SATURDAY EVENTS

Richard Alley
© Polar Palooza

Join us for this family-focused multimedia experience! Through immersion in polar sights and sounds travel with Richard Alley, Pennsylvania State University, a climate researcher and field scientist and Andy Revkin, New York Times award winning science writer, as they explore the impacts of climate change on our poles. Dr. Alley's field seasons in Greenland and Antarctica brings his presentation of climate change alive. Andy Revkin, has authored numerous articles on climate change and a book "The North Pole Was Here." This session includes hands on polar artifacts to touch and examine.

Approaching an ice fjord
© David Holland

The climate of the polar regions is the product of a complex set of interactions between ocean, land, ice, and atmosphere. The many positive and negative feedbacks between any two or more of these components complicates our understanding of the system. As an oceanographer, David Holland studies the phenomena of the polar oceans and their impacts on global climate and global sea level, and the interaction of floating ice shelves with polar ocean waters. In 2007, he placed time-lapse cameras and an automatic weather station on the Jakobshavn Ice Fjord, in Greenland, to help us better understand the fastest-moving glacier in the Arctic.

Mary Albert
© Polar Palooza

From a snow expert, to a marine mammal specialist to an Alaskan native biologist, hunter and community leader, we have the perfect vantage point for looking at how our planet has been changing and adjusting. Join our team for another multimedia experience with Mary Albert is the U.S. Principal Investigator on the Norwegian-U.S. Traverse from Troll Station to the South Pole, Michael Castellini, University of Fairbanks Alaska, studying both Arctic and Antarctic seals and marine mammals, and Orville Huntington, an Alaskan biologist committed to sharing stories of his culture and subsistence lifestyle. Includes hands on artifacts to touch and examine.

Jon Bowermaster
© Jon Bowermaster

Adventurer, writer and filmmaker Jon Bowermaster has traveled in Antarctica by a variety of means: dogsled, sea kayak, sledge-hauling, on foot, small plane and sailboat. He will preview segments of his most recent film – "Terra Antarctica, Re-Discovering the Seventh Continent," drawn from his 2008 National Geographic-sponsored expedition by sea kayak and sailboat along the Antarctic Peninsula. A great adventure story, the film highlights how fast the Peninsula is changing - each year there is less ice, fewer penguins, more rain and more tourists. Though Antarctica is often regarded as remote and impenetrable, Bowermaster's adventures illustrate just how fragile it can be.

Inuit Cultural Performers
© Hans Blohm

The Inuit Cultural Performers are young Inuit sisters from Ottawa, Canada. They enthusiastically preserve and share the Inuit culture through performing traditional cultural presentations including throat singing and drum dancing. Throatsinging is a unique type of vocalization whereby usually two people face each other and throatsing songs that imitate sounds found in nature and sounds of tools, such as: seagulls, geese, the wind, running water, and the saw. Their performance will include an explanation of throat singing and a description of their clothing.

Olav Orheim
© Olav Orheim

Olav Orheim has been the senior advisor to the ResearchCouncil of Norway and head of the Norwegian International Polar Year Program. What is happening now in the Arctic ? Are we at a climate tipping point? How has the change in climate impacted the people and wildlife in the Northern Communities? The Norwegians have seen real changes in their lands and the effect on their lives is a concern for the entire country. Experience these changes with reknowned scientist Olav Orheim.

Barbara Hillary at the North Pole at age 75
Modernage Photo Services NYC
© Barbara H. Hillary 2007

In 2007 Barbara Hillary entered history with her ski to the North Pole at age 75. A cancer survivor, a believer, a role model, nothing stood in her way. In 1909 Matthew Henson made history with his role as a black man in the expedition with Robert Peary to locate the North Pole. Almost a century later, when Barbara heard that no black woman had made it to the North Pole she accepted the challenge, although at the time she did not know how to ski! Meet this inspiring individual as she challenges each of us to be and do more.

Fire and Ice Ceremony
© Fire and Ice 2009

Fire & Ice 2009 is about increasing attention to the significance of the melting of the "Big Ice" (Greenland), as well as new recognition and respect for indigenous peoples and their perspectives. This event adds the traditional indigenous voice to the dialogue on global warming and care of the earth, providing a very necessary, yet often missed perspective. Through Fire & Ice 2009 the indigenous voice powerfully focuses the attention of the world on our most urgent global issue, expanding our awareness and ultimately bringing about the paradigm shift that is of such vital importance to our mutual survival and wellbeing.

Pål Brekke

What could be more beautiful on a cold winter night than catching a glimpse of the northern lights dancing across the sky? This stunning phenomenon is embedded in the mythology of many cultures and has been characterized as everything from dancing spirits to God's anger. There has been a hundreds of stories and theories to explain the Aurora (also known as the Northern or Southern lights). But no one suspected a connection with the Sun until a little over a century ago. Norwegian solar physicist Pål Brekke delivers a spectacular multimedia presentation on the myths and modern science behind the northern lights.

Risten and Marielle Gaup
© Risten and Marielle Gaup

The Sami are the indigenous people of northern Scandinavia, and their traditional style of singing is referred to as 'joik'. Sara Marielle and Risten Anine, Sami sisters from Guovdageaidnu (Kautokeino), in the north of Norway, have both been practicing Joik, since early childhood. Taught by their father and other relatives, they have performed since they were about ten years old. They are now passing down the techniques of joik to the next generation by hosting workshops and joik classes. Traditionally, joik is performed a cappella, but Sara Marielle is currently the lead vocal in the band Adjàgas that combines traditional Joik with modern instruments. Learn more at www.myspace.com/adjagas. Sara Marielle and Risten Anine will perform various types of traditional joik, and tell the story of joik and its important role in Sami society. They will also host a little quiz and showcase duodji artifacts, which are traditional and modern Sami handicrafts. The art of duodji was passed down from their mother. Risten Anine has been a duodji apprentice in northern Finland, while Sara Marielle is pursuing a Bachelor's degree in duodji.

Adding an imaging device to the wing of a twin-engine plane
© Beth Burton

Just returning from a challenging field season in the most extreme environment on Earth, the Antarctic Gamburtsev Province (AGAP) team will present what they learned about the slumbering giant that lies below the two mile thick ice sheet. This sleeping giant is a European Alp sized mountain range called the Gamburtsev Mountains, discovered 50 years ago by a team of Russian scientists as they traversed across this extensive ice sheet. Difficult access and extreme weather and altitude have kept this giant hidden, untouched and unexplored, beneath the ice until now. Using small twin engine otter planes these scientists used a technique like an MRI to image through the ice.

The Peary expedition, 1908
© The Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum, Bowdoin College

Arctic explorer Robert E. Peary spent nearly twenty years trying to be the first man to reach the North Pole. Knowing well that he could not succeed on his own, he enlisted the support of many people from all walks of life, from New York businessmen to Newfoundland seamen and Inughuit seamstresses. Learn about the experiences of some of these remarkable people through their photographs, journals, and letters as we celebrate the 100th anniversary of Peary's historic 1908-09 North Pole expedition. The photograph shown above is by Donald B. MacMillan, entitled 'Sledges on a Fall Hunting Trip' Ellesmere Island, 1908.