Polar Exploration

The deaths in the Antarctic of Captains Robert Falcon Scott and Lawrence "Titus" Oates are the most examined in almost all exploration. However, one object, until today unknown, gives a clue to the real story of the last three days of the Terra Nova expedition leaders. This is the sextant that Captain Scott had with him throughout his career until his death, passed from Kathleen Scott to Peter Scott and thence to its current owner. The sextant, its history and the meaning of the relic are set out before the public for the first time.

This chapter discusses the USSR’s activities in Antarctica as a continuation of the traditions of Russian/Soviet continental colonialism, particularly of the practices of exploring the far north. It shows how transfer of people, institutions, technologies and discourses from the Arctic to the Antarctic created an interpolar space of Soviet colonialism. On the other hand, the author examines the representations of the Soviet Antarctic programme within the context of the anti-colonial discourse of the Cold War period. Attention is drawn to the USSR’s particular focus on the mineral resources of the icy continent as a manifestation of its colonialist intentions. The chapter examines both the reflection of Antarctica in the resource imagination of the Soviet era and the history of specific research programmes for geological exploration of the continent and its shelf in the second half of the twentieth century. It employs the concept of extractive socialism to highlight the specificity of the Soviet response to resource challenges of the 1970s.

Some scientists doing research on human evolution take the modern human athlete as a model system to understand human evolutionary adaptations. If we accept this notion, the analysis of the history of the Greenland ski record-the fastest crossing of the inland ice of Greenland by polar skiers-show that not only physiology and anatomy, but many different performance factors and the respective performance structure influence human behaviour. This creates a distinct social environment which leads to a unique cultural history of human performance.

A talk about my prints on Polar Exploration given at Somerset House during The London Original Print Fair in association with Paul Stolper Gallery. I analyse my habit of undoing and unmaking images, attacking the figure with the materials used to construct it in order to increase a sense of its fragility, I also discuss the incorporation of ‘unnameable’ elements into my work and the role of such abstracted and inscrutable marks into figurative art. I foreground the role of negatives, the unbound, the uncanny, the unnamed, in my work, and also the characteristically unpredictable quality of mono printing in which a hidden activity produces effects outside one’s control. I relate the medieval concept of ‘wyrd’, the stealthy and unseen process of fate, which influenced my hands-off paintings of the anonymous 14th century poem, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, to this occluded and unforeseeable printing method and the way in which weird, in the modern sense, effects come about as a result.

This paper examines five different Thule postal stamps which circulated from 1935 to 1936 between the trading post of Thule (the Danish name for the settlement of Uummannaq in Northwest Greenland, today Thule Air Base) and Copenhagen. The images on the stamps do not only concentrate on, and visualize, the complex colonial history between Greenland and Denmark-they also dynamize and preserve historical power relations by making them physically and visually tangible to this day. The stamps bear witness to infra-structures of cultural exchange, which were strongly controlled by the Danes. They are overlooked testimonies of everyday communication and mark colonial relations as ongoing and ever powerful forces. What is more, the stamps provide their own agency as cultural-creating entities and shed a new light on the history of Western modernization, polar heroic narrations, and their heritage.

The mid-nineteenth century was a highpoint of empire building, and reliable navigation across the oceans was crucial. While the effects of magnetic variation and deviation on compasses were well known by 1800, iron ships brought with them an even bigger challenge. The nautical world divided between ‘applied’ and ‘theoretical’ approaches to addressing the ‘compass problem’. This article focuses on the role of Janet Taylor, who lived and worked in the heart of this community, as a writer, teacher, inventor, chart-seller and compass adjuster, as a follower of the system of compass adjustment advocated by the Astronomer Royal, Professor George Airy. Janet Taylor’s achievements in the compass adjusting field and her interactions with the Astronomer Royal are explored, adding another insight into Mrs Taylor’s distinctive story.

The present article extends recent studies that ask what might else have been considered by Scott and Amundsen in planning their sledging operations to reach the South Pole during the southern summer of 1911/12. Both were on the cusp of changes in exploration methods and had at hand significant knowledge from past expeditions. Scott’s preparations were based on British Arctic experiences using several haulage methods including the recent innovation, motor sledges. He had little success with them although more research and experimentation might have made them valuable. Amundsen’s integrated program was based on previous American and Norwegian exploration in the Arctic and Antarctica. The race was between two men with very different backgrounds. Scott and Amundsen belonged to the same generation, Scott followed the romantic tradition of heroism as suffering; whereas Amundsen came from a culture that did not value unnecessary risk to life and limb. He won the race with a different orga...

The first Polish polar expedition. The Polish National Committee of the Second International Polar Year 1932-1933 developed three alternatives of conducting research within the programme of IPY II. The alternative assuming the building of a permanent station on Bear Island and conducting follow-up research during the next year was finally chosen as the accepted option. Due to the limited financial resources, 3 persons were selected to participate in the expedition: Czesław Centkiewicz, Władysław Łysakowski and Stanisław Siedlecki. In the initial period (until mid-September 1932), in the expedition there also participated Jean Lugeon and Jan Gurtzman. The media was initially set against the expedition. The expedition departed on 12 July, 1932 from a town of Legionowo, near Warsaw. It reached Bear Island on August 5, 1932 and left on August 18, 1933. The different records, collected with an extensive amount of effort, during the stay on Bear Island were analysed (at least partially) a...

This article explores two screen-based artworks: Katja Aglert's Winter Event-Antifreeze (2009-18) and Isaac Julien's True North (2004) respectively, that exemplify diverse viewpoints contesting the essentialized identities of the Arctic past. These artworks recover the histories of women, the Inuit and African American men's involvement in polar exploration, reimagining heroic narratives from historically excluded or ignored perspectives. By employing irony and humour, these artworks expand our understanding of how media-based art can respond to the ironies of a warming planet and challenge colonial nostalgia for White male heroism. The artworks traverse not just the human imperialism of the colonial era but also the newer imperialism in the age of the Anthropocene and the Capitalocene, decentring the mythic and exotic qualities of expedition narratives. Ultimately, the irreverent artwork encourages us to rethink an aesthetics of the distanced sublime from Romantic aesthetics and its roots in European Universalism, promoting a more inclusive and intersectional approach to the Arctic and its representation. keywords climate change and art Matthew Henson polar regions polar art and film Arctic representation queer ecocritical art art in the Capitalocene art in the Anthropocene

Many of Canada’s non-Indigenous polar heritage sites exist as memorials to the Heroic Age of arctic and Antarctic Exploration which is associated with such events as the First International Polar Year, the search for the Northwest Passage, and the race to the Poles. However, these and other key messages of significance are often challenging to communicate because the remote locations of such sites severely limit opportunities for visitor experience. This lack of awareness can make it difficult to rally support for costly heritage preservation projects in arctic and Antarctic regions. Given that many polar heritage sites are being severely impacted by human activity and a variety of climate change processes, this raises concerns. In this paper, we discuss how virtual heritage exhibits can provide a solution to this problem. Specifically, we discuss a recent project completed for the Virtual Museum of Canada at Fort Conger, a polar heritage site located in Quttinirpaaq National Park o...

Many of Canada’s non-Indigenous polar heritage sites exist as memorials to the Heroic Age of arctic and Antarctic Exploration which is associated with such events as the First International Polar Year, the search for the Northwest Passage, and the race to the Poles. However, these and other key messages of significance are often challenging to communicate because the remote locations of such sites severely limit opportunities for visitor experience. This lack of awareness can make it difficult to rally support for costly heritage preservation projects in arctic and Antarctic regions. Given that many polar heritage sites are being severely impacted by human activity and a variety of climate change processes, this raises concerns. In this paper, we discuss how virtual heritage exhibits can provide a solution to this problem. Specifically, we discuss a recent project completed for the Virtual Museum of Canada at Fort Conger, a polar heritage site located in Quttinirpaaq National Park o...

Fort Conger, located in Quttinirpaaq National Park, Ellesmere Island, is a historic landmark of national and international significance. The site is associated with many important Arctic expeditions, including the ill-fated Lady Franklin Bay Expedition of the First International Polar Year and Robert Peary's attempts to claim the North Pole. Although situated in one of the most remote locations on earth, Fort Conger is currently at risk because of the effects of climate change, weather, wildlife, and human activity. In this paper, we show how 3D laser scanning was used to record cultural features rapidly and accurately despite the harsh conditions present at the site. We discuss how the future impacts of natural processes and human activities can be managed using 3D scanning data as a baseline, how conservation and restoration work can be planned from the resulting models, and how 3D models created from laser scanning data can be used to excite public interest in cultural stewardship and Arctic history.

Fort Conger, located at Discovery Harbour in Lady Franklin Bay on northern Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, played an intrinsic role in several High Arctic expeditions between 1875 and 1935, particularly around 1900-10 during the height of the Race to the North Pole. Here are found the remains of historic voyages of exploration and discovery related to the 19 th century expeditions of G.S. Nares and A.W. Greely, early 20th century expeditions of R.E. Peary, and forays by explorers, travelers, and government and military personnel. In the Peary era, Fort Conger's connection with indigenous people was amplified, as most of the expedition personnel who were based there were Inughuit from Greenland, and the survival strategies of the explorers were largely derived from Inughuit material cultural and environmental expertise. The complex of shelters at Fort Conger symbolizes an evolution from the rigid application of Western knowledge, as represented in the unsuitable prefabricated Greely expedition house designed in the United States, towards the pragmatic adaptation of Aboriginal knowledge represented in the Inughuit-influenced shelters that still stand today. Fort Conger currently faces various threats to its longevity: degradation of wooden structures through climate and weathering, bank erosion, visitation, and inorganic contamination. Its early history and links with Greenlandic Inughuit have suggested that the science of heritage preservation, along with management practices of monitoring, remediation of contamination, and 3D laser scanning, should be applied to maintain the site for future generations.

Why did scientists travel to the Arctic in the late nineteenth century? How closely were science and tourism linked? This essay uses the diary of a member of the 1882/83 Austrian expedition to the North Atlantic Island of Jan Mayen (since 1930 Norwegian) to examine how polar research became professionalized.

Fort Conger, located in Quttinirpaaq National Park, Ellesmere Island, is a historic landmark of national and international significance. The site is associated with many important Arctic expeditions, including the ill-fated Lady Franklin Bay Expedition of the First International Polar Year and Robert Peary's attempts to claim the North Pole. Although situated in one of the most remote locations on earth, Fort Conger is currently at risk because of the effects of climate change, weather, wildlife, and human activity. In this paper, we show how 3D laser scanning was used to record cultural features rapidly and accurately despite the harsh conditions present at the site. We discuss how the future impacts of natural processes and human activities can be managed using 3D scanning data as a baseline, how conservation and restoration work can be planned from the resulting models, and how 3D models created from laser scanning data can be used to excite public interest in cultural stewardship and Arctic history.

A letter from Evelyn Briggs Baldwin to the photographer Rudolf Kersting in May of 1898 lends credence to the notion that the two men were close associates, shared membership in the Arctic Club of America, and that Kersting was the personality behind Baldwin’s place name of Kersting Bay on Wilczek Island in Franz Josef Land later in 1898 during the second Wellman polar expedition.

Fort Conger, located at Discovery Harbour in Lady Franklin Bay on northern Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, played an intrinsic role in several High Arctic expeditions between 1875 and 1935, particularly around 1900-10 during the height of the Race to the North Pole. Here are found the remains of historic voyages of exploration and discovery related to the 19 th century expeditions of G.S. Nares and A.W. Greely, early 20th century expeditions of R.E. Peary, and forays by explorers, travelers, and government and military personnel. In the Peary era, Fort Conger's connection with indigenous people was amplified, as most of the expedition personnel who were based there were Inughuit from Greenland, and the survival strategies of the explorers were largely derived from Inughuit material cultural and environmental expertise. The complex of shelters at Fort Conger symbolizes an evolution from the rigid application of Western knowledge, as represented in the unsuitable prefabricated Greely expedition house designed in the United States, towards the pragmatic adaptation of Aboriginal knowledge represented in the Inughuit-influenced shelters that still stand today. Fort Conger currently faces various threats to its longevity: degradation of wooden structures through climate and weathering, bank erosion, visitation, and inorganic contamination. Its early history and links with Greenlandic Inughuit have suggested that the science of heritage preservation, along with management practices of monitoring, remediation of contamination, and 3D laser scanning, should be applied to maintain the site for future generations.

This paper examines the five different Thule postal stamps which circulated from 1935 to 1936 between the trading post of Thule (which is the Danish name for the settlement of Uummannaq in Northwest Greenland, today Thule Air Base) and the Cape York post office in Copenhagen. The images on the stamps not only concentrate and visualize the complex colonial history between Greenland and Denmark. Instead, they also dynamize and preserve historical power relations by making them physically and visually tangible to this day. The stamps bear witness to infra-structures of cultural exchange, which were strongly controlled by the Danish side. They are often overlooked testimonies of everyday communication and mark colonial relations as ongoing and still powerful forces. What is more, the stamps provide their own agency as cultural-creating forces which sheds a new light to the history of Western modernization and its heritage.

In the decade leading up to the First International Polar Year (1882-83), during which 11 nations were set to cooperate in the study of the physical nature of the polar regions by establishing 14 research stations, three British naval expeditions made major contributions to science. Only three individuals participated in all three voyagesone of them was a Gloucester County youth. The first page of Senior Lieutenant Pelham Aldrich's journal, with his watercolor sketch of Challenger (Royal Geographical Society) and Aldrich, inset. (Moseley Albums, University of Oxford) When HMS Challenger put to sea from Portsmouth on December 21, 1872, under Captain George S. Nares, the three-masted corvette was equipped with auxiliary steam power and had been converted from a ship of war into a floating laboratory. Seventeen-year-old, 5' 6" Boy 1 st Class George Winstone formed part of her crew. Zoological laboratory on Challenger's main deck. (Challenger Reports) Over 75 1 st class boys (aged 16-18) were aboard under training, having previously shown sufficient proficiency in seamanship while serving between nine months and 18 months rated as 2 nd class boys. One of these Challenger youths, George Laybourne, was designated the "Boy's Bugler Boy," and tasked with sounding orders like reveillethe morning wake up call.

The data used by Dr Frederick A. Cook in support of his claim to have reached the North Pole on 21 April 1908 are reinterpreted to support a hypothesis that Cook did not reach the Pole, that his journey towards the Pole lasted only one week, and thathe subsequently discovered and visited Meighen Island. This reconstruction explains how Dr Cook could have made observations of ice conditions and drift, and of an ice island, without having travelled far out on the Arctic Ocean. A possible reason for his failure to announce discovery of Meighen Island is also offered.

The women of northwestern Greenland experienced contact with Euro-American men in multiple ways and in a variety of geographical contexts. Together the archaeological record and unpublished historical documents reveal the complexities of these situations and women’s responses to them. Archaeological and documentary data from two early 20th-century contact situations at Iita in northwestern Greenland and Floeberg Beach on Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, highlight the varied nature of women’s responses to contact and the ways in which interaction with newcomers affected them individually and collectively. The women’s responses varied over time and across space. They responded to both the stresses and the opportunities of contact with resilience and resistance, acceptance and rejection, depending on circumstances.

This article discusses the first official discovery of Antarctica by the British merchant ship captain William Smith in October 1819 and the fate of the 74-gun Spanish warship San Telmo, which was probably wrecked shortly before in the area of Smith's landing. It is the product of extensive literature research which has located the site of Smith's landing and the remains of the Spanish ship he found on the beach, far from where it has been searched for in vain until now.
This is an English translation of an article published in Spanish in 2019.

N the last fifteen years, a group of revisionists has asserted that Peary failed toreach the North Pole in 1909 as he claimed. Many of these revisionists also believe that Frederick A. Cook, Peary's archrival, I was the first man to reach the geographical north axis of the earth. This reinterpretive trend reached its pinnacle in 1984 with the CBS docudrama entitled "Cook and Peary: The Race for the Pole." Casting alone suggested the show's bias, with dashing Richard Chamberlain portraying the victimized Cook, and crotchety Rod Steiger playing the possessed Peary. Despite the mathematical reformulations of parts of Peary's observations (Cook's were "lost"), with one exception no new evidence has appeared in the case since the controversy became public record in the early 1900s. That exception, the diary of Dr. J. W. Goodsell, offered little new information about the actual polar dash, presenting instead impressionistic evidence on Peary's personality.' Quite recently, a major piece of evidence has been removed from the restricted status placed on it by Peary's family since his death. This evidence is the diary Peary kept on his 1908-1909 expedition, often considered the vital corroborating evidence to his claim. It remains somewhat unclear why the family insisted on the restriction for so long; Peary critics maintained the diary would incriminate the commander, while defenders pointed to the attacks by Cook and claimed that the Cook supporters would abuse it for their own purposes.

Fort Conger, located at Discovery Harbour in Lady Franklin Bay on northern Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, played an intrinsic role in several High Arctic expeditions between 1875 and 1935, particularly around 1900 -10 during the height of the Race to the North Pole. Here are found the remains of historic voyages of exploration and discovery related to the 19 th century expeditions of G.S. Nares and A.W. Greely, early 20th century expeditions of R.E. Peary, and forays by explorers, travelers, and government and military personnel. In the Peary era, Fort Conger's connection with indigenous people was amplified, as most of the expedition personnel who were based there were Inughuit from Greenland, and the survival strategies of the explorers were largely derived from Inughuit material cultural and environmental expertise. The complex of shelters at Fort Conger symbolizes an evolution from the rigid application of Western knowledge, as represented in the unsuitable prefabricated Greely expedition house designed in the United States, towards the pragmatic adaptation of Aboriginal knowledge represented in the Inughuit-influenced shelters that still stand today. Fort Conger currently faces various threats to its longevity: degradation of wooden structures through climate and weathering, bank erosion, visitation, and inorganic contamination. Its early history and links with Greenlandic Inughuit have suggested that the science of heritage preservation, along with management practices of monitoring, remediation of contamination, and 3D laser scanning, should be applied to maintain the site for future generations.

Airships represent a type of transport vehicle possessing great potential for the development of various branches of industry. They can provide probably the greatest comfort in transporting passengers in relation to all other means of transport, which makes them particularly suitable for different tourist arrangements. However, today the use of airships is almost inversely proportional to their capabilities and the potential they have. One of the reasons for such a situation is certainly the safety aspect of airships. The unfortunate cases from the past have largely affected the demand for this type of transport. This paper aims to investigate to what extent the human factor was the reason for the occurrence of accidents with airships. Based on the insight into the literature and documentation related to accidents of airships, it can be concluded that the human factor did not have a large share in the occurrence of accidents involving this means of transport. However, the prevention...

Fort Conger, located at Discovery Harbour in Lady Franklin Bay on northern Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, played an intrinsic role in several High Arctic expeditions between 1875 and 1935, particularly around 1900 -10 during the height of the Race to the North Pole. Here are found the remains of historic voyages of exploration and discovery related to the 19 th century expeditions of G.S. Nares and A.W. Greely, early 20th century expeditions of R.E. Peary, and forays by explorers, travelers, and government and military personnel. In the Peary era, Fort Conger's connection with indigenous people was amplified, as most of the expedition personnel who were based there were Inughuit from Greenland, and the survival strategies of the explorers were largely derived from Inughuit material cultural and environmental expertise. The complex of shelters at Fort Conger symbolizes an evolution from the rigid application of Western knowledge, as represented in the unsuitable prefabricated Greely expedition house designed in the United States, towards the pragmatic adaptation of Aboriginal knowledge represented in the Inughuit-influenced shelters that still stand today. Fort Conger currently faces various threats to its longevity: degradation of wooden structures through climate and weathering, bank erosion, visitation, and inorganic contamination. Its early history and links with Greenlandic Inughuit have suggested that the science of heritage preservation, along with management practices of monitoring, remediation of contamination, and 3D laser scanning, should be applied to maintain the site for future generations.

This article examines discussions about drink and temperance on British polar expeditions around the turn of the twentieth century. In doing so, I highlight how expeditionary debates about drinking reflected broader shifts in social and medical attitudes toward alcohol. These changes meant that by the latter part of the nineteenth century, practices of expeditionary drinking could make or break the reputation of a polar explorer, particularly on an expedition that experienced an outbreak of scurvy. At the same time, I demonstrate the importance of travel and exploration in changing medical understandings of alcohol. I examine these issues through an analysis of two expeditions organized along naval lines-the British Arctic Expedition (1875-76) and the British National Antarctic Expedition (1901-4)-and, in doing so, demonstrate that studying exploration can offer new insights into changing attitudes toward drink and temperance in the nineteenth century.

The contribution of polar explorers to a broad visual culture was greatly accelerated by the development of photography. Conversely photography afforded polar exploration a new visibility. The camera became an important tool for documentation of the actual journeys and bestowing both authenticity and authority of the locations visited, the objectives achieved, and the methods and tools. However, the climatic conditions in polar regions made photography difficult and it was not unusual for many of the expedition photographs to be taken in advance or as a reconstruction afterwards. Upon returning home the photographs took on an important role as visual evidence of hat had been experienced and achieved. In this way they contributed to strengthening the stories about the expeditions in various publications, and were from the end of the nineteenth century and into the beginning of the twentieth century used both as the basis for graphic illustrations, reproduced as xylographs (wood block...

The paper discusses Roald Amundsen’s discoveries in the sphere of knowledge about the Earth’s magnetic field, made during the Arctic expedition of 1903-1906. A historical overview of previous discoveries made by scientists in the process of studying Geomagnetism is given. The research is based on the study and analysis of R. Amundsen’s memoirs about the expedition. The authors consistently consider the stages of the expedition along the Northwest passage in 1903-1906 and its results. The significance of the geomagnetic characteristics obtained in this expedition is shown. Attention is paid to the phenomenon of magnetic poles drift, and the process of its discovery is described in detail. Amundsen’s discovery of magnetic drift gave an invaluable impetus for further Geomagnetism development, which is also briefly considered. Observations made by Roald Amundsen helped to take a new look at the existing scientific picture of the world, to challenge the traditional model of the Earth str...

Information about wolf (Canis lupus) movements anywhere near the northern extreme of the species' range in the High Arctic (.75uN latitude) are lacking. There, wolves prey primarily on muskoxen (Ovibos moschatus) and must survive 4 months of 24 hr/day winter darkness and temperatures reaching 253 C. The extent to which wolves remain active and prey on muskoxen during the dark period are unknown, for the closest area where information is available about winter wolf movements is .2,250 km south. We studied a pack of $20 wolves on Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada (80uN latitude) from July 2009 through mid-April 2010 by collaring a lead wolf with a Global Positioning System (GPS)/Argos radio collar. The collar recorded the wolf's precise locations at 6:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. daily and transmitted the locations by satellite to our email. Straight-line distances between consecutive 12-hr locations varied between 0 and 76 km. Mean (SE) linear distance between consecutive locations (n = 554) was 11 (0.5) km. Total minimum distance traveled was 5,979 km, and total area covered was 6,640 km 2 , the largest wolf range reported. The wolf and presumably his pack once made a 263-km (straight-line distance) foray to the southeast during 19-28 January 2010, returning 29 January to 1 February at an average of 41 km/day straight-line distances between 12-hr locations. This study produced the first detailed movement information about any large mammal in the High Arctic, and the average movements during the dark period did not differ from those afterwards. Wolf movements during the dark period in the highest latitudes match those of the other seasons and generally those of wolves in lower latitudes, and, at least with the gross movements measurable by our methods, the 4-month period without direct sunlight produced little change in movements.

The recent recovery of nine historical records and associated relics on the rarely visited northern coast of Greenland is reported. The material comes from five late nineteenth and early twentieth century arctic expeditions to the Robeson Channel area. Pages from two records are reproduced in facsimile. R~~S U M É. Documents et historiques de la côte nord du Grotnland. L'auteur rapporte la découverte récente, sur la cbte peu fréquentée du nord du Groënland, de neuf documents historiques et de vestiges qui leur sont associés. Le matériel provient de cinq expéditions arctiques de la fin du Ige sickle et du dCbut du 2oe, dans la région du chenal de Robeson. On a reproduit en facsimilé des pages de deux de ces documents. PE3IOME. Hcnwpuuecxue omuemw u npeaAemab c Bepeaa CesepMoü I'pexnawauu. HafiHemMx Henamo Ha penxo nocelqaeMoM cesepHoM 6epery rpeHnaHpm. MaTepaanbI DpnHannelxaT ~R T E I apwrHYecmm ~K C~~~I I~H R M , KoHqa 19-ro II HaYsna 20-ro Bexa, K patoHy KaHana Po6co~a. CTpamqm ~B Y X oTgeToB ~ocnp0113-rBeRerm B 4aKcrxMme.

This paper explores a vacant spot in the Cold War history of science: the development of research activities in the physical environmental sciences and in nuclear science and technology in Greenland. In the post-war period, scientific exploration of the polar areas became a strategically important element in American and Soviet defence policy. Particularly geophysical fields like meteorology, geology, seismology, oceanography, and others profited greatly from military interest. While Denmark maintained formal sovereignty over Greenland, research activities were strongly dominated by U.S. military interests. This paper sets out to summarize the limited current state of knowledge about activities in the environmental physical sciences in Greenland and their entanglement with military, geopolitical, and colonial interests of both the USA and Denmark. We describe geophysical research in the Cold War in Greenland as a multidimensional colonial endeavour. In a period of decolonization aft...

The settlement and subsistence patterns of the Inughuit of the Avanersuaq (Thule area) are described and analyzed for the years 1910 to 1953, when Knud Rasmussen’s trading station at Dundas was active. Inughuit subsistence was based on the rich biotic resources of the North Water polynya between Ellesmere Island and Greenland, but the analysis shows that trade, primarily with fox furs at the Thule Station, also played a major role in shaping the settlement pattern of the period. During the Thule Station Period, the named winter settlements amounted to c. 40 sites; however, only 10–15 of them were settled at any given time. The Inughuit settlement close to the station, Uummannaq, soon became the largest site in the area. The sources enable us to follow changes of residence of some hunting families over four decades. By moving their winter sites every second or third year, the families gained primary knowledge of the topography and seasonal variation of the hunting grounds in the enti...

This paper explores a vacant spot in the Cold War history of science: the development of research activities in the physical environmental sciences and in nuclear science and technology in Greenland. In the post-war period, scientific exploration of the polar areas became a strategically important element in American and Soviet defence policy. Particularly geophysical fields like meteorology, geology, seismology, oceanography, and others profited greatly from military interest. While Denmark maintained formal sovereignty over Greenland, research activities were strongly dominated by U.S. military interests. This paper sets out to summarize the limited current state of knowledge about activities in the environmental physical sciences in Greenland and their entanglement with military, geopolitical, and colonial interests of both the USA and Denmark. We describe geophysical research in the Cold War in Greenland as a multidimensional colonial endeavour. In a period of decolonization aft...

This report is the first-ever scientific analysis of the genealogy of the Henson clan; it is focused on the descendants and history of Reverend Josiah Henson, the heroic inspiration for "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and on  explorer Matthew Alexander Henson, the co-discoverer of the North Pole.  The report analyzes questions such as: can descents be proven from both men down to the present (various are presented); is there a better timeline for the complex early life of Matthew Henson; did Matthew and his first wife have a previously unknown descent in the US (separate from his Greenland Inuit descendants); is there a genealogical linkage between the two men; was Rev. Henson's father "sold down the river" to Alabama, or to some other location; what is a reasonable estimate for the birth year of Rev. Henson; how does the Titus family of Dawn, Ontario relate to Rev. Henson and his second wife; was one of the children on Rev. Henson's famous escape to Canada in fact a girl, contrary to previous assertions that all four children were boys; and what daily mileage did Rev. Henson, his wife, and his children achieve in their astounding escape from slavery.  The report is 134 pages long and includes numerous charts of over a dozen descents  from both men with hundreds of proof items; various large but unverified family tree charts compiled by descendants; previously unpublished items from The Explorers Club on their member Matthew Henson; the transcribed will of Rev. Henson; a never-before-published affidavit clarifying the ancestry of Matthew Henson; and an estimate of about how many Henson descendants are living today.

This article reflects on three Arctic shipwrecks currently being reclaimed for future exhibition. Two are icons of polar exploration.
Maud was built for Roald Amundsen’s North Pole expedition (1917–1925) and Belgica was used in the first Antarctic
overwintering expedition (1897–1899). The salvage of Maud in Canada and the ship’s return to Norway in 2018 was privately
financed. Raising Belgica has been the goal of a Belgian non-profit organization. The third is a medieval Norwegian wreck
excavated in 2017 with community funding. The role of each ship as icon and archaeological heritage is assessed and framed
within a broader discussion of museum narratives.

In contrast to the considerable scholarly attention given to textual Arctic imaginaries, including centuries of expedition and scientific literature and fiction, Arctic film imaginaries had, until the first decade of the 21st century attracted little attention. These moving images, however, have been profoundly influential: transcending national and linguistic borders, they have helped generate and challenge some of the most pervasive and troublesome tropes of the Arctic as a space, place and site. As one of the first contributions to the burgeoning field of global Arctic cinema studies, this article discusses a range of media products from Canada, Greenland, Scandinavia, and the United States. These include fiction features, documentary, television, and experimental film. The polar expedition mode is examined through The Flight of the Eagle (Jan Troell, Sweden, 1982) with reference to Med Hundeslæde gennem Alaska (On Dogsled Through Alaska, Denmark, Leo Hansen and Knud Rasmussen, 1926) and Roald Amundsen’s The Airship Norge’s Flight across the Arctic Ocean (Paul Berge/Emil Horgen, 1926).  Colonial depictions of Greenland are examined in the documentary Hvor Bjergene Sejler (Where the Mountains Float, Bjarne Henning-Jensen, 1955) and the melodramatic feature Qivitoq: Fjaeldgaengeren (Qivitoq: The Mountain Wanderer, Erik Balling, 1956), studied in connection to US depictions of the Arctic in the 1950s such as Disney’s Oscar winning feature White Wilderness (James Algar, 1958) and the United States Army Signal Corps Army Pictorial Service long-running documentary TV-series The Big Picture. The essay concludes with a discussion of Stan Brakhage’s  experimental Creation (USA, 1979),  which offers a vision of the Arctic at odds with almost all of representations of it, at least in the cinema, juxtaposed with recent IMAX imaginaries of ice and polar landscapes, especially as depicted in To the Arctic by Shaun MacGillivray (2013).

Many of Canada's non-Indigenous polar heritage sites exist as memorials to the Heroic Age of arctic and Antarctic Exploration which is associated with such events as the First International Polar Year, the search for the Northwest Passage, and the race to the Poles. However, these and other key messages of significance are often challenging to communicate because the remote locations of such sites severely limit opportunities for visitor experience. This lack of awareness can make it difficult to rally support for costly heritage preservation projects in arctic and Antarctic regions. Given that many polar heritage sites are being severely impacted by human activity and a variety of climate change processes, this raises concerns. In this paper, we discuss how virtual heritage exhibits can provide a solution to this problem. Specifically, we discuss a recent project completed for the Virtual Museum of Canada at Fort Conger, a polar heritage site located in Quttinirpaaq National Park on northeastern Ellesmere Island (http://fortconger.org).

This paper traces some of the network of patchy continuities from Virgil and Ovid, through Dante, Gustave Doré, the Arctic explorer (and later painter) Julius Payer (later von Payer), to the contemporary Austrian novelist Christoph Ransmayr. It will be travelling from Virgil’s Hell into the remotest regions of the far North, and back into the not too remote time when it could reasonably be supposed that at the North Pole there was perhaps land, or perhaps even open unfrozen water behind the barrier of pack ice. Its final destination will be the Hell of Ovid’s ultimate earthly residence on the inhospitable shores of the Black Sea. In particular it argues that there is a distinctive dotted line of influence running from Virgil’s account of the Underworld in Book 6 of the Aeneid, through Dante’s transformation of Virgil’s Underworld into a Christian Hell, Doré’s realisation of the latter in visual terms in his illustrations, Julius Payer’s conceptualisation of the newly-discovered Franz Josef Land in his illustrations of the discovery, and Ransmayr’s novelistic transformation of that discovery. In passing, I comment on the strange compulsion of the far north as manifested in the world of toys and adventure stories.

In contrast to the rich scholarship investigating male auteur directors and male polar explorers, "Women Arctic Explorers: In Front Of And Behind The Camera" examine some of the many women filmmakers who have made films in and about the Arctic since the 1920s. Largely absent in film history, we historicize the film production of these women film explorers with respect to their contemporary moment, but also in relation to dominant modes of cinema scholarship and Arctic studies. In this chapter we use the umbrella term “women film explorers” to account for women explorers who are themselves filmmakers, women explorers who were documented by others on film, and staged or fictionalized accounts of women explorers in the cinema. We exemplify with a number of women film explorers who contribute to critical moments in the history of Arctic explorer and ethnographic filmmaking, focusing on two periods: the 1920s-1930s and the 1960s-1970s. Examples include privately shot films for scientific purposes by American Arctic explorer Louise Boyd; Pathé newsreel coverage of Mary Stafford Peary’s travel to northern Greenland; fiction film featuring German Leni Riefenstahl on a rescue mission in S.O.S. Eisberg (Arnold Fanck, Germany/USA, 1933) and French actress Juliette Binoche as Josephine Peary in Endless Night (Nadie quiere la noche, Isabel Coixet, Spain/France/Bulgaria, 2015); commissioned ethnographic documentary by Dane Jette Bang and Swede and UK-based Mai Zetterling; and independent Scottish ethnographer Jenny Gilbertson filming in the high Canadian Arctic. We conclude by gesturing toward recent self-reflexive reactions to some of the recurring tropes of Arctic and polar explorer representation through postcolonial video art as exemplified by Greenlander Pia Arke.

In 2010, Leonard set off on a journey to document the language and spoken traditions of a small group of Inuit living in a remote corner of north-west Greenland. As a teenager, Leonard had read about the Inugguit through the accounts of the explorer, Sir Wally Herbert who lived in the region in the early 1970s. Travelling with hunters out on the Arctic sea ice, he followed in Herbert’s footsteps and discovered another world entirely, a way of life more or less unchanged for a thousand years. Living such a simple life in a pre-industrial society at the top of the world, Leonard came to understand the Inugguit’s privileged take on the busy, overpopulated world that lies beneath them. This is the account of Leonard’s year living with this remote group in the High Arctic.