WILD SOUNDS
Listening to nature
Sarika Cullis- Suzuki is no stranger to nature. But even the marine biologist found a new world to explore in Wild Sounds of Canada, a podcast she narrates.
The daughter of writer/activist Tara Cullis and Nature of Things' David Suzuki, Cullis- Suzuki spent much of her childhood immersed in nature, whether camping in B.C. provincial parks or spending time on Quadra Island, where her family has a cabin.
“We've always been able to experience nature in that way. But purely focusing on these sounds was a completely different experience, especially now when we're being confined to our own homes.”
Each of Wild Sounds of Canada's eight episodes highlights a different province or region, i.e. Jasper National Park.
The B.C. episode explores the coast, offering the sounds of humpback whales, black bears, ravens, thrushes, and other native wildlife.
A French version, narrated by Laurence Lafond-Beaulne of Montreal electropop duo Milk & Bone, is also available.
Launched on Dec. 17, it's the fifth in the Canadian Audible Originals series of Canadian-made and -targeted podcasts. Others include The Revisionaries, with Michele Romanow, and True North Heists with Colm Feore.
Montreal's Rotating Planet Productions recorded the wild sounds pre-COVID, and Cullis- Suzuki added her parts while in lockdown in Victoria.
“I'd recently finished my thesis for my graduate research on a fish that sings (Porichthys notatus), and I was spending my summers out on the beach on Quadra, recording this fish with my hydrophone. So I was already tuned into that audio world. When Audible approached me, I thought that it was a great opportunity.”
To record her parts, the mother of three had to find a quiet place in her home.
“I always thought I had a pretty quiet house, at least when my kids were out. But it turns out that, wow, there is so much sound everywhere. There's construction, traffic, it rains a lot and I can hear the drops on my metal roof. There's a lot more noise that I'm being exposed to than I thought.”
For a makeshift recording studio, she chose a closet in her six-yearold son's room. He became interested in mom's work.
“I was playing some of my pieces back and I turned around and my son had just been sitting there for 20 minutes, and was just transfixed listening to these animal sounds and the narration. So I think a lot of people will be quite moved by these episodes.”
She expects that these natural soundscapes will also appeal to adults who are looking to escape the confines of COVID living.
“If you just close your eyes for a moment you realize how much noise is going on out there and how much it influences how you feel,” she said. “If you imagine a really calm setting, maybe you think about wind blowing through trees or the waves lapping at a lakeshore or birds singing. For those of us living in cities, a lot of the sounds we're used to are more stressful. Doing this whole series made me much more aware of how much my soundscape influenced my internal well-being.”