Curiously Polar

For thousands of years, indigenous people have adapted to the hostile conditions of the Arctic to survive. Now they face major changes for their lifestyle, culture, traditions, and economic viability caused by climate change. For the indigenous people in the Arctic these are not just questions of culture and survival.

Since time immemorial, the polar regions exert an indescribable fascination on us humans. For centuries, myths and legends were concentrated around the Arctic. It has been intrepid pioneers and adventurers who not only explored the Arctic, but also laid the foundation for such research areas as glaciology. The exploration of the Arctic plays a major role in today’s understanding of how weather develops, climate changes and everything is interconnected. Some of those explorers failed terribly, others came back gloriously. But even today, these pioneers are influencing us in our current research and expeditions.

Tourism is a growing activity in the Polar Regions. But what impact do we have traveling these remote and fragile regions? What challenges are connected to tourism here? There are serious concerns that tourism is promoting environmental degradation in the Polar Regions by putting extra pressures on land, wildlife, water, and other basic necessities, and on transportation facilities. But there are possibilities and options to reduce our footprint, like the German non-for-profit organization Atmosfair, that contributes to CO₂ mitigation by promoting, developing and financing renewable energies in over 15 countries worldwide.

Chris welcomes Henry Páll Wulff to the show. Henry is an expedition leader and an Arctic expert. In this episode they talk about sea ice.

Curiously Polar has been asleep for a couple of months. Here's finally an update. While Mario is at sea, changing jobs and far from the internet, he is collecting new stories and will return with a lot to talk about in the future episodes. In the meantime, check out Chris and his Arctic travels to Lofoten, Lofoten and Lofoten. All in Northern Norway and all above the Arctic Circle.

Here is part 2 of our discussion about the effect of cold temperature to living in Polar areas. In this episode we concentrate on cars and what we are faced with during Arctic winter conditions, what we can expect and how to face some of the most common situations we might face when the temperatures stay below 0°C.

Northeast Passage is the name of the water route that connects Europe to the Pacific Ocean passing along the shouthern shores of the Arctic Ocean, north of the Asian Continent. It has been the subject of many exploration expeditions, among which the ones led by Willem Barentsz, and was finally navigated in its entirety in 1878 by Adolf Erik Nordenskjöld on the ship Vega. Nowadays the Northeast Passage is experiencing a lot of attention, due to a reduced ice cover, to technological edvances in shipbuilding and the economic incentives to find an alternative sea route joining the eastern Asian economies to Europe.

The Drake Passage is the 800 km water passage between the southern tip of South America and Antarctica and that separated the Atlantic from the Pacific Ocean. The Beagle Channel and the Strait of Magellan are the only two other waterways between the two oceans, but these were often more difficult to navigate for sailing vessels and this make the Drake the preferred option, with the Cape Horn as its most known landmark.