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October 2008 issue	In this issue Table of Contents Feature: Grise Fiord Feature: Norway Carbon Tax The Inside Story Editor’s Notebook Reverberations À la carte

Photo: www.1000hourday.com

EXPEDITIONS
Aussie odyssey
After 70 gruelling days, Australian adventurers Chris Bray, 24, and Clark Carter, 23, completed the first unsupported traverse of Victoria Island in August. Straddling the boundary between Nunavut and the Northwest Territories, Victoria Island remains largely unexplored.

Using a tiny laptop and a satellite phone, Bray documented every step of the journey on his website (www.1000hourday.com). His dispatch on the third day described the pair’s encounter with “death terrain,” the cheeky nickname he and Carter gave to fields of jagged, ice-shattered rock (above) that had been one of their greatest challenges when they first attempted the trek three years ago. That trip ended after 58 days, when extreme cold and wind and other setbacks forced them to quit. This year, armed with the benefit of hindsight, the intrepid men flew back, dug up the Australian flag they had buried to mark their original end point and set out to finish what they had started.

Instead of hauling and paddling wheeled kayaks, as they had done on their previous trip, they manoeuvred two self-designed allterrain amphibious carts with 1.5-metre-diameter wheels made from tractor inner tubes wrapped in bulletproof fabric. The two-wheeled carts were conceived to roll over large objects, to snap together to float like a raft and to serve as a portable campsite.

Supported in part by a grant from The Royal Canadian Geographical Society, this year’s expedition continued to provide an extraordinary glimpse into this remote region, which had started with discoveries made in 2005, when Bray and Carter came across ancient artifacts, including bone tools and stone tent rings. Following strict instructions not to disturb such sites, they recorded the precise locations using a GPS, took photographs and passed the information along to the Kitikmeot Heritage Society in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut. “They were very happy, as they have no data about some of those areas,” wrote Bray in an e-mail from Victoria Island.

One of the rewarding aspects of this journey, says Bray, was connecting with viewers worldwide, including Australian students who followed the trekkers’ progress as part of their curriculum. He admits he was mainly driven by the personal pursuit of adventure, but he hopes sharing the experience will inspire others. “We might help to open people’s eyes that these kinds of amazing, unexplored places still exist out there, right in your own backyard for Canadians,” writes Bray. “By showing how pristine and special it is, we hope that people may feel more inclined to watch out for the environment a little, to see that it is worth protecting.”

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EXPEDITIONS
Conquering Logan’s fury

Photo: James Coleridge

“We were so close to a tragedy,” says Coleridge. On June 3, the winds died down and they completed their ascent.

This was Coleridge’s fourth successful climb in his attempt to reach the highest point in every Canadian province and territory (see “The inside story,” Sept/ Oct 2007). His Summits of Canada Expedition (www.summitsofcanada.ca), is funded in part by the RCGS. Next spring, he intends to scale Barbeau Peak, to mark Nunavut’s 10th anniversary.

RESEARCH
Yukon wrecks
In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, more than 35 sternwheelers were reported lost along the Thirty Mile section of the upper Yukon River. A team of volunteer underwater archaeologists, surveyors and divers is now working to locate and document these vessels, scattered along the river and its shores and thought to be among North America’s largest collections of freshwater shipwrecks.

“It’s like an outdoor museum,” says John Pollack, the project’s leader and a British Columbia-based research associate with the Institute of Nautical Archaeology at Texas A&M University. Unlike other North American wrecks, he says, many of the Yukon sternwheelers are exceptionally well preserved because of the dry, cold winters and the fact that some of the boats were pulled onshore to protect them from river ice. “On some vessels, you can walk the decks, swing the tillers and turn the rudders,” says Pollack. “The paint is still on the walls in some of the engine rooms.”

The researchers travelled by powerboat along the Thirty Mile section in June, part of a multi-year project launched in 2005 and funded in part this year by The Royal Canadian Geographical Society. Despite high and turbulent water, they located three new vessels: James Domville, La France and a small, unidentified sternwheeler.

CLIMATE CHANGE
Geographical societies join forces
Representatives of the geographical societies of Canada, England, Australia, New Zealand and Africa gathered last March in the offices of the Royal Geographical Society in London, England, to issue a joint statement on climate change. Not only was it a collegial meeting of minds, it was history in the making.

“This is the first time this kind of international collaboration has taken place,” says Gisèle Jacob, President of The Royal Canadian Geographical Society. “Even more special, our joint statement on climate change had its origins in the International Polar Year 2007-2009.”

The RCGS spearheaded the initiative, inviting the participation of other geographical societies that publish popular magazines. The Royal Geographical Society (with Institute of British Geographers), the Africa Geographic Society, the Australian Geographic Society and the New Zealand Geographic Trust joined the RCGS to prepare the joint statement, which outlines the role that geographical societies, with their strong focus on education, can play in the climate-change arena. All agreed that similar future collaborations should be pursued.

The same meeting also led to a historic collaboration among the societies’ magazines, which has resulted in this issue’s package of climate-change stories from around the world. The project’s ongoing legacy will be a travelling exhibit of the articles’ photographs, to debut this fall at Canada House in London.

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