Apollonio, Spencer

English

University of Calgary Journal Hosting

REVEWS 145 i hypothesis. The paper is a fresh inter- pretation that not only  recommends but demands  recognition of pallescens.  Until a better argument is presented, most of us will have to accept pallescens as a valid race. DAVID F. PARMELEE ICE ISLAND. Polar Science and the Arctic Research Laboratory. By TIM WEEKS and RAMONA MAHER.  New York:  The John Day Company, 1965. 81/4 x 5% inches. 220 vaaes. 57 illustrations including two maps, one table, index. $4.95. The most recent popular  accounts - two  only - of a U.S.  ice drifting station were produced twelve years ago, just at  the beginning of the continuing  effort that saw the establishment of the scien- tific station of Fletcher’s  Ice  Island,  T3, and that resulted in  the successful oc- cupation of four more Arctic  Ocean research stations. Authors Weeks and Maher have brought the eventful story up to date in Ice Island, a well-illus- trated and generally satisfactory book for the person with little or no previous knowledge of these stations. The reader familiar with the Arctic  Ocean and with the progress of scientific work in that area will not find much that is new, although he will learn some interesting details of the establishment and support of the ARLIS  stations. In a relatively few  pages the authors rapidly survey the exploration of the Arctic  Ocean, the establishment of vari- ous ice floe stations, the discovery and occupation of ice islands, and the life and work there. This broad approach is generally successful and  quite  adequate for an introductory work, and the very few slight misinterpretations that may arise as a result in the reader’s mind are hardly serious and will not lead him far astray. There are brief accounts of the drift of the Fram, of North Pole I, and of the Sedov, and mention of other rele- vant early approaches and thrusts into the Arctic  Ocean. There is a good use- ful summary of the various events connected with the discovery of the various “T” ice islands and of the first landing by Fletcher, Brinegar and Rodahl  on  T3, and the authors have included an informative though short account of the glacial history of north- ern Ellesmere Island which produced the ice  shelf and the ice  islands. Most of the book is devoted to ARLIS 11. Here is outlined a good deal of the problems of locating and estab- lishing drifting stations; the question of a suitable,  safe  site, the race against the summer melt to  set  up a camp, the in- escapable slush of summer, and the forced  relocation of the buildings as the summer sun eats deeper into the sta- tion  foundations. The authors gently touch on the personnel problems that arise from these conditions, and they include  mention of the inherent  and sometimes severe difficulties  of carrying out research from such stations, wheth- er on  ice  floes or islands. Here too they capture something of the fascination of the ice  islands - that indefinable  aspect that is so attractive. Two of ARLIS 11’s people have in fact spent more than three  years on the ocean. It is in the description of ARLIS I1 that the work of Max Brewer, Director of the Arctic Research Laboratory at Pt. Barrow, shines. The use of inexpen- sive materials to prefab small,  portable, expendable huts  that can easily be transported and  set up, and the highly successful use of light aircraft, Cessna 18Os, in establishing and supplying the stations, even in the depths of winter, and  in supporting the scientific  work as far as the Pole itself, are results of Brewer’s direction and are points that the authors do  well to emphasize. Here, however,  by  recording  only the role of American  pilots of light aircraft in the Arctic, they do an unintended disservice to  those Canadian pilots  who in  the mid 1950’s pioneered the use of the even smaller Supercubs for scientific explo- ration of the arctic archipelago. There is a supplementary chapter on the laboratory at Pt. Barrow and the work that goes  on there,  and  an  enter- taining chapter on the wandering bears 146 REVlEWS that have  visited and besieged  ARLIS 11. The Office of Naval  Research  is cur- rently considering the possibility of freezing a research vessel into the arctic pack, in essence thus repeating Nansen’s original drift. The drifting ice stations therefore may  only  be intermediate and temporary platforms for the ex- ploration of that unique ocean.  Like the ice  islands  themselves, these stations may  someday  cease  to  exist. The  only real criticism that might be made about this popular introduction to the drift stations is that after the reader is supplied with a good back- ground, he is finally left wondering what has been accomplished. The au- thors cover quite well all aspects of the stations except the actual scientific results. Some of the work may have been  classified for strategic reasons, but there is room for description of other aspects of the hard-won results. There is  for  instance, no mention of the mag- netic  anomaly that stretches across the Arctic  Ocean.  Various other authors have very successfully written popular accounts of the results of scientific work. Ice Island does include such a brief summary of research done  on  lem- mings at Barrow, but nothing similar is  recorded  from the drift stations.  Only four of the numerous illustrations ac- tually show the scientists at work and these  few are repetitive and not  too in- formative.  This reviewer would have liked to have seen a more  complete treatment of the scientific  aspects of the stations in this otherwise good account of the unique drifting stations of the Arctic Ocean. SPENCER APOLLONIO Obi tuar ie s  James Buckland Mawdsley (1894-1964) James Buckland Mawdsley, M.B.E., Ph.D., F.R.S.C., a Charter Associate of the Arctic Institute of North America,  died very suddenly  on 3 December 1964 at the age of 70. As Director of the Institute for Northern Studies, University of Saskatchewan, he played a major role in its organization and development and exerted a very great influence on research in northern Canada. He was born on 22 July 1894 near Siena, Italy, the son of British-American parents. In 1904 the Mawdsley  family  left Italy and settled in  the village of Gains- borough, southeastern Saskatchewan, After receiving his public and high school training in Saskatchewan he entered McGill University in 1913. His career, like that of many of his contemporaries, was interrupted by the First World War. Twice  wounded  in France, first with the Princess Patricia Canadian  Light Infantry and then as a pilot with the Royal  Flying  Corps, he was awarded the M.B.E. at the end of the war. In 1919 he  returned to  McGill and two years  later graduated in Mining  Engineering. He then went to Princeton University where he obtained his Doctor of Philosophy degree in Geology in 1924. That same year  he joined the Geological Survey of Canada and for the next five years applied his scientific knowledge  to the problems of the regional  geology of northwestern Quebec. A new chapter in his life began in 1929 when he accepted the appointment of professor and head of the Department of Geology at  the University of Saskatch- ewan, a position he held until he became Dean of Engineering in 1961 and also the Director of the Institute for Northern Studies. In 1963 he retired  as Dean and was then able to devote all his time  to the affairs of the Institute. In addition  to his academic duties his professional activities included field work in northern Saskatchewan for the Geological Survey of Canada and the Saskatchewan De- partment of Mineral Resources, and private consulting assignments took him to other  parts of northern Canada, to  the United States and Great Britain. 

Ice Island. Polar Science and the Arctic Research Labratory, by Tim Weeks and Ramona Maher

https://journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/index.php/arctic/article/download/66654/50567

Ice Island. Polar Science and the Arctic Research Labratory, by Tim Weeks and Ramona Maher

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

University of Calgary Journal Hosting