backs and white chest and gorgeous orange highlights. They'll be 250,000 pairs of King Penguins on this beach. All breeding and we landed there. I thought photo I wanted to take got on my tummy then gonna crawl up and take this photo of these Penguins an I had this discovered that a King Penguin on its own had come up to me and was.

 Chuck

Packing in my boots and biting in my pants and it came all the way up to my face.

 Chuck

Look me in the face and then lean back and did this loud call.

 Chuck

It's very hoarse.

 Chuck

It sounds sort of like a kazoo.

 Chuck

It was just strange because I knew exactly what it was doing and it was saying something to me and I knew what it was.

 Chuck

Name it wasn't a mating call, it's an identity column.

 Susan

Miller

 Chuck

They have in those big beaches.

 Chuck

The King Penguins don't use nests.

 Chuck

They carry their egg on their feet and hatch it that way so the chicks can wander all over.

 Chuck

So when the parents go off to fish and they come back, the chicks maybe wandering and they've got to find their chicks and the way they do it is to that call.

 Chuck

Each Penguin has its own call sound, and it's recognizable by the chicken.

 Chuck

The chick is recognizable to the parent, and the two parents can find each other that way.

 Chuck

So when its Penguin does that call, it's saying.

 Chuck

This is who I am.

 Chuck

It's announcing itself to you thing I am this is who I am.

 Chuck

Who are you and your job is to answer.

 Chuck

Well that was a really powerful moment because not only was it kind of a communicative moment with the Penguin, but it really kind of put me on notice.

 Chuck

Who am I really and who am I in relationship to all these Penguins into the?

 Chuck

Kind of earth that we love and that became really the driving purpose of the book was to answer that question to that King Penguin.

 Marie

Oh, that's amazing.

 Marie

Story, so let's let's delve a little bit more into the book itself and really the journey that you took.

 Marie

So let's.

 Marie

 Marie

Can you tell us about how you started this journey?

 Chuck

Well, the journey started really accidentally.

 Chuck

It started by seeing a Galapagos Penguin and swimming with him.

 Chuck

And really, in just being spectacularly moved by that, but we didn't really begin with at the beginning.

 Chuck

Like with the first Penguin saying oh, let's see all of them because it's a pretty daunting thing to undertake it, but we slowly kind of.

 Chuck

Found ourselves just by virtue of growing places where we could see Penguins and seeing more and more species, but just came this moment when we decided.

 Chuck

You know, there are 18 of them.

 Chuck

Actually, when we decided there were 17, that's a whole other story. X #17. We've seen 10 and we just felt what the heck this has been so amazing and we should make an effort to see all 18. And that's really how kind of accidentaly emerged. We just followed our passion for these things and it led to this journey, this quest.

 Chuck

That seemed larger than than us.

 Susan

Yeah, I think you know I would add to that that very early on, like around the time of the first trip to the Galapagos, we also read about Shackleton for the first time and.

 Susan

Started reading about other Antarctic explorers and these are amazing stories of courage and hardship and resilience and failure.

 Susan

And, you know, just fascinating, including leadership lessons, which I'm also interested in, and so that was another part of the.

Yeah.

 Susan

Attraction

 Marie

There was something to do with that your 10 year anniversary.

 Chuck

Yes, absolutely that was with African Penguins.

 Chuck

We.

 Chuck

We decided on for one of our anniversary's to volunteer with Earthwatch expedition to contribute to work with the study with this project on Robben Island with African Penguins to study and conserve them. The African Penguins are like they are one of the most endangered Penguins in the world. In the last century, they've lost about 95% of their.

 Chuck

Population and there really only have one stronghold. Breeding Island population left and that's Robben Island, which your listeners may recognize, but probably not for Penguins. Robben Island is where the prison it held. 1500 political prisoners. This crime was opposing apartheid in South Africa, and Nelson Mandela was one of those pretty.

 Chuck

Spent 18 years on that island, so we spent two weeks there an we were working with a little chick on the day of our anniversary and Susan was actually holding this chick.

 Chuck

We were weighing and measuring them with one of the biologists and Susan said to me, you know this is our 10th species of Penguin and I said and it's our 10th wedding anniversary and that's.

 Marie

Sure.

 Chuck

10 for 10.

 Chuck

There was something about the symmetry of that moment that just made us say this is sort of meant to be somehow that this really is part of who we are together, and that's when we decided right then and there that we were gonna go for all 18.

 Chuck

And.

 Chuck

 Marie

I love that it's such a romantic story.

 Marie

Right?

 Susan

A magic moment.

 Susan

A magic.

 Marie

Moment so Susan, I didn't realize before researching you that you are resilience expert so I'm wondering if you can share some of your favorite resilience practices.

 Susan

Yeah, thank you.

 Susan

Yeah, thank.

 Susan

Well, a few things I do, and then maybe one thing based on some research I did about a year and a half or so ago since the pandemic started.

 Susan

I've been walking for about an hour every day, an often walking outdoors and so that combines two things into one experience that you know, really help.

 Susan

Maybe more reason?

 Susan

Client I used to often have a long commute to Seattle and travel nationally or even internationally for my career, and that all went away with the the shutdown starting in March of 2020. So I just reclaimed that time and repurposed it into getting outside and walking.

 Susan

And I love that, you know, we live in an area where we can see Puget Sound in the mountains and lots of trees and birds and sometimes deers and bunnies.

 Susan

And so it's great to get outdoors and do that.

 Susan

Another thing that I make a point of doing regularly is unplugging lots of ways that that people can do that sometime.

 Susan

Times I've gone through periods where I make sure that like one day of the weekend, I'm completely unplugged from social media an email or I make sure that after dinner time or seven in the evening, I'm staying off of email and social media and so having that time where we're not.

 Susan

Kind of constantly checking what's going on is really important.

 Susan

Finally, another thing that I I do is make time to get out of my head.

 Susan

And like just laugh or be creative.

 Susan

I do watercolor painting sometimes and that's a great way to kind of engage my creativity and do something that really gets me out of my right brain.

 Susan

Thinking about a year and a half ago I I did some research into resilience and what helps people.

 Susan

All be resilience and one of the things that I learned is that the people who describe themselves as being the most resilient in enduring ways or people who are engaging all of their senses.

 Susan

So this partly goes back to the idea of doing something physical like walking or other forms of physical activity.

 Susan

You know things that engage.

 Susan

Our site, our sense of smell so that could be like cooking for example, or arranging Flowers so you know having a massage, for example, is an or hug you know which.

 Susan

Just being in short supply, so pandemic, right but kind of engaging ourselves in these different kinds of sensory experiences is really important and also doing things that engage heart, mind, body, spirit.

 Susan

OK.

 Susan

 Susan

So many of us spend.

 Susan

Much of our days in intellectual activities and ensuring that we're well rounded is important for our resilience.

 Marie

Yeah, I have really become fascinated with the topic of resilience.

 Marie

I am personally and naturally resilient person.

 Marie

I've discovered that about myself, but it doesn't always come as easily to other people, so your tips are very helpful.

 Susan

Thanks.

 Marie

I think a lot of people have gotten more connected to the outdoors during the pandemic.

 Susan

Right?

 Marie

I yeah, I do a bit like my daily walk.

 Marie

I have to get outside everyday.

 Susan

Right, yeah, well there was an interesting article recently. I think it was in Forbes. If I remember correctly. I could send you the link if you're interested with the headline. Is 2 hours a week in nature the new 10,000 steps a day?

 Marie

Huh?

 Susan

So there's more and more evidence to support, really what we know intuitively in our bones.

 Susan

Which is that having time outdoors in nature is super important for us.

 Marie

Yes, I interviewed a woman a couple of months ago named Katrina Nielsen, Gorman, and she had this incredible story about traveling in India, traveling throughout Asia and actually getting raped when she was in India and she actually stated India after it happened.

 Marie

She had a really positive memory of the Indian people 'cause she was really taken care of there.

 Marie

But she came back.

 Marie

She was actually living in living in Colorado.

 Marie

But she now lives in the northwest.

 Marie

But she had a number of health problems and she really found healing in the forest.

 Marie

So now she is a forest therapy guide and I just love that idea.

 Susan

Wow, that's cool.

 Marie

Is that amazing?

 Marie

I know I never heard of that before, but so let's talk a little bit more about Penguins again.

 Marie

So when reading your book, I kept recalling the movie March of the Penguins.

 Marie

Probably a lot of people think about that because of you know the fascination of emperor.

 Marie

Hundreds and I was thinking about how they have more of a matriarchal society.

 Marie

The females choose the mating partners of males, incubate the eggs while fasting, and then the females got fantasy voyage and so this resonated with me because my husband was a stay at home Dad for most of our our parenting time while I was the breadwinner are emperor Penguins.

 Marie

Only Peg was live this way.

 Marie

And what do you think it says about their species in general?

 Marie

What could we learn from emperor Penguins?

 Chuck

Yeah, the females playing really important role.

 Chuck

Obviously in the Emperor Penguins the emperor Penguins mate in pretty remarkable.

 Chuck

In fact the most remarkable circumstances I think of any bird and maybe any animal in the world.

 Chuck

They're the only Penguin of the 18 species that stays in Antarctica through the winter.

 Chuck

All the other birds.

 Chuck

That are there actually leave, but the Emperor Penguin not only stays in anti.

 Chuck

Africa, but in that winter, the most ferocious winters on the planet.

 Chuck

That's when they breed.

 Chuck

Females do play a very important role.

 Chuck

They lay the egg this single leg.

 Chuck

They don't have nest because they breed on sea ice just off the continent.

 Chuck

There's no nesting materials really.

 Chuck

An the males, she passes the egg off to the male who tucks it into a.

 Chuck

Much covers it with feathers and then she goes to see to feed from the nine weeks that the male will stay with the egg and incubated on his own.

 Chuck

It's just a remarkable circumstance whether they're fully matriarchal, in the sense that, say orca whales are matriarchal in that the females will lead a pod.

 Chuck

Well, I'm really not quite sure, but they play this really important role and they have this important function to perform what's I think is kind of amazing is that then they both share the duties in the job of raising the chip and.

 Chuck

The thing about Penguins is that it's so easy to see ourselves in so much of what they do.

 Chuck

It's just really remarkable how easily we find ourselves able to identify with them and learn from them.

 Chuck

So I think they're just terrific creatures to think about.

 Chuck

They they almost make us think about how we live.

 Chuck

I think that the own I don't know of any other Penguin that has this kind of structure where the female will lay.

 Chuck

The egg and then leave and come back.

 Chuck

They're they're really emperor.

 Chuck

Penguins are really unique in that, but they do.

 Chuck

They definitely provide us with a sense of family drama and family values.

 Chuck

In the way they raise their.

 Chuck

Their chicks.

 Chuck

 Marie

Chicks.

 Chuck

Chicks.

 Chuck

 Marie

So the story that you told about traversing the River in New Zealand that had me on the edge of my car.

 Marie

What you see is.

 Marie

 Marie

Is.

 Marie

That was an I love the way you carefully unravel that which of course could be like, oh, I have to stay up longer in the middle of the light to read this so, so that was one of just one of several stories in the book that kept me awake at night.

 Marie

You had such incredible.

 Marie

Answers, can you just give a little bit of a nutshell explanation of what happened with the River?

 Susan

Right, yeah, well we were on the edge of our seats.

 Susan

Too.

 Marie

Yes, I think you had a horrible injury check too when you fell right.

 Marie

So Oh my gosh yeah.

 Susan

Yeah, yeah we will give you as you said the the nutshell version Marie and you know the full details are are in the book.

 Susan

We wanted to see the Fiordland Penguin which is difficult or challenging to accomplish and we had gone to a particular lodge in New Zealand.

 Susan

In order to see it an when we were there.

 Susan

There were just torrential rains, very heavy rains for days and we've been there for two or three days waiting for the weather to clear it enough that we could make this big height from the lodge down some distance, couple miles to the beach where the Penguins were and and finally the weather lifted enough that the guide felt it was safe for us to go down.

 Susan

He let us down and left us seated on a big log on the beach.

 Susan

Each where we spent several hours watching these Fiordland Penguins come and go from the sea up to their nests, which are on the hillside, actually in trees and shrubs.

 Susan

It's a really interesting place where they make their nests.

 Susan

So we were watching the birds coming and going and check was photographed.

 Susan

Thing and some hours later the guide came back and said we've got to go right away.

 Susan

The rivers come up 'cause the rain had picked back up again while we were there so we got back to this River that we had had to cross in order to get to this viewing area and the guide gave us a.

 Susan

Speech a safety orientation before we entered the River, you said you've got to keep your feet on the floor of the River every step.

 Susan

Don't lift your feet and we've got to keep our arms locked no matter what.

 Susan

Happens, don't fall down. Keep your feet on the floor of the River and keep walking ahead. Stay upright well as we got part way across the River the water is deeper and deeper it had come up a lot while we were watching the Penguins like it's up to thighs and hips and Chuck was carrying a very heavy like 3540 pound.

 Susan

Camera packed with all of his gear and the rivers raging.

 Susan

Well, Chuck went down and I started to go down.

 Susan

The guides yelling at us stay up, stay up.

 Susan

Well, we made our way across, Fortunately, but it was definitely a scary moment.

 Susan

An once we made our way across, we still had to hike about 2 miles back to the lodge and get a cross several smaller dreams.

 Susan

So that was I would say one of the more.

 Susan

Dangerous moments of the Penguin Quest and we were happy to come out on the other side.

 Chuck

Oh, it was a near death experience.

 Chuck

The truth of the matter is, I mean, the currents in the River were strong enough that they could have easily carried us out into the task and see.

 Chuck

And that was really just so really.

 Marie

Yeah.

 Chuck

Lucky to have made it out of there.

 Marie

Boy, so really it was really amazing.

 Marie

So you wrote about the threats to Penguin habitat and health and provided many wonderful resources in the back of the book.

 Marie

Can you share with listeners some of what threatens Penguins because of climate change and other factors?

 Chuck

Well, the big threat for climate change for Penguins is warming oceans and that has a lot of dangers.

 Chuck

Your listeners may have heard that in the last three or four months, two big ice chunks have broken off of Antarctica, each one the size of Great Britain, just.

 Chuck

Enormous there being eroded from underneath, by warming seas.

 Chuck

That is a huge threat to Antarctic Penguins for the more temperate climate species, like African Penguins or Magellanic Penguins, ocean warming, just having this terrible effect, it's changing ocean currents.

 Chuck

So like there are currents of cold water that come up from Antarctica and go.

 Chuck

Right to the tip of Africa, for example, and that's why there are Penguins in Africa. There's one species of Penguin in Africa, and that's why that cold water current, but that current, now warming oceans, is shifting that current 200 miles to the South.

 Chuck

Nice and with it the food that these Penguins require and it just means they have to swim farther to get food for their babies.

 Chuck

And it makes it harder for them to catch fish and to get it back to their babies.

 Chuck

Which means their babies are now nourished so it's harder to recruit young Penguins and have them grow to adulthood.

 Chuck

And it's a real problem in it.

 Chuck

But it's a problem. It's also happening in South America with the Humboldt Current, so Galapagos Penguins, for example, have 800, probably 800 Penguins left. That's all African Penguins are down 95% Fiordland Penguin which Susan just talked about as maybe 2500 pengu.

 Chuck

And left so over half the species of Penguins are already threatened with extinction, and global warming is playing a real role in that.

 Marie

Yeah, it's very concerning.

Right?

 Marie

So both of you have experienced serious health challenges.

 Marie

Susan, you survived stage three breast cancer and check.

 Marie

I was so sorry to read at the end of the book that you have been diagnosed with Parkinson's.

 Marie

What have you learned in your 17 year long?

 Marie

Penguin Track that has helped you be resilient in the face of these challenges.

 Susan

Yeah, thanks. It's a very thoughtful question. You know the first time I saw a Penguin in the wild was the Galapagos Penguin in January 2004.

 Susan

Or and I was still going through treatment for breast cancer at that point, had very recently finished radiation, had almost no hair because I had gone through chemo that had wrapped up a few months earlier and was still doing other kinds of ongoing treatment and.

 Susan

You know I made the trip with Chuck in the student group.

 Susan

He was leading at that point because I really wanted to see the pink one.

 Susan

And had a marvelous experience snorkeling where I was able to get really close to a Galapagos Penguin that was sitting on a rock and I will never forget that moment it, you know, I carry it with me for the rest of my life and, well, that was my first Penguin in the wild.

 Susan

And in some ways, the start of the Penguin Quest.

 Susan

It also was the culmination for me of a of a big dream because I had wanted for some years to see a Penguin in the wild and for me one of the the lessons of all of this.

 Susan

Is that in?

 Susan

It sounds cliche in a certain way, and it's really true that we don't know how long we have our health.

 Susan

We don't know how long we have to live.

 Susan

We don't know how long we have to be with our loved ones.

 Susan

You know, the natural world is endangered in so many ways, which is part of what Chuck was just.

 Susan

Describing, and so it feels really important to pursue what matters to.

 Susan

Make a difference and do it while we can because we don't know.

 Chuck

Well, yeah, and I think that's right and I would kind of just build on that a little bit.

 Chuck

Yeah I was diagnosed with Parkinson's and we were about halfway through our Penguin Quest.

 Chuck

That was obviously a sobering moment an I realized a number of things and the Penguins helped me with that a lot.

 Chuck

One of the things I realized is that.

 Chuck

All of us are really only one doctor's visit away from our mortality an it's a pretty important thing to kind of.

 Chuck

Bear in mind, and that those moments of sitting in a doctor's office, getting that kind of news, and pretty sobering.

 Chuck

But then for me, I just realized pretty quickly that while it was not the message I ever wanted to hear of all the things I could have heard that was by no means the worst, and there was just something about.

 Chuck

Penguins.

 Chuck

They live in such daunting circumstances and.

 Chuck

Yeah, they they can be such delightful creatures that it just became this kind of model for me.

 Marie

Huh?

 Chuck

It's easy to be happy when things are going your way and then I, I think the real question is, can you find happiness when you have challenges that you faced and these were pretty serious challenges.

 Chuck

And the strange thing is, I felt happier after that diagnosis.

 Chuck

And then I had it at any other point in my life, and it was kind of.

 Chuck

It was just really remarkable.

 Marie

Wow, yeah my brother in law who lives in Puyallup. Another PLU grad found out he had a very advanced form of throat cancer when he went to his doctor on his 65th birthday. Totally caught my sister and her husband off garden.

 Marie

It was life changing, so he's doing really well now, but he's he's still not able to eat really very well.

 Marie

So he's a survivor.

 Marie

But yeah, it changes your life in so many ways, so makes you appreciate yeah.

 Chuck

It really does, and Susan's right, you know, we watched as we have moved into our 60s and beyond. We see it happens all the time. You know folks just you have dreams they want to fulfill and come to retirement. An in fact go to the doctor and find out they have some rare form of cancer.

 Chuck

Or they have heart issues and those dreams they don't get to live on and we just realized we better do what we wanna do now because you just don't know it's gonna be ahead of you.

 Marie

Absolutely.

 Marie

So that's a good segue to my next question, which is you describe your experience as a spiritual journey as pilgrims of Penguins.

 Marie

Can you elaborate on that?

 Chuck

One of the things I should say is that I divided the book into three parts and there was a section on adventure.

 Chuck

Penguins and adventure is sort of how we began Penguins and conservation, which is was the deepening part of the question to some.

 Chuck

Kind of significance about the future of Penguins in the future of the planet, and then really the kind of personal dimensions of it, which overtime came to feel to us.

 Chuck

Very much like we were learning something.

 Chuck

We were being called in some way, and I began thinking of it as a pilgrimage.

 Chuck

And really, what that means is a kind of external voyage.

 Chuck

That invokes had corresponding internal voyage that it's a journey of the spirit of the soul in some way an I think.

 Chuck

Both of us felt very much that.

 Chuck

That was the case, and for me this became a deepening kind of interest in seeing more deeply into things in the scene into the mystery of things and the way I put it in the book is to see with the eyes of the heart as well as with the eyes in my head, and then happened in a number of cases.

 Chuck

But emperor Penguins, probably more than any other.

 Chuck

Really took me deeper into my own sense of what life is about and what I wanted to.

 Chuck

Think of it an through a connection with the creatures like emperor Penguins that we share this planet with.

 Marie

I don't want to give away all the spoilers in the work, but that was one of the parts in the book where I was like holding my breath when you were almost able not to see the Emperor Penguin, so I really want to encourage listeners to go get the book to read about that.

 Marie

I felt very concerned for you whether you're going to be able to get there or not.

So.

 Chuck

Well that was a low point really.

 Chuck

In a way I had hurt my back before that voyage, and it was seen in a colony of emperor Penguins is a major commitment.

 Chuck

It's a huge undertaking because you have to cross the Drake Passage and being an ice breaker and crash through ice to get farther South and then take helicopters to the CIS and then hike on the sea ice to the column.

 Chuck

It's a real undertaking.

 Marie

It's amazing.

 Chuck

And my back started acting up and I don't know if people have had back issues.

 Chuck

They know the kind of pain that can invoke.

 Chuck

It was just excruciating and carrying a camera.

 Chuck

Yeah, only made it worse.

 Chuck

I could barely get to the colony and I could barely get back.

 Chuck

In fact, it drove me to my knees on several occasions.

 Chuck

It was a real low moment because I thought I've come all this way and I may not even be able to get to the colony.

 Chuck

I'm just in such excruciating pain.

 Chuck

I'll leave that for the readers to discover how that kind of plays itself out, but it did.

 Chuck

And I can say that the emperors were.

 Chuck

A super positive and all that.

 Marie

What was your high point check?

 Chuck

Lots of high points.

 Marie

Yes.

 Chuck

I think the first landing on South Georgia Island was one of the great high points and finding nesting, albatrosses and nesting Penguins.

 Chuck

It was just oh gosh.

 Chuck

I'll never forget that.

 Marie

Susan, how about you? What was your high point low .111?

 Susan

Yeah, well, I'll start with a low point.

 Susan

You know, one of the things that Chuck and I have said over the years is that the quest to see all 18 Penguins is not for the faint of heart.

 Susan

No, I mean we have had.

 Susan

Just some massive adventures.

 Susan

It it really.

 Susan

Takes a significant commitment and you know one of the things that that happens is that you really don't have any control over the natural elements and the Wilds and the weather.

 Susan

So, for example, we made a trip to.

 Susan

NZ and some other sub Antarctic islands.

 Susan

We wanted to see the snares Penguin.

 Susan

This goes back roughly six years or so ago now and this nearest Penguin lives in this.

 Susan

Snares, Islands which are small kind of rocks.

 Susan

South of New Zealand.

 Susan

And we were on a ship it was a Gale very high winds very high seas and Long story short the ship could not get anywhere near shore which meant that it was not.

 Susan

Safe to get into Zodiacs and go near shore to see the Penguins more closely, which we would typically do on an expedition like this.

 Susan

And so we were right there.

 Susan

We could see the islands with binoculars we could see from some distance away the teeniest like specks.

 Susan

Of Penguins through our binoculars, you know, on the shoreline, but that was as close as we could get an you just have to kind of let go because there's no controlling the weather, right?

 Susan

An what's happening so we ended up going back a year and a half ago on.

 Susan

A similar trip and we were able to see the snares then, which was great.

 Susan

But you know, it was definitely a low point an A.

 Susan

A real disappointment to not be able to see them.

 Susan

After all that the first time.

 Susan

Around a high point was when we saw a Penguin #18 the northern Rockhopper. We spent five weeks on a ship sailing up the middle of the Atlantic South to North in order to see it. Gosh, hundreds and hundreds of miles. Kind of in the middle of the Atlantic. Roughly. I don't know halfway between.

 Susan

Africa and South America, and again the weather conditions had been uncertain.

 Susan

It was not clear that we were going to be able to see the Northern Rockhopper.

 Susan

Or the captain was monitoring the conditions it was touch and go.

 Susan

Finally he decided that it was safe enough that we're very big swells, but he said if you're willing to take the risk of getting in the Zodiacs will ride this wells and get closer to shore so that you can see him and it was pouring pouring down rain.

 Susan

Rain and you know the northern Rockhoppers were swimming all around us.

 Susan

Normally they have these beautiful crests, but the crests were all like soaking wet and flopping down because of the rain pouring down and you know.

 Susan

So here we are with these Northern rockhoppers swimming all around the Zodiac San.

 Susan

We were drenched, but Chuck and I just looked at each other, looked at the Penguins with these joyful smiles on our faces.

 Susan

We were so happy 'cause that was.

 Susan

As Penguin #18

Uh, yeah.

Uh.

 Chuck

Yeah, Penguins, we realized can be the most miserable way in the world.

 Chuck

It's having having the best time of your life.

Yeah.

 Marie

How did you celebrate seeing #18?

 Chuck

What did we do?

 Susan

Well, I don't know.

 Susan

We were.

 Susan

We were on this ship.

 Susan

I'm sure we, you know, raised a glass of champagne there's.

 Marie

Champagne right?

 Chuck

Like yeah, yeah.

 Marie

Oh my gosh, I mean the amount of money energean time that you spent on this quest is like wow, that's amazing.

 Marie

So how did following the Penguins change their relationship?

 Chuck

Well.

 Chuck

They said a little bit about that I I think it's deep and the bond we have between us.

 Chuck

There's just we've shared something and we've one of the things I think we've realized is that we have profoundly at a very deep level.

 Chuck

Very much the same set of values.

 Chuck

And we like to do this very much.

 Chuck

The same sorts of things, and it's just connected us in that way.

 Marie

Nice, I'm very lucky.

 Marie

I have that with my husband as well.

 Susan

Right?

 Marie

Yeah, it's a rare.

 Marie

And so I asked this question on most of my podcast interviews, which is kind of a random thing, which is what have you read or watched recently that is inspired you.

 Marie

It could be Penguin related or not Penguin related.

 Marie

Any recommendations for listeners of something to read or watch?

Or

 Susan

Yeah, I would say that if people have not seen my octopus teacher, we highly recommend.

 Susan

That we watched it some months ago and want to see it again.

 Susan

It is terrific.

 Susan

Octopi are so intelligent an gosh.

 Susan

I mean, we laughed.

 Susan

We cried, it's fascinating, and so that's for anybody who loves the natural world.

 Susan

In any way that's definitely a must see.

 Marie

I've heard a lot of people recommend that I have not watched it yet, so can I have to?

 Susan

Yeah yeah, but put it on your list, yeah?

 Marie

Yes.

 Chuck

It's definitely there's a moment when the octopus actually hugs the snorkeler.

 Marie

Really, Oh my gosh.

 Chuck

It sends over and hugs it. It's an amazing moment. I've been reading Helen MacDonald lately. He's got a great book called H is for Hawk. She trains a goshawk and in the aftermath of her father's death. And it's a kind of ongoing story. It's very emotional, profoundly.

 Chuck

In this state.

 Chuck

 Susan

It's a great book.

 Chuck

Yeah.

 Chuck

 Chuck

Intense connection between a woman and a very difficult to train and ultimately beauty.

 Chuck

For relationship with a gasak.

 Marie

Wow, that's a great recommendation, huh?

 Susan

Uh huh.

 Marie

OK, great.

 Marie

So what's next for you too?

 Marie

After you've seen all these Penguins?

Huh?

 Susan

Well, I just yeah, we always have something on the horizon and last August September we had planned to be in Madagascar and Kenya and because of the pandemic that trip was cancelled of course and so for about a year we did not have.

 Marie

What's next in your life?

Uh.

 Susan

Any trip on the books, which is very unusual for us and Fortunately with things.

 Susan

Seeming to improve a bit and people getting vaccines, we feel like we're at a point now where we can start looking ahead to 2022 travel and so just a few days ago we rebooked that same trip for Madagascar and Kenya, and we're planning that for late summer.

 Susan

Early fall 2022. So that's one big thing that we're very excited.

 Chuck

Yeah yeah.

 Chuck

Yeah.

 Chuck

 Chuck

And of course Penguins.

 Chuck

We've seen all 18 of them, but we've got this.

 Susan

We still have Penguin goals.

 Marie

Yes, yes.

 Chuck

We've been trying to Penguin withdrawals, so we have, when researching different kinds of Penguin trips, that we would still like to do.

Yeah.

 Chuck

I wanted to be emperor Penguins again of those guys, and so we're actually looking into a couple three different voyages.

 Marie

Ha ha.

 Chuck

One of them is actually camping with Penguins for about 9 nights.

 Marie

Oh my gosh yeah, I'm sure it would be nice for you to see the emperors when you weren't didn't have a sore back.

 Chuck

Get Antarctica.

 Susan

Too yeah, yeah.

 Chuck

Yeah, yeah.

 Susan

You know I would.

 Susan

I would go back to what Chuck said earlier in answer to your wonderful.

 Susan

Right?

 Susan

 Susan

Question about the three ways that Penguins can provide hope and one of them that Chuck talked about is awe and wonder.

 Susan

And this idea of numinous experiences is something that we both are drawn to an our time in the wild.

 Susan

Has given us so many opportunities for these experiences that fill our spirits.

 Susan

Fill our hearts.

 Susan

There's just this tremendous sense of awe and wonder.

 Susan

And I missed that.

 Susan

You know, I mean certainly there are ways to capture that in everyday life and those big moments that we've had where we're with, like 200,000 King Penguins on the beach, or were in the middle of, you know, half a dozen humpback whales that are feeding. I miss those experiences.

 Susan

And we're looking forward to more.

 Marie

I'm sure you.

 Marie

The rest of this is just been such an honor and a joy to talk with.

 Marie

Both of you.

 Marie

I really enjoyed our conversation.

 Marie

Anything final that you'd like to add?

 Chuck

Well, thanks for conducting the interview and great questions Marine.

 Chuck

It's great to talk with you and see how well you're doing it with your writing career.

 Marie

Yeah.

 Chuck

I think it's all writing teacher.

 Chuck

Very, very happy.

 Marie

Oh God, I'm so glad yes.

 Susan

Yeah, thank you for the chance to have the conversation.

 Susan

We both appreciate it.