Dare to Dream Physician Travel Podcast

Ep 112: Arctic Safari with Dr. Kelly, The Points and Miles Doc, Part 1

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🎙 Episode 112: Arctic Safari with Dr. Kelly, The Points and Miles Doc, Part 1 is now live on the Dare to Dream Physician Travel Podcast! 🌍✨

I love this chat with Dr. Kely as I learn how she balances being an off-the-beaten-path world traveler and a full-time surgeon in a leadership role. From her early days filled with curiosity about the world, to visiting national parks with her family and discovering a love for nature, to a path in engineering that intersected with language exchange programs in Uzbekistan and Russia.

Listen in as Dr. Kelly shares how her travel experiences influenced her decision to become a doctor, and why she believes in the power of connecting with people from diverse backgrounds. For her, travel isn't just an escape, it's a vital means of preventing burnout and finding purpose in planning and looking forward to new life experiences.

And don't miss the gem of our interview- as Dr. Kelly recounts her unforgettable trip to the Arctic! She takes us to The Floe Edge, a mesmerizing area where receding sea ice attracts a wide array of wildlife including the mythical Narwhal. Learn about the logistics, flights, and the unique reliance on snowmobiles due to the absence of roads. Dr. Kelly also sheds light on the crucial role played by Canadian and indigenous guides in this extraordinary expedition.

Gain insights into the indigenous communities' lifestyle, their deep-seated family values, and their unwavering communal spirit. Dr. Kelly emphasizes the significance of communal support in the Arctic environment, underlining themes of survival and community strength.

Put on your dream goggles and tune in to Part 1 of this fantastic interview! 🎧🔥

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Dr Gray, Host

Hi everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Dare to Dream Physician Travel Podcast. I am so excited today. I. Was, following this doctor on social media and, she just has the coolest content, really practical content. But, sometimes she'll share pictures, from her travels and she goes to the coolest places. I mean, she's, she. She's really, a super seasoned traveler, a world traveler, and she's a, full-time physician in a leadership position. So I am so excited to talk to her, and learn more about, you know, how she juggles medicine and travel. And, talk about some of the really most amazing places she's gone. the one that she's gonna talk to us about is going to the Arctic to observe polar bears. and it's, it's just totally wild. So I can't wait to hear more about that. and I am so excited to introduce Dr. Kelly from Points and Miles. Doc. Kelly, Welcome to the podcast. I'm so excited to have you.

Dr Kelly, Guest

Thanks so much for having me. I'm really honored to be here and I love the concept of your podcast where we can all share inspirational travel to. Give us something to look forward to in our busy day-to-day lives.

Dr Gray, Host

And you're, you're the perfect guest. So, I was so excited that you agreed to, um, come on for an interview. and first I wanna hear a little, I've heard actually you on other podcasts before. so I, I'd love for you to just introduce your audience, a little bit about you, like how, how did you get started, with travel? how did this, you do hardcore medicine and hardcore travel. Like how do you do both?

Dr Kelly, Guest

Yeah, I gotta, work hard, play hard, but, yeah. thanks so much for asking. I, I grew up in Dallas. And my family. We didn't do a, a lot of plane travel or international travel when I was a kid, but it just had a real curiosity about the world, I think a lot of physicians do that get us interested in medicine to begin with. And my parents took us on a bunch of driving trips to a bunch of national parks when we were little. So I always had this concept of wanting to see big open spaces and, be out in nature. when I went to college, I was an engineering major. Love, math and science, you know, classic story, but had the opportunity to spend some time abroad doing English and language exchange programs, both in Uzbekistan and Russia. And just working individually with students, being one-on-one with people and being in different environments. That really pushed me. really changed my career path and prompted me to go into medicine, but also really just instilled this love of checking out other places in the world. So, yeah.

Dr Gray, Host

I love that. I, that's actually, I was an astrophysics

Dr Kelly, Guest

Okay. Same hearts. Love for you.

Dr Gray, Host

And I was not pre-med. and it was really actually through traveling. Like I, I did a lot of travel junior year abroad and I loved, connecting with people and like my friends would be like, there goes Wei Li again, like talking to a random person locally. and, and actually that's. then I sort of became interested in medicine.'cause I was like, well what do you, what do you do where you wanna connect with people and use, your science skills? And that's how I stumbled upon medicine when when I was a, a senior in college. who then I needed to a post back. But it was okay.'cause it was, it was still like, at least I found something I wanted to do.

Dr Kelly, Guest

Yeah. Oh my gosh. That's in incredible that I, I think that's, that's right on. If you like science, but you really love connecting with people and want to continue that experience throughout your life, I feel like medicine is for you. I think I had grand visions of I'm gonna go help the world and. Maybe being an engineer on a bigger level would've been better for that, for building infrastructure and setting up water and electricity for people. But, on, on the personal level, I really enjoyed connecting with people who had completely different experiences than me and seeing their, their locations through their own eyes. And learning that people aren't their politics either, and getting a broader view of what that meant. Having grown up in Texas in kind of a very insular political environment, getting to see something completely different that changes your, your mindset.

Dr Gray, Host

That's, that's profound.

Dr Kelly, Guest

So went on to medical school, took advantage of every. Opportunity I had for away rotations. Our school offered not only rural, locations for primary care, like I did my family medicine rotation in South Texas in the middle of nowhere, which was I. Also fantastic learn learning about a new area for me, and then also locations in Tanzania and China that we got to go to where they had established partnerships with hospitals and clinics. So I really got to expand my, my boundaries there, and that just showed me that I could. go anywhere. Had the privilege to go anywhere, but really enjoyed going anywhere and, and experiencing that. And that probably set it off for me as far as love of travel and wanting to, I. Travel as much as possible. I ended up in a very niche surgical specialty, which doesn't lend itself well to international work. but that's okay because I still look at travel as both in the planning process and in the going process is an outlet for me to prevent burnout, and it's something that I can look forward to. As I go through my day-to-day, knowing that I'm gonna have these experiences coming and really trying to capitalize on that now and not wait till later on when I'm retired is really important to me.

Dr Gray, Host

Oh, I love that. I, I'm curious, like how did you come up? Was it just because of your experiences traveling? And how, you know, you just fell in love with travel and that's how you decided, hey, I'm gonna be, a busy surgeon and a world traveler. I feel like that concept of, I'm gonna live my best life being a doctor while being a doctor, instead of I'm gonna wait until I retire. Like, that's so, such a profound, concept that you create it for yourself.'cause I, I feel like that's not, that's not the most common thing.

Dr Kelly, Guest

Yeah. Well, I think a lot of us, you know, throughout our training or as in our professional careers, you know, we see people who. Who die younger than they should. We see people who get sick and can't travel. We see colleagues who get sick, residents who pass away. And so we know that time is our, really, our most valuable commodity. And we know that it's not, it's not endless. It's, it'll we'll be done at some point. And so just to, to put things off, Really, I think goes against what we see all the time and, and knowing that those opportunities might, might not always be there. I think another thing we have to think about, and this made a little bit of a downer for this conversation, but I do a lot of sustainability work and, and healthcare because our contributions to climate change are, are quite high. In fact, US healthcare contributes more, emissions than, aviation. So

Dr Gray, Host

Oh wow. I mean, it's all this stuff that we throw away, right? In the or.

Dr Kelly, Guest

A hundred percent yes. Yes, it's the immense amount of like single use items that we're, and most of which are plastic, constantly using. But, so I, I do this work on a day-to-day basis, but also knowing like there may be some places on the earth that are not accessible later on too, and, and so being realistic about that and wanting to experience what's there maybe. Bring advocacy to what's there and say, this is worth protecting. let's show people what's worth protecting.

Dr Gray, Host

Yeah, that's amazing. But that's so true. I mean, there, there's so many places I'm thinking of, next year, my family and I are going to the Galapagos and, this is so cool. Like my kids grow up in Vermont, and they, like my 13 year old, has just looks out in our backyard and he started, having this fascination with birding. so he's the kid who like, wherever we travel, he'll tell me, like all the birds, like he'll actually tell me where we want to travel because he's this is where I go to watch birds. And birds are so intimately connected with. The environment.

Dr Kelly, Guest

hundred percent. I love that

Dr Gray, Host

And so he'll tell me, he's like, we have to go here because these birds are going to be extinct and you know,

Dr Kelly, Guest

It is, it's the future generations. Recognize this

Dr Gray, Host

Yeah. Yeah.'cause it, it's, it's actually quite amazing. But it's, he's, it's right. I mean, he's right about that. I mean there even the, one of the things that's always been on, his bucket list, and of course now that he talks about it's on mine, is. Going to see the monarch butterflies over winter in Mexico, you know, in, in like the, the pine, high altitude pine forest where there's like millions of them, you know, congregating in a very small area. And it's, I mean, you see movies or pictures of it and it's amazing. And he's well, I don't even know how long these butterflies are gonna be around. Right. They're endangered. And so, yeah, like just, you know, little parts, like these amazing things around the world. That, that people just take for granted may not be there forever.

Dr Kelly, Guest

That was one of the the reasons why I had a little bit of. Urgency to go to the Arctic. I mean, it's always been on my list to see polar bears, but no, I don't want to do it sooner rather than later. And, you know, maybe in, in 40, 50 years, you know, these same opportunities are not going to be there. We don't know. But, wanting to, to do that now while you can see populations that are healthy, and, and really enjoy the experience and bring that back and show people what it's like.

Dr Gray, Host

Hmm. Well, so you went and now you're gonna bring back and tell us. Is all about, you know, what, what is that like? I mean, just tell us so when you first mentioned that you went to the Arctic to look for polar bears, I'm like, where did she even go? Like how did she do it? So, so tell us, and you did a little bit of research beforehand and you decided on the route that you were taking. So give us a little background on, how you planned this trip.

Dr Kelly, Guest

Yeah. Well first off, in general with travel planning, I, we have a list a bucket list, I guess, of, of places we wanna go and, and things we wanna see. And so when the timing works out or there's a deal here or there, it makes sense. Ah, let's, let's do this. But seeing polar bears was definitely something that's been on my list for a long time, and I think it was in 2018 or 2019, maybe early 2019. I went to the LA Travel Show. I live in Los Angeles now. I used to live in Boston. I used to go to the Boston Travel Show too. And they're kind of funny'cause a lot of, uh, people 65 and up looking at cruise deals. But it's a really good place to go for inspiration because occasionally you'll find some small companies or boutique companies, um, promoting experiences that maybe you never knew were there. And so I, I had an idea, I wanted to, to learn more about how to see polar bears and what did the classic place people think about,'cause polar bears are in the arctic, penguins are in the Antarctic. So no penguins up top, no polar bears down below. And, uh, wanted to see what the opportunities were. A lot of people have. Heard about Churchill, Manitoba. That's at the bottom of the Hudson Bay. That's a land-based area for viewing polar bears and kind of a classic area where people go. You might've seen the pictures of people in these buses on top of buggies, and there's polar bears right out the window. And so I was, I was looking at that, but I talked to a company called Arctic Kingdom. And, told the very nice Canadian gentleman who was interested in learning about polar bears and, and going to see them. And he said, well, my favorite trip is not to Churchill. It's to a place called The Flowed. And I said, well, tell me about that. And he said, the flowed is the place where the sea ice. It develops every year and then melts every year. And these trips are only two to three weeks a year as the flow edge is starting to recede and they call that the line of life as the ice starts to melt. There's tons and tons I think of the algae in the water and the, the kelp It attracts tons of birds, whales, narwals, seals and polar bears. And at that point I didn't think narwals were even real. I thought maybe they were a mythical creature.

Dr Gray, Host

They look mythical. Can you describe

Dr Kelly, Guest

they do look, yes. So they are. a whale that has the, they're the unicorn of the sea. a unicorn horn. That's an actually a tusk that's one of their left teeth, coming out of their heads. And males and females can have the tusk. It's mostly males and mostly they just have one, some have two. but there are these magical little creatures that only live in the Arctic and they conglomerate in areas. where there's no sea ice every year. And then as the sea ice breaks up, they, spread out over the summer. So they had these mythical creatures. There's also a, another special whale up there called bowhead whales. Bowhead whales are non-migratory whales that live in the Arctic all year long, and they're called bowhead because their heads are twice as big as humpback whales. So these whales are giant and they use their big heads to break through the ice in the winter to to breathe. Um, So these live up there all year round. And then of course the, the polar bears. So he told me about this, this trip on the flow edge and it just sounded magical. And so I got it in my head. This is where we were going and I. Started saving up money.'cause obviously getting up to the Arctic, all the supplies up there are very expensive and, and rightly so. And, we were supposed to go in May of 2020 and then of course, that, that didn't happen. But luckily the company. Kind of extended our deposit and our credit and our flights all the way to 2022, which is when we finally went. Of course there there are indigenous communities, who live. On, Bathin Island, the, that's the island on the most eastern part of Canada. That's right across from Greenland. That's where the flow edge is. And these indigenous communities, of course, were extremely vulnerable. So they kept them really shut off from the rest of the world, when Covid was going on. And even to be able to get on a plane and fly up there, you had to show that you. Were either from there or you were an official business and there was no one coming in and out of the area. And again, rightfully so, we wanna protect these very vulnerable populations.

Dr Gray, Host

Yeah. How do you fly there? What, where do you even fly into?

Dr Kelly, Guest

So there is, an indigenous owned airline called Canadian North, and they fly from Ottawa. Which is where we had to fly out of, up to the, the capital of Nunavut. That's called ecat, which is just above the Arctic Circle, and that's on the southern end of Bathin Island. Beautiful little town. Looks like the pictures you see of the towns in Greenland. It looks very similar. Of course, the. Cultures are quite similar. And then, so it was about a three and a half hour flight from Ottawa North to ecat, and then another three and a half hour flight north to the top of Baffin Island, to a town called Pond Inlet. And that's where we, where we took off from. so Those are probably the most expensive economy flights I've ever bought in my life.

Dr Gray, Host

How much did they cost? Do.

Dr Kelly, Guest

But supply and demand, I think it was like two grand round trip per person,

Dr Gray, Host

Oh

Dr Kelly, Guest

um,

Dr Gray, Host

and a half hour flight.

Dr Kelly, Guest

for. Total of, you know, like seven hours for, for both legs. But, you know, again, well worth it given that there's one flight a day and maybe it will go if the weather's good. And so you just have to, you just have to go with the flow. We did fly Air Canada, to Ottawa on points'cause I'm a big, points person. Of course. That's, that's what I do. So I use. Points to try to offset the cost of the trip that we can, you know, more of the corporate costs, like the major airlines, the long haul flights or, or some of the hotels. We stayed in the, Westin in Ottawa, which was gorgeous, and used some free night certificates there. It was right across from Parliament. We had this gorgeous view of the Parliament. We stayed there for a couple days beforehand to make sure you know that you're in place and ready to go, and the flights as they're, they're ready to go. But, Yeah, it was, the, on Canadian North, you know, they make the announcements in English, French, and in the indigenous language. so it was such a cool experience to, to be on that airline. And in acat, they actually had one lounge in the airport and it was for community elders. Uh, so it was not based on your status or who you were flying. It was for community elders, which I just absolutely loved.

Dr Gray, Host

Oh, wow, that's so lovely. so I live, you know, in Vermont, which borders Quebec. I, I look at the map and first of all, I'm like, I didn't realize Quebec was so humongous, like this whole province in Canada. And it goes all the way up part of Quebec or is it another. Or is it Manitoba?

Dr Kelly, Guest

It's part of, Nunavut. actually. Yes, which is completely north of Quebec, but you're right, Quebec is, is huge and I believe it goes all the way over to the Hudson Bay. I'll

Dr Gray, Host

Yeah, Yeah, go ahead and pull up your map and, and correct me. But I was so, I, I was just so blown away. I'm like, this place is humongous and Canada is humongous, like Canada is like our neighbor, and especially for us, like I live, I work maybe five minutes from the Canadian border, but it amazes me how big and how. Canada gets really remote as you get further north. It's, it's just, boggles my mind, like we think like the Western United States has some remote areas, like Canada really beats that.

Dr Kelly, Guest

Yeah, absolutely. So I was just looking at the map. So Quebec does go all the way up the eastern side of the Hudson Bay, and then across the water starts Bathin Island, which is Nunavut, and, and you're right. I mean, to think about a three hour flight north from Ottawa and then another three hour flight worth north. So you're doing, more than a transcontinental flight going north. It's, it's very vast and remote and, so remote that, by the time we get to Pond Inlet, The sun is up 24 hours a day and it's not the dusky kind of 24 hours a day. The sun is over your head 24 hours a day. It is a bit of a mind trick because it can be really disorienting for the sun to never even slightly go down below the horizon. It just kind of circles above you and you're above the point where your compasses point towards north, like magnetic north is. You're so close to magnetic North it, the compasses don't work. They

Dr Gray, Host

That's wild. Did you feel like you were an explorer, like a National Geographic explorer?

Dr Kelly, Guest

I felt like it left to our own devices. It definitely wouldn't have, been able to make it. But the way the, the trip was set up, so we, we fly into Pond Inlet and we had a group of, of Canadian guides. We ended up going with a company called Black Feather Expeditions. It's a Canadian company that does trips all over Canada, mostly in the north. And we had. A couple of Canadian guides and then a bunch of indigenous guides, and they were the ones, driving snowmobiles. And we, we rode behind in these small sleds that were pulled behind the snowmobiles and they, because they have this historical knowledge and incredible knowledge of the ice and the landscape and how to cross over. Precarious areas and where to go and where the wildlife is and how to track polar bears. So their, their knowledge is just incredible. So we were completely dependent on, on them. It took us out to a camp. It was a couple hour snowmobile ride out to camp where we had tents set up and we did, live on the ice for a full seven days in tents, which is a little bit wild. It's not, How I usually travel. I like to have a warm bed and a great shower and really go out all day and be active and then come back and have something super comfortable. But, and from what we knew, this was really our only way to get up close to the flow edge. So we were willing to, to do it just this once and We had a big, you know, kind of dining tent and then another tent for supplies. And then every couple or individual had their own individual tent. And we would get up every day and take the snowmobiles out looking for wildlife.

Dr Gray, Host

Hmm.

Dr Kelly, Guest

And so it was almost like a safari. You know, you, you get up, you go looking for wildlife, you come back and eat, you go out and look for wildlife, you come back and eat. but just in a really, really different location.

Dr Gray, Host

Wow, that's, that's really amazing and, and really wild. so basically all the supplies, or wherever you landed where, where did you land again? Did you say?

Dr Kelly, Guest

Yeah. Pond. Inlet,

Dr Gray, Host

Inlet. That's right. So you land there and they basically carry all the supplies through by snowmobile to where you eventually will camp.

Dr Kelly, Guest

Yes, exactly. So.

Dr Gray, Host

There are no roads. This is snowmobile roads.

Dr Kelly, Guest

The town had a, a couple little dirt roads. I think a few thousand people lived there year round. Um, and they, they're completely dependent on, air freight for supplies. And then in the summer they have a very short window where the ice is melted, where, ships with containers can come in.

Dr Gray, Host

Oh wow.

Dr Kelly, Guest

But out. Yeah. Outside of that, they're, they're quite isolated. a can of Coke in the grocery store was, I don't know, I think seven or$8 for one 12 ounce can, so they're. the cost of living up there is incredibly expensive, and because of that, the indigenous people who live there still depend significantly on the, natural resources. And that's the animals. So they do hunt, they do hunt, the animals we were going to see, but knowing that that's how they are able to maintain their. Live that there, they hunt the polar bears, they hunt the NAR walls. to us they seem, those seem like incredibly exotic animals. And to them that has been their food source and their source of supplies for thousands of years. so it was, That because of that hunting knowledge, they also had the tracking knowledge to be able to show those animals to tourists. And of course they didn't do any hunting while we're there. And there's hunting is now very restricted on, what they can do and when they can do it. So they do follow those rules. But Be in that environment.

Dr Gray, Host

That, that sounds very much in parts of Africa, right? Like the Maasai, like they're, aren't they hunters? And, and then now they're also, the safari drivers and the trackers and they're really

Dr Kelly, Guest

Yes,

Dr Gray, Host

it too.

Dr Kelly, Guest

exactly. I think if you've had to, if you know the animals and you have to depend on them for your livelihood, like you certainly know how to find them just to look at them. what's really incredible about the animals is, is that, you know, they, they, of course, Don't have produce there. There's no growing season. So, and they're completely dependent on animals, but the animals have natural properties that provide. Vitamins and things we would normally get from produce. For example, narwhal the skin, and I think just the, uh, fat just the skin has super high amounts of vitamin C, which is insane to think.

Dr Gray, Host

wow. You don't.

Dr Kelly, Guest

Yeah, exactly. It's crazy to think an animal can concentrate that vitamin naturally and that humans can then get get everything they need from the resources up there.

Dr Gray, Host

Oh, that's so amazing. so you had the Canadian guides and then you had the, the native guides, the indigenous guides. And so, as the tourist, did you get to talk a little bit with the, indigenous guides as well, or is it mostly speaking with the Canadian guides?

Dr Kelly, Guest

No, we did, we spent a lot of time with them. I think there were three Canadian guides and five, five or six indigenous guides. and there were. I think 12 of us total tourists. So, pretty high guide ratio to tourists. and that was for protection of course. and most everybody else there was on the trip was Canadian. There was one person from New Zealand, she actually had stage four lung cancer and seeing a narwhal was on her bucket list. And so she came to see it,

Dr Gray, Host

Oh, that's

Dr Kelly, Guest

With before she succumbeded her illness. So, just seeing that we're like, well, if she can handle this cold, like we can handle it, we have nothing to complain about. There was also, A person on the trip, a woman who is 81 years old, she had been, she's Canadian, from Toronto. She'd been to multiple parts of the Arctic and I guess was quite famous as far as Arctic explorers among Canadians go.'cause all the guides knew who she was. So again, we said, wow, if, if she can do it, and then what do we have to complain about? This is an incredible experience. So the, the indigenous guides would really take us out every day on the snowmobiles to find the, the animals. And we did, we got to learn a lot about their lifestyle. They're very family oriented. even though we were only out for a week, they talked about how much they miss their families, how much they miss their wives, their girlfriends, their children. They, They tend to have children very, very young. So one of our guides was 20 years old and he already had four kids, had his family unit in place. So they're, you know, they really, have to grow up very, very quickly, I think where they are. And they create their family units very early on. And then when, when they go out hunting themselves, they take their entire family unit with them. So they take. They load up the wife and the kids and they go out exploring and hunting altogether. Um, very communal. And you know, most of them were, this is my cousin and this is my cousin, lots of extended families, which is funny to hear. but they were, kind of a shy a little bit. maybe introverted culture, but once you got started talking to'em, they, they shared a lot and very hospitable and also hospitable to each other. So, Our Canadian guides told us, Hey, you know, if we see somebody else out here on the ice that appears like they're stranded or in trouble, like you help that other person. Doesn't matter if you have an agenda or you're doing something else. there's no agendas in the Arctic. You, help others communicate with others. And that was true if we would come across other guides or we came across a family who was going out. On a fishing trip and part of their snowmobile broke down and they were waiting for a part. And so our guides went out to help them work on the snowmobile while they were waiting. so

Dr Gray, Host

Wow.

Dr Kelly, Guest

all about survival. All about survival up there and community.