The Quest for the North Pole, Episode 5: Meet Peary and Henson Kat Long
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It’s summer, 1895, in the northernmost reaches of Greenland. The temperature hovers around freezing. American explorer Robert E. Peary and his assistant Matthew Henson are on a backbreaking journey by dogsled across the ice cap, from Independence Bay, a large fjord on Greenland’s northeastern corner, to their base camp at Bowdoin Bay on the west coast. They’re nearly out of food, and they’re desperately searching for a herd of musk ox to stave off their deaths by starvation.
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It’s summer, 1895, in the northernmost reaches of Greenland. The temperature hovers around freezing. American explorer Robert E. Peary and his assistant Matthew Henson are on a backbreaking journey by dogsled across the ice cap, from Independence Bay, a large fjord on Greenland’s northeastern corner, to their base camp at Bowdoin Bay on the west coast. They’re nearly out of food, and they’re desperately searching for a herd of musk ox to stave off their deaths by starvation.
The animals they’re stalking weigh up to 800 pounds and are built like battering rams, with a coat of shaggy hair and sharp, curved horns. Musk ox are powerful and unpredictable, and they’re Peary’s and Henson’s last hope for survival. All day, they look for snags of the oxen’s hair on rough rocks and scan the snow for tracks. Finally, they locate hoofprints and follow them across a valley, anticipating fresh meat.
SMC Presents Free Live Literary Talks & Readings this Spring
Feb. 13, 2021 at 5:00 am
2 months agobriefs
Santa Monica College (SMC) is pleased to continue its Literary Talks & Readings series featuring a noteworthy spectrum of writers reading from and discussing their works. The ongoing series opens its spring season on February 23.
All presentations in the series are free, and will be held online as live virtual events. A Zoom link to each talk will be posted with the listing on the SMC Events calendar at smc.edu/calendar. To attend the events, the Zoom software must be installed on the viewer’s computer. A free download is available at zoom.com.
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It’s June 17, 1896, and Norwegian polar explorer Fridtjof Nansen is waking up after another frigid night spent on Franz Josef Land. It’s an uninhabited archipelago north of Siberia in the Arctic Ocean. With his assistant Hjalmar Johansen still snoozing nearby, Nansen starts a fire, tosses some meat into a pot to make soup, and climbs atop a rocky hill to admire the view.
That’s when he hears it the unmistakable sound of dogs barking. He’s shocked, because their last sled dog died months ago.
The two explorers haven’t laid eyes on another human since they abandoned their ice-bound ship, the
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It’s June 1827, and high above the Arctic Circle, British naval officer William Edward Parry and more than 20 men are trudging over the ice from Svalbard to the North Pole. They’re hoping to be the first men to reach 90° North, but it’s not looking good.
No Arctic explorer is more experienced than Parry. He’s already led three voyages to the Arctic and sailed farther through the Northwest Passage than anyone. He’s prepared to face any threat, from extreme cold, to open water, to polar bear attacks.
But now, Parry is beginning to doubt his chances. His crew is hauling their equipment and food on heavy sledges through soft snow. They have to take time-consuming detours when their way is blocked by giant piles of ice. The slushy terrain is soaking the men up to their waists. They’d be fainting with cold if they could actually feel their legs.