“The Power of Storytelling”: an Interview with Laura Trethewey // Charlotte Simmons

As I spoke to people about why they are on the water, I witnessed our understanding of the ocean widen as the years passed. During a time of rising sea levels and catastrophic floods, of more frequent and intense hurricanes and declining fish stocks, extinctions, and pollution, the ocean is no longer only an ‘environmental’ problem. We’re seeing how the ocean connects to food, transportation, infrastructure, human rights, mental health, technology, and economics. The list goes on. The ocean shows us how deeply we are a part of our world. By the sea, we live in the moment. We feel our fear and happiness for the future even more keenly. We cluster into groups and defend our turf. Across a world of differences, the ocean makes us more alike. We might never feel that conscious connection with the sea, but it’s there. For our survival, as well as the ocean’s, it’s time to look past the surface and discover the connections down below.

- The Imperilled Ocean

Growing up, we’re taught about the oceans very structurally—as we are most things—but especially for something as vast and fluid as the ocean, structure is a thing of the imagination. And yet, we divide our waters into 12-mile jurisdictions as though something as powerful and dynamic as the ocean can be neatly sorted; it’s simply not how nature works. In her groundbreaking debut, Laura Trethewey’s The Imperilled Ocean not only challenges our rigid preconceptions of the ocean, but also dispels such notions entirely with stories that are far more intertwined than they may seem.

Trethewey leaves no aspect unanalyzed in her deconstruction of our understanding of the ocean.Everything from the political, to the economical, to the biological, to the historical significance of the ocean is examined, as well a show much of this significance is man-made or not.

Trethewey also highlights the remarkability and heartbreak that tends to come with stories from sea-goers. Whether it’s stories of asylum-seekers riding their hopes on a raft trip across the Mediterranean or one of the many unsolved crimes that international waters are a hotbed for, there’s simply no escaping the magnitude of this great blue giant, and the many ways that these stories impact us. Why spend millions of dollars seizing and dismantling a boat, then allocating said funds to pollution reduction? Why consider Europe’s refugee crisis an isolated incident when so many people are displaced by climate change and other disasters?

TheImperilled Ocean has a lot to unpack and goes as deep as the ocean itself. Its heart-wrenching storytelling will wow you as much as the dire implications that its research shows us. A necessary read.

Charlotte Simmons:What inspired you to write TheImperilled Ocean

Laura Trethewey: I grew up in Toronto, Canada, which obviously is not by any ocean, but I always had a lot of romantic ideas about the sea because I liked to read adventure stories by sailors like Joshua Slocum and Bernard Moitessier. Sailors always had the most fantastic stories about the sea: the adventures they had there, the animals they saw, the people they met. When I was in my early 20s, I learned how to sail on Lake Ontario. When I moved to Vancouver and started working at the Vancouver Aquarium, I learned how to dive.

I found that, as my relationship with the ocean evolved, I was hungry for more stories like the ones I had read I growing up. I was so curious about what happened out there on the ocean and I didn’t feel like enough reporting was being done. So, I spent the last four years talking to all kinds of people who went to sea. I spoke to aHollywood cinematographer; a biologist trying to understand and protect a threatened fish; a plastic pollution activist who turned plastic into fuel, and so many more people. After years of research and interviews and spending time on ships and dinghies, I feel like I was right: there are so many unbelievable stories that happen at sea.We cannot even begin to imagine them here on land. The Imperilled Ocean tries to capture a few of these stories and why they are so important for the future of life on earth.

CS: The sheer amount of content and research in your book, from migration across the Mediterranean to the tricky legality of international waters, is breathtaking. How did you narrow down the ideas you ended up tackling?

LT: I tried to choose people based on their motivation for going or being at sea and I tried not to overlap motivations. So, I chose refugees because they were escaping poverty or violence and looking for abetter life. I chose a scientist because he was searching for answers. I chose an activist because she was trying to make the ocean a healthier place. As I was writing I noticed something curious happening. Even when people seemed like they had very different motivations for going to sea, their stories started to echo each other’s. I saw how a refugee’s search for a better life actually had a lot in common with a cruise ship worker’s story. I saw how people living in off-grid communities on water had a lot in common with sailors: both wanted freedom from the rules of land. Their lives looked very different, but they had a lot in common. I found that there were only a handful of desires driving human interactions with the sea. I believe that speaks to the elemental power the ocean has over us. That’s hopeful news to my mind. The ocean has a shot at being a shared site of connections, rather than the divided, contested place it is today.

CS: Which of these topics was the most difficult to write about in terms of research/info gathering, and emotional impact?

LT: The hardest story to write was without a doubt the third chapter, which follows two young men crossing the Mediterranean in 2015 and2016. One is a Syrian refugee who crossed from Turkey to Greece; the other migrated from Ghana and crossed from Libya to Italy. I had never written about humanitarian issues before that chapter and it was an absolutely draining experience. But that was nothing compared to the stories of human suffering I heard. One refugee I interviewed, who traveled across Africa to Libya and then on to Italy, watched a hundred people drown on his crossing. I was the second and last person he ever told that story to. It was too hard after that. I have never felt such guilt for making someone relive painful moments before. It honestly made me question my whole profession, while also reaffirming the power of storytelling.

Laura Trethewey is an ocean journalist whose writing has appeared in Smithsonian Magazine, Courier International, The Walrus, The Globe and Mail, Canadian Geographic and at Ocean Wise,, the multimedia storytelling site of the Vancouver Aquarium. The Imperilled Ocean is her first book. Get more information on The Imperilled Ocean book tour here.

Charlotte Simmons is a recent graduate of St. Thomas University in Fredericton, NB. She holds a degree in English Literature with a concentration in Creative Writing. She is an intern at GooseLane Editions, and also writes for The East Magazine. Her play Lesbians: A Review was selected for St. Thomas University’s Plain Site Theatre Festival.

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