A TROUBLED ARCTIC CROSSING
This article is an adaptation of our weekly History newsletter that was originally sent out on January 4, 2021. Want this in your inbox? Subscribe here.
By Debra Adams Simmons, HISTORY Executive Editor
Two of the greatest living polar explorers sought to ski in and out of the melting Arctic ice cap to investigate the impacts of climate change for themselves. It almost killed them.
At one point, near the North Pole, nearly out of food, in a small tent staked to a plate of floating ice, Børge Ousland and Mike Horn got an offer via satellite phone for a rescue by helicopter from a passing icebreaker.
It was 30 degrees below zero. Horn’s hands were frostbitten and dangerously infected.
Ousland said no. Their goal had been to view the changing Arctic (pictured above, the two at the start of the journey)—and they were determined to finish.
“All the two exhausted men could think about in that moment was that the ice fracturing beneath their tent was drifting in the wrong direction. They had food for 13 days. At their current pace, the ship they needed to reach at the ice cap’s edge was still a month’s journey away.”
That’s from Aaron Teasdale’s heart-stopping Nat Geo account of Ousland and Horn’s 2019 journey to the top of the world. When they reached the North Pole, after 36 days of skiing, they celebrated in the darkness, breaking out tiny bottles of Armagnac and a rum-soaked fruit cake created by an admiring three-star Michelin chef.
Then they had to ski back. (Pictured below, the smiling pair at the end of the journey, two days after Horn had fallen through the ice and was rescued by Ousland.)
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TODAY IN A MINUTE
COVID-19 vaccine: Britain today became the first nation to inoculate people with the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine outside of trials, CNN reports. The vaccine is easier to transport and to store than the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, which was approved for use in Britain last month, making it easier to deliver outside of hospital settings. More than 20.6 million coronavirus cases have been reported worldwide, and more than 1.8 million deaths, according to Johns Hopkins researchers.
Speaking of which: The coronavirus dominated the list of Nat Geo’s most popular stories of 2020, but murder hornets and fake animal reports also swarmed our Top 10. Here’s the list.
Before the Spanish invasion: Early Caribbean settlers may have been nearly wiped out by South American invaders about 1,000 years before the Spaniards landed on the islands. That’s from DNA recovered from 174 individuals excavated at sites from Venezuela to the Bahamas, Andrew Lawler reports. Two recent studies also indicate the number of indigenous people on Puerto Rico and Hispaniola was smaller when the Spaniards arrived than previously thought.
Ancient soy sauce: Forget Marco Polo. People in the Mediterranean 3,500 years ago had access to soy, tumeric, bananas, and other foods from south Asia. How do we know? A new study of fossilized dental plaque from more than a dozen skeletons from what is present-day Israel, Andrew Curry writes for Nat Geo. Once routinely scraped away, dental plaque now is considered valuable by scientists. “If you would stop brushing your teeth, in 2,000 years I could tell what you were eating,” says archaeologist Philipp Stockhammer.
‘Whispering’ bats: Rare photos of the endangered gray big-eared bat have caused a stir. As few as 1,000 of the bats still live in England, writes Cordilia James. The bats have their nickname because they evolved to make have evolved to make softer and less occasional sounds than other bats. That helps them hunt, but means that researches have a harder time picking up the calls and converting them into frequencies humans can hear.
INSTAGRAM PHOTO OF THE DAY
Winterized: The weather in Japan reaches extremes, from hot, humid summers to frigid, icy winters, and for centuries gardeners there have employed beautiful yet practical ways to protect trees from the harshness of winter. Transforming trees into sculptural objects through yukizuri–the art of supporting tree limbs against the weight of heavy wet snow with artfully tied ropes–is an annual ritual. Tree trunks are protected by kokomaki–wraps made of straw. It’s an organic form of pest control that creates a cozy spot for the pine moth (in its caterpillar stage) to roost for the winter, rather than hibernate under fallen leaves. In spring, gardeners collect and burn the wraps filled with still-groggy caterpillars before they are able to gobble up the pine needles and damage the tree.
THE BIG TAKEAWAY
What’s old is new: For thousands of years, North American tribes have carefully burned forests to manage the land. An organization of Native American firefighters has been training other professionals in this traditional method, which has gained respect after years of record wildfires in the American West, Charles C. Mann reports for Nat Geo. In the photo above, Karuk tribal member and retired Forest Service anthropologist Kathy McCovey makes a gesture of recovery, tossing black-oak acorns to reseed her California land after a wildfire incinerated her home. Below, at left, Yurok tribe member Margo Robbins shows off the basket she made with hazelnut strands. The young strands come from straight shoots of young plants after a fire. Below right, Woodwardia ferns are also used for basket-weaving.
IN A FEW WORDS
Frauds can wear expensive clothes, and people in tatters can turn out to be beautiful people. Characterization to me happens through what people do rather than what they look like.
Jenny Erpenbeck, ‘My experience of East Germany is changed by every book I read’
DID A FRIEND FORWARD THIS TO YOU?
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LAST GLIMPSE
Extraordinary: 19th Century explorer and archaeologist Jane Dieulafoy (pictured above) made stunning discoveries in one of the world’s oldest cities, the ancient capital of Susa in western Iran. France gave her its highest civilian honor. It also gave Dieulafoy, a popular travel writer and historical novelist as well, special legal permission to wear men’s clothing in public, Nat Geo’s History magazine reports. Because of her conservatism and long, devoted marriage, Dieulafoy was “never denigrated as a hysteric or a pervert, more likely labels for 19th-century women in pants,” said biographer Rachel Mesch, author of Before Trans: Three Gender Stories From 19th-Century France.
This newsletter has been curated and edited by David Beard, and Jen Tse has selected the photos. Kimberly Pecoraro and Gretchen Ortega have helped produce this. Have an idea or a link? We’d love to hear from you at david.beard@natgeo.com. Thanks for reading, and happy trails.
