Polar exploration is the process of exploration of the polar regions of Earth – the Arctic region and Antarctica – particularly with the goal of reaching the North Pole and South Pole, respectively. Historically, this was accomplished by explorers making often arduous travels on foot or by sled in these regions, known as a polar expedition. More recently, exploration has been accomplished with technology, particularly with satellite imagery.
From 600 BC to 300 BC, Greek philosophers theorized that the planet was a Spherical Earth with North and South polar regions. By 150 AD, Ptolemy published Geographia, which notes a hypothetical Terra Australis Incognita. However, due to harsh weather conditions, the poles themselves would not be reached for centuries after that. When they finally were reached, the achievement was realized only a few years apart. (Full article...)
The venture, financed by John Quiller Rowett, is sometimes referred to as the Quest Expedition after its ship Quest, a converted Norwegian sealer. Shackleton had originally intended to go to the Arctic and explore the Beaufort Sea, but this plan was abandoned when the Canadian government withheld financial support; Shackleton thereupon switched his attention to the Antarctic. Quest, smaller than any recent Antarctic exploration vessel, soon proved inadequate for the task, and progress south was delayed by her poor sailing performance and frequent engine problems. Before the expedition's work could properly begin, Shackleton died on board the ship, just after arriving at the sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia. (Full article...)
The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1917 is considered to be the last major expedition of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. Conceived by Sir Ernest Shackleton, the expedition was an attempt to make the first land crossing of the Antarctic continent. After Roald Amundsen's South Pole expedition in 1911, this crossing remained, in Shackleton's words, the "one great main object of Antarctic journeyings". Shackleton's expedition failed to accomplish this objective but became recognized instead as an epic feat of endurance.
Shackleton had served in the Antarctic on the Discovery expedition of 1901–1904 and had led the Nimrod expedition of 1907–1909. In this new venture, he proposed to sail to the Weddell Sea and to land a shore party near Vahsel Bay, in preparation for a transcontinental march via the South Pole to the Ross Sea. A supporting group, the Ross Sea party, would meanwhile establish camp in McMurdo Sound and from there lay a series of supply depots across the Ross Ice Shelf to the foot of the Beardmore Glacier. These depots would be essential for the transcontinental party's survival, as the group would not be able to carry enough provisions for the entire crossing. The expedition required two ships: Endurance under Shackleton for the Weddell Sea party, and Aurora, under Aeneas Mackintosh, for the Ross Sea party. (Full article...)
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Barneo Ice Camp Camp Barneo (Russian: Лагерь Бaрнео) is a private temporary tourist resort located on Arctic Ocean ice near the North Pole. When it is occupied for a few weeks in April, it is the northernmost inhabited place in the world. It was first established in 2002 and re-occupied annually thereafter, but it has remained vacant since 2018.
Frederick Albert Cook (June 10, 1865 – August 5, 1940) was an American explorer, physician and ethnographer, who is most known for allegedly being the first to reach the North Pole on April 21, 1908. A competing claim was made a year later by Robert Peary, though both men's accounts have since been fiercely disputed; in December 1909, after reviewing Cook's limited records, a commission of the University of Copenhagen ruled his claim unproven. Nonetheless, in 1911, Cook published a memoir of the expedition in which he maintained the veracity of his assertions. In addition, he also claimed to have been the first person to reach the summit of Denali (then known as Mount McKinley), the highest mountain in North America, a claim which has since been similarly discredited. Though he may not have achieved either Denali or the North Pole, his was the first and only expedition where a United States national discovered an Arctic island, Meighen Island. (Full article...)
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Ralph Summers Plaisted (September 30, 1927 – September 8, 2008) was an American explorer who, with his three companions, Walt Pederson, Gerry Pitzl and Jean-Luc Bombardier, are regarded by most polar authorities to be the first to succeed in a surface traverse across the ice to the North Pole on April 19, 1968, making the first confirmed surface conquest of the Pole. (Full article...)
Mathias or Matthias Hedenström (Swedish; 1780 – 2 October [O.S. 20 September] 1845), also known by his Russian name Matvei Matveyevich Gedenshtrom (Матвей Матвеевич Геденштром), was a Russian explorer of Northern Siberia, writer, and public servant. (Full article...)
Arved Fuchs (born 26 April 1953) is a German polar explorer and writer. On 30 December 1989, Fuchs and Reinhold Messner were the first to reach the South Pole with neither animal nor motorised help, using skis and a parasail. That made him the first person to reach both poles by foot within one year. (Full article...)
The expedition confirmed the existence of the continent of Antarctica, inferred the position of the South Magnetic Pole and made substantial observations of the zoology and botany of the region, resulting in a monograph on the zoology and a series of four detailed monographs by Hooker on the botany, collectively called Flora Antarctica, published in parts between 1843 and 1859. Among the expedition's biological discoveries was the Ross seal, a species confined to the pack ice of Antarctica. The expedition was also the last major voyage of exploration made wholly under sail. (Full article...)
Operation Deep Freeze is codename for a series of United States missions to Antarctica, beginning with "Operation Deep Freeze I" in 1955–56, followed by "Operation Deep Freeze II", "Operation Deep Freeze III", and so on. (There was an initial operation before Admiral Richard Byrd proposed 'Deep Freeze'). Given the continuing and constant US presence in Antarctica since that date, "Operation Deep Freeze" has come to be used as a general term for US operations in that continent, and in particular for the regular missions to resupply US Antarctic bases, coordinated by the United States military. Task Force 199 was involved. (Full article...)
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The only known photograph of Hall, late 1870
Charles Francis Hall (c. 1821 – November 8, 1871) was an American Arctic explorer, best known for his collection of Inuit testimony regarding the 1845 Franklin Expedition and the suspicious circumstances surrounding his death while leading the American-sponsored Polaris expedition in an attempt to be the first to reach the North Pole. The expedition was marred by insubordination, incompetence, and poor leadership.
Hall returned to the ship from an exploratory sledging journey, and promptly fell ill. Before he died, he accused members of the crew—the expedition's lead scientist, Emil Bessels, in particular—of having poisoned him. An exhumation of his body in 1968 revealed that he had ingested a large quantity of arsenic in the last two weeks of his life. (Full article...)
Richard Evelyn Byrd Jr. (October 25, 1888 – March 11, 1957), was an American naval officer, and pioneering aviator, polar explorer, and organizer of polar logistics. Aircraft flights in which he served as a navigator and expedition leader crossed the Atlantic Ocean, a segment of the Arctic Ocean, and a segment of the Antarctic Plateau. He is also known for discovering Mount Sidley, the largest dormant volcano in Antarctica.
Byrd claimed to be the first to reach both the North and South Poles by air. However, there is some controversy as to whether or not Byrd was actually the first person to reach the North Pole. It is generally believed that the distance Byrd claimed to fly was longer than the possible fuel range of his airplane. (Full article...)
Nobu Shirase (白瀬 矗, Shirase Nobu) (20 July 1861 – 4 September 1946) was a Japanese army officer and explorer. He led the first Japanese Antarctic Expedition, 1910–12, which reached a southern latitude of 80°5′, and made the first landing on the coast of King Edward VII Land.
Shirase had harboured polar ambitions since boyhood. By way of preparation, during his military service he participated in an expedition to the northern Kuril Islands. This venture was poorly organised and ended badly, but nonetheless provided him with useful training for future polar exploration. His longstanding intention was to lead an expedition to the North Pole, but when this mark was claimed by Robert Peary in 1909, Shirase switched his attention to the south. (Full article...)
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Svyataya Anna in her incarnation as the yacht Blencathra, from Helen Peel's Polar Gleams
The Philomel-class gunvesselHMS Newport was launched in Wales in 1867. Having become the first ship to pass through the Suez Canal, she was sold in 1881 and renamed Pandora II. She was purchased again in about 1890 and renamed Blencathra, taking part in expeditions to the north coast of Russia. She was bought in 1912 by Georgy Brusilov for use in his ill-fated 1912 Arctic expedition to explore the Northern Sea Route, and was named Svyataya Anna (Russian: Святая Анна), after Saint Anne. The ship became firmly trapped in ice; only two members of the expedition, Valerian Albanov and Alexander Konrad, survived. The ship has never been found. (Full article...)
Born in Borge, Østfold, Norway, Amundsen began his career as a polar explorer as first mate on Adrien de Gerlache's Belgian Antarctic Expedition of 1897–1899. From 1903 to 1906, he led the first expedition to successfully traverse the Northwest Passage on the sloop Gjøa. In 1909, Amundsen began planning for a South Pole expedition. He left Norway in June 1910 on the ship Fram and reached Antarctica in January 1911. His party established a camp at the Bay of Whales and a series of supply depots on the Barrier (now known as the Ross Ice Shelf) before setting out for the pole in October. The party of five, led by Amundsen, became the first to reach the South Pole on 14 December 1911. (Full article...)
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Roald Amundsen, Helmer Hanssen, Sverre Hassel, and Oscar Wisting at the South Pole (from Polar exploration)
Nelson and the Bear by Richard Westall, 1809. It depicts the 1773 expedition to discover the Northwest Passage. (from Polar exploration)
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