I work at a place called Beringia. Beringia spans this part of Alaska here, across the Bering land bridge into eastern Siberia. All of this white stuff here is just an indication that it's not as deep in the ocean there.
And it exposed large swaths of the continental shelves -- which conveniently provided pathways for humans to migrate from place to place and from continent to continent. The Bering Land Bridge was certainly an important one. The English Channel was dry, and so, the communication between the United Kingdom -- not yet the United Kingdom but that terrain and continent of Europe -- was just a walk.
is a cognitive science, formerly at Oxford at the Institute for Cognition and Culture. And Jesse Bering is a sweet spirited but very emphatic atheist. Jesse says somewhat tongue in cheek but not all together, we've got God by the throat, and I won't stop until one of us
So it was a motley crew of individuals heading north to test Petermann's theories. Went through the Bering Strait, through the Chukchi Sea, past Wrangel Island. They didn't find a warm water current.
to move between the two continents. So today Beringia looks like this. I'm actually in that helicopter, taking this picture.
But I basically, through the years, did colder and longer swims. So the Bering Strait swim was in 38 degree water for two hours and six minutes. The swim in the Antarctic was just 25 minutes and 32 degrees.
I said, hello, my other self, which is the way we greet each other every day in our language, Unangan. And we have lived out in the Bering Sea for over 10,000 years, and we're still there. And I said the morning tastes good, which is another way we talk about the morning.
boat that we call uuloxtaan and iqyaq. And we have been on the Bering Sea for over 10,000 years, and we're still there. And this culture was-- the culture that we have was so rich that we--
There's only one left. And I saw this one in Bering Land Bridge in Alaska, which is one of the last places that you can find this particular species. This is, I think, the species that people-- the reason that people like this the most is because I think it reminds them of "Star Wars."
In particular, it has an enzyme called thiaminase, which depletes the B1 in your system. You eventually get a horrible disease called beriberi. So William Wills, a good Victorian of his time, was actually writing in his journal as he experienced these symptoms.
It means old DNA, not old people DNA, but actually really old DNA, like mammoths preserved in ice. I work at a place called Beringia. Beringia spans this part of Alaska here, across the Bering land bridge into eastern Siberia.
The Barents Sea is the sea in the very north of Norway, shared with Russia. This is different than the Bering Sea, which is off the coast of Alaska. This is the Barents Sea.
So I started writing letters to George Shultz. And I'm talking about the Bering Strait swim because that was 11 years of trying to figure out how to open the border between the US and the Soviet Union.
you're not getting a quality extra virgin olive oil because it's just you can't do it so both of those are from the grocery store um the one the lighter one was beri Salia is that right okay so that was the one Luchini is the one the darker uh colored one and I buy that at grocery stores all over the country
And the is on the next slide, which is the combined result of the 2011 and the 2012. the story of fisherman searching for the salmon at Bering Sea to our story of search for the Higgs boson among the data sea.
So they had lost contact with their family for 48 years. So we were allowed two cruise boats to go across the Bering Strait. And they didn't have to have visas.
And this culture was-- the culture that we have was so rich that we-- it's difficult to eke out a living in the Aleutian chain and in the Bering Sea. But yet we got to the point where we had the most densely populated linear mile
And what he said in one word was, listen. And that may have encapsulated why our people survived and thrived in the Bering Sea for over 10,000 years. Because we use very little words, and that human experience, what affects us totally should always remain undefined,
Actually, you had also worked with Madeleine at that point. I worked with Madeleine Kamman up at the School for American Chefs at Beringer Vineyards. And so we met Gary Danko.
And on an island has no roads, you're just trying to figure out how realistic is it to actually be able to get down to the beach. And one thing that was really great about this island is that you have the Bering Sea on the north and the North Pacific on the south, separated by three miles.
And finally Gorbachev gave approval for this swim basically a day before or a couple days before this swim. But they had moved ships from the South China Sea into the Bering Strait. And they spent pretty much a million dollars on the event and opened the border for the first time in 48 years.
Mark design and you don't know how to eat it quite um it's you're going to have to pick it up you're going have to use your hand but it smells like burning it smells like fall smells like berio we've had people have such powerful reactions to it um we've had people cry in the dining room um we had people you know just remember their childhood which is a cool thing to do
And it was very rich. And so at age four, we'd go down to the Bering Sea, take off our shirts, splash water over us, and pray towards the east. And that night, we might go to the Russian Orthodox church.
Grandmothers, she said, if you keep your emotions in yourself, it's like you create a stagnant pool of energy. with the environment, like we did for over 10,000 years in the Bering Sea, that our language is a reflection
level, these two great hemispheres of the planet, of Eurasia and the Americas, once again became severed, became separated by each other as the sea levels rose and inundated, resubmerged that Bering land bridge. These two human populations, which were essentially genetically identical, both had access to wild species of plants and animals
There's another current that they were also beginning to learn about on the Pacific side-- I don't know if you can see that-- called the Kuro Siwo, which is indeed a powerful current in the Pacific that goes north towards the Bering Strait. So his theory was beautiful in its symmetry, somewhat grandiose.
That it could be something that might bring people together. So in 1976, I started trying to get permission to swim across the Bering Strait. And it took 11 years.
And it really took forever, but it opened the border. and forth freely. And they created an international park up further in the Bering Strait that was co-administered between the US
this lagoon where the grey whales come down from Alaska, the Bering Sea, and it’s a nursery for the baby whales.
that in 1925 made the 800-mile journey cross the frigid, wind-swept Bering Sea in just 24 hours. Still, they were taken aback by the enormous
I learned Russian. And I ended up working out on Russian trawlers, Soviet trawlers up in the Bering Sea.
It takes courage to do that. And I asked my elder on St. Paul Island, where I was born, in the middle of the Bering Sea, what is this? And he said, well, look at the sea birds up there.
And I was raised literally by my village. Now, we're on an island that's 12 miles long and 5 miles wide, a very small island in the middle of the Bering Sea. And we had, at that time, when I was a child, about 1.2 million northern fur seals, 2 and 1/2 million seabirds, 1,000
to get our feet wet. And most critically, of most importance to the thousands of years of human history after this, we were able to walk across the Bering land bridge, from Northeast Siberia all the way across into Alaska and the Americas.
I had no idea what it tasted like, but I was making these beautiful displays, and at one point Bi-Rite was selling more Beringer White
It took me three years to do it. I traveled all over Siberia, and the high Arctic, and the Bering Strait, and all over America in pursuit of it. I had of ball doing this story, and I'm going to today talk with you a little bit about some of my travels in pursuit of the Jeanette story
I learned Russian. And I ended up working out on Russian trawlers, Soviet trawlers, up in the Bering Sea.
Mantis taught rocket science seven times at the Edwards, forging hundreds of relationships with students like Adam Beriga.
And so I wound up just starting off with what I knew. And what I knew was first to start off by contacting the local congressman, who actually thought that the swim across the Bering Strait for instance might be possible. So he wound up writing a letter to the Soviet Embassy.
And it was not only that there was gold in Nome, Alaska, but it was on the public beach, on the shore of the Bering Sea.
You could go right out there with a little pan, as you see me there on the Bering Sea, and just shuffle it around,
Money tended to slip through their fingers, probably the way that those gold flecks went through your fingers in the Bering Sea.
expertise. So think of Tiger Woods in the golf swing. is smooth or berishnikov in the ballet. You can tell when
So if you're going after pollock, for instance, in the Bering Sea, and you've got these gigantic trawlers, these things that are the size of city blocks that are just, you know, removing