Shackleton's Whiskey Returns to Scotland For Scientific Testing

January 26th, 2011 | By Tristan Crane | Filed in IN THE NEWS

In a unique opportunity for science (the science of whiskey at least), several bottles of whiskey left over from famous explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton’s antarctic exploration have been returned to Scotland. It is believed that the whiskey was bottled in 1896 or 1897, making it among the oldest in the world.

From Discovery -

The bottles of Mackinlay’s were part of a cache recovered last year from beneath Shackleton’s Antarctic hut, built in 1908 as part of his failed attempt to reach the South Pole.

They made it home Monday to Whyte and Mackay, the brand’s owner, for analysis to see how they have fared after so long preserved in the polar chill.

The wooden crate containing the whisky, marked British Antarctic Expedition 1907, was frozen solid in the minus 30 degrees Celsius (minus 22 degrees Fahrenheit) temperatures but the whisky in the bottles was still liquid.

How does this benefit science?

Richard Paterson, Whyte and Mackay’s master blender, said the analysis would be “for the benefit of the whisky industry”.

“Never in the history of our industry have we had a century-old bottle of whisky stored in a natural fridge and subjected to some of the harshest conditions on this planet,” he said.

“It is an absolute honour to be able to use my experience to analyse this amazing spirit.”

For the next six weeks, the whisky will be analysed, nosed, and tasted in full laboratory conditions.

Ok, so perhaps it doesn’t benefit hard science. Neither does drinking 100,00 glacier water, but wouldn’t you take a sip if you had the opportunity? It seems that a career in science can come with surprising perks, depending on your area of research.

Russian Icebreaker Timelapse Video

January 24th, 2011 | By Tristan Crane | Filed in IN THE NEWS

This morning, Boing Boing blogged this rocking time-lapse video of a Russian icebreaker ship on an antarctic expedition -

The Akademik Fyodorov is a Russian research ship that’s been to both the North Pole*, and to Antarctica. This time-lapse video packs an entire 201-day Antarctic expedition into 10 minutes, starting in Cape Town, South Africa, and traveling around the coastline of the Frozen Continent.

Inspiration Friday – Historical Arctic Photography

January 21st, 2011 | By Tristan Crane | Filed in Arctic History, IN THE NEWS

Inuit man with a kayak, Photographed by Captain Edward Augustus Inglefield, 1854

Group portrait of Inuit boys, Photographed by Captain Edward Augustus Inglefield, 1854

Winter quarters of the 'Alert'; Cape Rawson in the distance; Mr White and ‘Nelly' , Photographed by George White; Thomas Mitchell, 1875-76

The National Maritime Museum has shared an astounding set of early arctic photographs from their collection on Flickr. Titled ‘Freeze Frame’, these photographs are licensed under creative commons. Do take a bit of time to peruse the whole set, some of these images are mind blowing.

'Endurance' in the ice Photographed by James Francis Hurley, 1915. Materials: Gelatine dry plate, From the Henley Collection

Interested in a trip? Check out our webinar archive for firsthand information on some of our unique adventures. You can also peruse more photography in our inspiration gallery for some modern (but no less stunning) images of the arctic.

Early Expedition Documents Shed Light On Climate Change

January 19th, 2011 | By Tristan Crane | Filed in Current Events, IN THE NEWS

Historians will be looking for Arctic weather data in the logbooks of whaling ships, British Navy vessels and Hudson Bay Company ships from the 18th and 19th centuries, said Dennis Wheeler, a researcher with the University of Sunderland.

“It’s not until you begin to look at these documents that you can really get an appreciation of exactly how much information there actually is,” Wheeler told CBC News.

This would be a daunting but fascinating project to work on. Imagine the thrill of opening and poring over log books from renowned early arctic explorations! I always picture the London library containing documents such as these as a dusty treasure-trove, although the reality is likely far more clinical and sterile.

“The only way we know about climate change or environmental change anyway is by knowing the past temperatures, what the past environment was like,” said Alan MacEachern, a historian and director of the Network in Canadian History and Environment.

Crossing Water Without A Boat

January 18th, 2011 | By Tristan Crane | Filed in Mechanized Vehicles

Air boats in use in the high Arctic for transporting freight and search and rescue operations. The airboats can be used effectively during the breakup when ice is to unstable for snowmobiles and it is too early to use boats.

While we’re particularly fond of using our airboat or a zodiac to traverse stretches of open water, other people have come up with some creative alternatives to traverse watery terrain.

Scope this video, filmed on Georgian Bay in Ontario, of snowmobiles crossing huge areas of water -

This second video gives whole new meaning to the term ‘going offroad’.

Webinar – Polar Bears, Bowhead Whales of Baffin Island (Qikiqtarjuaq)

January 14th, 2011 | By Thomas Lennartz | Filed in Webinar

Amongst the towering fiord walls of south Baffin Island, touch the last of the great continental ice cap – the Penny Ice Cap Glacier, see polar bears and the majestic bowhead whales

Join Arctic Kingdom Expedition Director Thomas Lennartz for a virtual tour of this breath-taking land of icebergs, fiords and wildlife of Qikiqtarjuaq on one of our newest trip destinations
On this webinar:

For related trip details visit:
Polar Bears, Bowhead Whales and Glaciers of Baffin Island

Tracking Polar Bears By Satellite

January 14th, 2011 | By Tristan Crane | Filed in Current Events, IN THE NEWS

(c) WWF-Canada

Here’s a fun thing to spend some time with, WWF Canada has posted a site tracking the movements of three polar bears as they head onto the ice of Hudson Bay. They also provide some information on the bears and the distance they’ve traveled so far. All three are female with two cubs accompanying them, but their ages and sizes vary.

How Cold Is It… Really?

January 13th, 2011 | By Tristan Crane | Filed in IN THE NEWS

It feels like this winter has been particularly cold and stormy, but has the actual temperature been lower then usual? Wind chill is the defining factor in how cold you may feel vs. what the thermometer reads. CNN recently posted this article by writer Ethan Trex on how windchill is calculated (there’s a formula), and how this system of measurement came about. It’ll come as little surprise that it originated with antarctic explorers!

American explorer and geographer Paul Siple and his fellow explorer Charles Passel made the first breakthroughs in wind chill research while on an expedition in the Antarctic in 1940.

Siple and Passel suspended bottles of water outside a hut at their base station and measured how long it took the water to freeze under various wind conditions. After taking hundreds of these readings, the pair had a good idea of how rapidly heat was lost at different wind speeds.

That formula?

Wind Chill = 35.74 + 0.6215T – 35.75(V^0.16) + 0.4275T(V^0.16)

T is the air temperature in degrees Fahrenheit, and V is the wind speed in miles per hour.

So now you know. One interesting aspect of wind chill is that it doesn’t affect inanimate objects. So even if the windchill temp is below freezing, water won’t turn immediately turn into ice. We, however, will feel like we may – unless we’re wearing our Canada Goose cold weather gear.

Lovely Bowhead Whale Mural In Iqaluit

January 12th, 2011 | By Tristan Crane | Filed in Current Events, IN THE NEWS

Photo via Nu School Design Agency

I found this brilliant mural on the website of NuSchool Design Agency, out of Iqaluit. According to artist Alexa Hatanaka’s blog, it’s aptly titled ‘The Canadian Dream‘.

Regarding this particular mural-

Climate Change Impacting The Inuit Diet

January 10th, 2011 | By Tristan Crane | Filed in INUIT, Inuit Culture/Art

Climate change has a trickle down effect – impacting the landscape of the arctic and the lives of its human inhabitants. Shifts in weather and ice freezing patterns are altering expected animal migratory patterns, and considerably affecting the Inuit way of life – specifically their diet. Not only is there less access to the traditional foods they’ve subsisted on, but modern times have brought imported processed foods which can lead to health problems.

From Cnn.com comes this article on the work of several scientists doing research into these changes and their ramifications. One of these researchers is Barry Smit, a professor at the University of Guelph, Canada. -

“People looking at the health of the Inuit have demonstrated that the traditional diet, which is almost exclusively raw meat, is in fact very healthy for them,” Smit said. “But because of the new difficulties hunting, people are adapting their diets to what’s available in the stores.

“The stores only have food that’s easy to transport and doesn’t perish, so there are no vegetables. The young people are increasingly eating highly processed junk food, so we are seeing more teeth problems and obesity.”

The difficulties in hunting are caused by shifting ice and changing migratory patterns among animals such as seals, walrus, types of whales and polar bears, which form a large part of the traditional diet, Smit said.

He also noted that the shifting ice made hunting and traveling more dangerous.

Smit said: “Ice is fundamental to their livelihoods and culture. Most of their activities involve traveling on the ice.

“Over the past decade or so, they have noticed that the behavior of the ice is changing, so their traditional roads are not as safe as they used to be.”

Junk food is a problem in many cultures at the moment, but not an insurmountable one. According to Wikipedia, the traditional Inuit diet has always been geographically limited. One positive aspect of importing food is there may be some choice in what can be brought in. An emphasis on vegetables and fruit over processed foods will be a healthier outcome to this necessary change. -

Inuit consume a diet of foods that are fished, hunted, and gathered locally. This may include walrus, Ringed Seal, Bearded Seal, beluga whale, caribou, polar bear, muskoxen, birds (including their eggs) and fish. While it is not possible to cultivate plants for food in the Arctic the Inuit have traditionally gathered those that are naturally available. Grasses, tubers, roots, stems, berries, fireweed and seaweed (kuanniq or edible seaweed) were collected and preserved depending on the season and the location.