Thursday, June 11, 2015

The Colonization of Antarctica began with Mawson and McMurdo.

Cold colonies: Antarctic spatialities at Mawson and McMurdo stations
http://cgj.sagepub.com/content/14/2/234.short

2 comments:

  1. There's a nice graphic here about the colonisation, from about 2.00
    https://vimeo.com/82015845
    The lack of curiosity in establishing bases in Western Antarctica is notable, even though this coast is more remove from landmasses directly north of it.

    One coloniser interests me, Poland, which took over a Soviet station, Oasis in East Antarctica, for a very short period in the late 1950s, led by Wojciech Krzeminski along wth Prof S Różycki , then abandoned it almost immediately...."The First Polish Antarctic Expedition". Subsequent research tended to use various Soviet stations.
    http://antarcticana.republika.pl/

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._B._Dobrowolski_Polar_Station
    [The Poles do have another station, Henryk Arctowski on one of the islands towards Chile.
    The location of Oazis can be seen here
    http://antarcticana.republika.pl/foto2.jpg

    The results of this activity gave Poland the right to join the Organization of the Antarctic Treaty as a full member. [consultative] in 1977, having ratified it in 1961. It's as if the loan of Oasis was specifically for that purpose - the first accession by a non-signatory by a long way.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_Treaty_System

    ...not forgettng to mention the activities of Marek Kaminski
    http://www.explorapoles.org/explorers/profile/kaminski_marek

    ReplyDelete
  2. I thought the phrase "colonization of Antarctica" was an interesting use of the term "colonization". We don't normally hear that associated with Antarctica. Yet the article is a good example of colonization-- despite the rhetoric used today about it being an international research project of some fuzzy kind. Seeing that bold point-- that man is colonizing Antarctica much like we expected the moon to be colonized-- gave me a lift. I like that word.

    I'll look at your links in coming days and make some additions to this sparse post. I only had time to point to the article. Western Antarctic is all the more hard to reach because IF indeed we're a flat earth with an ice rim Antarctica, it's MUCH MUCH too difficult to "colonize" compared to the areas adjacent to the populated continents. This could be a hint that we're on the right track.

    ReplyDelete

Hi, I'm Captain Rick of the Virtual Circumference Voyage of Antarctica. I intend to prove definitively if Earth is flat or a sphere by paying careful attention to how many miles we cover as we travel "around" Antarctica. Flat earth theory says it's 50-60,000 miles. Spherical Earth theory says it 14,000 miles. Join me and ask any questions that you think would help our mission.