Review: One Day in the Life of Noah Piugattuk

Posted on 22 June 2020 by Charlotte Gehrke

By Max Modell A haunting story of yesterday, One Day in the Life of Noah Piugattuk is a wholly unique film. It demands that you lean in close, to pick up every detail, not just because of Inuktitut language and subtitles, but because so much happens non-verbally. From the shared looks and laughs of Piugattuk’s group to
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Conjuring Matthew Henson: African-American Polar Explorer

Posted on 9 June 2020 by Charlotte Gehrke

By Carole Boston Weatherford When I was growing up in Baltimore, my father taught at Frederick Douglass High School, his alma mater and for years one of only two local high schools that admitted blacks. Among the school’s former faculty was Herbert M. Frisby (1888-1983), a biology teacher, historian and advocate for the African-American community.
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Hooked on the Arctic

Posted on 1 April 2020 by Charlotte Gehrke

By Irene Quaile Back in 2007, I was sitting in my office at Germany’s international broadcaster Deutsche Welle. I opened an intriguing email from Soundprint Media, a production company in the USA. They were proposing a joint funding application from recognised feature-makers in several countries to make a series of radio documentaries highlighting different aspects of polar research
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Studies from Siberia

Posted on 9 March 2020 by Charlotte Gehrke

By Sophie Watson As someone whose research lies in the heart of polar ecosystems, I’ve been lucky enough to visit some of the world’s remote and frozen regions. Nothing provokes me more than to see a landscape so merciless and yet so fragile –where the ticking of time seems so urgent. In February 2020 I
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Telling Your Science Story

Posted on 27 January 2020 by Charlotte Gehrke

By Euan Paterson, communications and media officer, Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS) It was at a recent marine biology conference that a research colleague of mine had his science communications ‘Eureka moment’. It came during a session when the presenter confessed she was not a good communicator – because she was ‘a scientist’. My
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The ’Greenland card’ – Arctic Colonialism in the Cold War Era

Posted on 7 January 2020 by Charlotte Gehrke

By Iben Bjørnsson The Second World War had significant consequences for Greenland. Greenland was cut off from her colonial metropole and, for the first time in several hundred years, the strict monopoly that Denmark had upheld was broken. One of new players entering Greenland in this power vacuum was the USA, for which the war
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The Idea of North and His Dark Materials

Posted on 21 December 2019 by Charlotte Gehrke

By Ingrid Medby Far-away, forbidding, dangerous, and yet strangely alluring and beautiful: The Arctic has for centuries inspired southern imaginations. From medieval tales of monsters and magic, to Poe’s gothic horror, the idea of North is and has been a rich source for storytellers across time. And this autumn, the North has once again been
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Narrating the Poles

Posted on 6 November 2019 by Charlotte Gehrke

By Henry Páll Wulff, Chris Marquardt & Mario Acquarone Curiously Polar is a weekly podcast about all things very north and very south. It wasinitially kicked off by professional photographer, author and podcast veteran Chris Marquardt and marine biologist Mario Acquarone after spending time together on a ship around Svalbard. Initially, the show’s main focus was
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Peter Freuchen – the colonial adventurer and his legacy

Posted on 22 October 2019 by Charlotte Gehrke

By Iben Bjørnsson In Denmark, there is a chapter of The Adventurers’ Club, an early 20th Century gathering of male ‘explorers’ who travelled the world. One might think that such a thing is an old relic, which reeks of male exclusivity and colonial exploits. And in thinking so, one would not be wrong.  Nevertheless, the founder
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The Arctic Circle expansion

Posted on 11 October 2019 by Charlotte Gehrke

By Beate Steinveg Since its establishment in 2013, with the purpose of including all interested stakeholders in the dialogue on the future of the Arctic, the Arctic Circle’s outreach and scope has grown impressively. More than 2000 participants from 60 different countries attend the 2019 Assembly. The Arctic Circle organization also continues its global expansion
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