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Arctic exploration andresearchProfessor R. N. Rudmose Brown D.Sc.Published online: 27 Feb 2008.

To cite this article: Professor R. N. Rudmose Brown D.Sc. (1946) Arcticexploration and research, Scottish Geographical Magazine, 62:3, 97-99, DOI:10.1080/00369224608735328

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00369224608735328

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THE SCOTTISH

GEOGRAPHICALMAGAZINE

Vol. 62, No. 3 December 1946

ARCTIC EXPLORATION AND RESEARCH

By Professor R. N. RUDMOSE BROWN, D.SC.

ARCTIC exploration has gradually changed its motives and its technique.- Geographical discovery in the far north is finished, and there need be nomore arduous sledge journeys, no more grim struggles against hunger, andno more abandoned ships. The hardships of polar travel have almostdisappeared, and with their elimination has gone the popular appeal whichthrove on disaster. And gone also has the two-volume diary of monotonyas the record of the effort. But the task of the explorer is not ended. Thereis still much to be learned and many problems to be investigated in arcticregions. Since the poles were reached, efforts were diverted into moreuseful channels. And with the replacement of sail, dog and human muscleby mechanical means of transport much time has been saved and muchuncertainty eliminated. Travel has become less picturesque but safer andmore certain. Radio also has banished isolation, and there should be nomore disappearances and search expeditions. But, perhaps most importantof all, man has overcome his dread of arctic regions : he has learned howto live there without the haunting fear of scurvy. The arctic regions arecoming within the range of human settlement as their economic value isappreciated. Their material value is expressed in the northward spread ofclaims to sovereignty, some of which have even aroused international rivalry.To-day every arctic land is actually or nominally within the sphere of oneor other of the contiguous states—Denmark, Norway, Canada and the SovietUnion—and many of these lands have permanent, if small settlements, somefor purely scientific purposes, others to assist in navigation of arctic seas, andothers of more direct economic importance. Several arctic lands and seascame within the range of war in recent years. Spitsbergen was the sceneof fighting and heroic Norwegian defence. East Greenland and Jan Mayenhad their value as weather stations, and West Greenland was protected byUnited States forces. The desolate Denmark Strait was a busy shippingroute. These active interests produced many valuable scientific data,especially as regards air movements and ice distribution. Many scientificproblems can now be more clearly defined, and their elucidation ratherthan the charting of coast-lines commands the interest of the modernexplorer. Of course, in the Antarctic the work of the pioneer explorer isnot yet finished.

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g8 SCOTTISH GEOGRAPHICAL MAGAZINE

The scientific exploration of the north necessitates careful planning andclose co-ordination between explorers. The task nowadays is to choose theareas in which specific problems can best be studied, and the explorers nowmust be men of scientific training rather than adventurous athletes. Ofcourse this is not wholly a new aspect of arctic exploration. One of theearliest attempts at international co-operation was in the InternationalPolar Year, 1882-83, when eleven states instituted observatories and othersco-operated through already existing observatories. On à smaller scalethis effort was repeated in 1932-33, and tentative suggestions for an Inter-national Antarctic Year have been made. Since early in the last centuryDenmark has had observatories in West Greenland and, since 1906, aresearch station on Disko Island. Since 1911 there have been meteoro-logical stations in Spitsbergen, since 1921 in Jan Mayen, and 1922 in EastGreenland. And for many years the Soviet Union has been extending astring of observatories on its arctic islands between Franz Josef Land andWrangel Island. Canada also has its arctic stations.

Apart from research laboratories that can house workers, there is requiredthe establishment of clearing houses and libraries at home where the field .work can be planned and equipment and supplies studied and arranged.The museum aspect can well be left to existing and more popular institu-tions. Various geographical societies, including this Society, have interestedthemselves with pioneer arctic exploration, but their scope and field ofinterest is generally too wide to allow concentration on arctic scientificproblems, some of which are only on the border line of geography.Denmark, with her interests in Greenland, began in 1879 the invaluableseries, Meddelelser om Grönland, and Norway in 1912 began Shifter om Svalbardog Ishavet, emanating from Norges Svalbard og Ishavs Undersökelser whichgrew out of the Spitsbergen Committee of 1918. The institute contains themost complete Spitsbergen library in existence. The Soviet Arctic Institu-tion at Leningrad, which has published a bulletin since 1931, is rooted backin 1918 when a few workers began the scientific investigation of the SovietArctic lands and seas. The Institute for the Study of the North, of 1925,became the Arctic Institution in 1930. It has been very active with bothpurely scientific and also economic problems.

In Great Britain, the earliest attempt at a polar clearing house was madeby W. S. Bruce. Inspired by Sir John Murray and the Challenger Office,Bruce founded the Scottish Oceanographical Laboratory in an inconvenient,somewhat squalid, building adjoining the Surgeons' Hall, Edinburgh. Itwas officially opened in January 1907 by H.S.H. The Prince of Monaco.The scope was wider than polar, but the main interests were arctic andantarctic. Bruce in those days was one of the few men who had experienceof both far north and far south. For several years his laboratory was arallying point of polar travellers. But too soon Bruce's failing health,financial difficulties, and the upheaval of the war of 1914-18 put an endto his hopes and schemes, and the contents of the building, collections,library and equipment, were scattered over various Edinburgh institutions.It was the loss of R. F. Scott and his south polar party in 1912 that led tothe foundation, as a memorial, of the Scott Polar Research Institute, andCambridge had the good fortune to be chosen for its site, largely becauseof the Cambridge associations of many prominent members of Scott's

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ARCTIC EXPLORATION AND RESEARCH 99

expedition, especially Professor F. Debenham, the present Director. TheInstitute publishes, since 1931, The Polar Record, and is acquiring a com-prehensive polar library not only of books and papers but also of originaldocuments and log-books. Recently Dr. H. R. Mill presented to theInstitute his matchless library of antarctic books. There is reason to hopethat other private polar libraries will eventually reach this Institute.

The newest of such institutes is the Arctic Institute of North America,founded in 1944, with headquarters in Montreal but representative of bothCanada and the United States. Though a private organisation, it wasfinanced initially by grants from the National Research Councils of bothcountries and by donations from private sources. It is controlled by a Boardof Governors and a Director. The chairman of the Board is Dr. L. M.Gould, and the address of the Institute, at least for the present, is 805 Sher-brooke Street West, Montreal. The range of interest of this Institute coversall arctic territory of North America, including Alaska, Arctic Canada,Labrador, Newfoundland and Greenland, for Greenland though politicallyEuropean is geographically American, and these westward links werestrengthened during the war when European ties were severed. Theobjects of the Institute are to initiate, encourage and advance, by financialgrants or otherwise, the study of arctic problems, to collect and preservematerial from the Arctic, and to arrange for the publication of papers andmaps. It is recognised that many problems can be investigated only bylong-time and preferably permanent arctic stations. Already the CanadianDepartment of Mines has built stations at Baker Lake and the mouth ofthe Mackenzie River.

Bulletin No. 1 (March 1946) indicates at length a "Program ofDesirable Scientific Investigations in Arctic North America." This listshould prove instructive reading to those geographers of limited outlookwho exclude polar regions from their spheres'of interest. There are theobvious problems in mapping, meteorology and climatology, the biggerand more difficult problems of the oceanography of the Arctic basin,including tidal researches, and of course geological exploration and glacio-logical researches. Another problem that is not stressed in this pamphlet,is that to which Professor H. W. Ahlmann recently drew attention in theGeographical Journal for January-February. It concerns the widespreadglacial wastage in all arctic lands during the last fifty or more years, thereduction in the thickness of floes and the decreasing area covered by pack-ice. This he associates with the increased flow of warm air to the regionsaround the North Atlantic, the Greenland and Barents Seas, and with thenorthward movement of the North Atlantic low-pressure system. A numberof important biological problems are also indicated, including the causesof the well-established fluctuation in the population of many species ofmammals- and plants, and animal ecology from many angles, and a wide,range of anthropological problems regarding the Eskimo of to-day and ofthe long past. It will be noted that all Eskimo territory lies within the areaof jstudy delimited by this Institute. Lastly, attention should be given tothe possibilities of utilising certain arctic areas for crop and livestockproduction, problems which are being actively studied in the Soviet Union.There is clearly abundant work for the arctic explorer of the future, butit is work that demands trained investigators.

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