Posted on Mon, Jul 12, 2010 @ 01:00 PM
Our company President, Chuck Cross was recently interviewed for a great travel program called "The Informed Traveller" on radio station CHQR AM 770 in Calgary.
Here's the interview:
Informed Traveller Radion Interview on Antarctica
Posted on Mon, Jul 05, 2010 @ 02:06 PM
Two Climates In One
There are two general types of polar climate:
• The “ice-cap” or “perpetual frost” climate, which has sub-freezing temperatures all year.
• The tundra, where at least one month’s average temperature is above freezing.
To complicate matters further, tundra comes in three flavors: Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine tundra, which is found in mountainous terrain where cold temperatures are due to high elevation regardless of latitude.
Antarctica is the only continent on earth where a polar climate dominates. The Arctic is more diverse.
In the Arctic, tundra is found in the southern regions, and ice caps are further north. A lot of the Arctic region is permanently covered by solid or drifting pack ice. That permanent ice is a 3 to 4-meter thick ice sheet covering approximately 8 million square kilometers north of Svalbard and Franz Josef Land. It’s tough to impossible for plants and animals to live under that polar ice, considering very little sunlight penetrates through to the water. Only a few species inhabit the very far north.
Tundra covers most of northern Canada and Alaska, parts of northern Siberia, northern Iceland, and the extreme northeastern coast of Scandinavia east to the Bering Strait. Tundra is known for its low temperatures and short growing seasons – that means no (or very few) trees grow there. Grasses, mosses and lichens are the big three in the Arctic tundra. Plants are very slow-growing and long-living. They are stunted in size compared to their warm-weather relatives. Even the tiniest plants can be incredibly old.
Year-round permafrost means that the ground material stays at or below freezing for two or more years. Ice doesn’t have to be present, though it often is. An active layer of ground on the surface (on top of the permafrost) that thaws seasonally during the short summer can support plant life.
Typically, ground temperature varies less than air temperature from season to season. Temperatures are also colder the deeper you go into the ground. In some of the “warmer” climates, where air temps hover just below and around freezing, you see discontinuous permafrost. That means permafrost only forms in sheltered areas that often face north, so there are patches of permafrost that might not go very deep under the surface.
[TRIP TRIVIA: Want to take world-class wildflower photos? Go to the Arctic! Though they bloom fast to take advantage of the condensed summer sunshine, there are over 300 species of low-growing flowering plants. Compare that to only two flowering species in Antarctica!]
Greenland Ice Cap dramatically plunges to the ocean
Photo by Steve McBurnett
Ice Cap, Anyone?
In polar language, an ice cap is a dome-shaped ice mass that covers less than 50,000 square kilometers of area, usually on a mountain or at high altitude. If the ice covers more than 50,000 km2, it’s called an ice sheet.
In many Canadian dialects, an ice cap is an iced cappuccino – a fun and frothy drink of the coffee variety that comes in mugs small enough to wrap your fist around. While standing on a polar ice cap, a hot cap(puccino) might be more appropriate.
Posted on Mon, Jul 05, 2010 @ 01:00 PM
Marine Mammals
As their name suggests, marine mammals depend on the ocean environment for survival. They actually have it a little easier cold-wise than true land animals like Arctic foxes, who battle terrestrial temps as low as -50 C versus the -2 C maximum low in the ocean where seals swim. The biggest issue for marine mammals is their need for fresh air. They need tough skulls and thick skin for breaking through the ice to suck a little O2!
Though many whales visit the Arctic, only a few species stay for the duration. Bowhead, beluga and the narwhal are the only true, year-round Arctic whales. You can recognize them by their lack of dorsal fins, which evolution decided would get in the way while skimming under the ice and popping up for air. Other whales you might see in Arctic waters include fin, humpback, minke, pilot, and even blue whales in coastal Greenland. Killer whales, which are really big dolphins, are also known to prowl the ice pack.
Ringed, bearded, harp and hooded seals all live in the Arctic. Seals use their blubber and a highly specialized blood-warming system to stay cozy in near-freezing water. Polar bears, killer whales and killer humans are their natural predators.
Walruses are Arctic ice dwellers. They live on floes in the moving ice pack and at the ice edge, though they’ve been known to haul onto land when ice is scarce. These animals are bottom-feeders that like shallow waters, where they use their whiskers and tusks to feel around for food. The Atlantic walrus hangs out in the northern Davis Strait, the north coasts of Greenland, Svaldbard, Novaya Zemlya, the Laptev Sea, as well as in the Bering and Chukchi seas.
Polar bears are considered more marine mammals than land mammals. Though they live on both land and sea, they spend most of their time on ice floes and in the water, and they depend mostly on seals for food.
Land Lovers
Though the Arctic is made up of ice, tundra and permafrost – where only the surface thaws in the summer – plants bloom and insects swarm during the brief and sunny summer. The nearly continuous daylight from May to July gives land mammals and migratory birds the opportunity to feast, breed and make merry before the polar night sets in again.
Around 40 species live there, but only 12 or so species live in the far north year-round. With air temperatures colder than water temperatures and 24 hours of winter darkness, land mammals must be extremely well adapted to survive the Arctic.
One of the cold-weather strategies is: Be big. To help reduce heat loss, polar versions of animals are bigger and they have shorter limbs, more fur and blubber. Bigger animals have a greater body surface to mass ratio, which helps retain heat. Only big animals roam in the Arctic winter, and they often huddle in groups or herds to keep warm.
Small animals go underground – or at least under the snow – and live on plant roots and other things that keep them from surfacing. Food is hard to find in the winter. Except for the Arctic Ground Squirrel, who snuggles in communal burrows, none of these little guys actually hibernate.
Terrestrial critters can be divided into the following categories: hunters, grazers and browsers.
Hunters range from small predators like Arctic fox to big hunters like the Gray wolf, which is the biggest and baddest wolf anywhere at 80 kg (175 lb). Grizzly, or brown, bears and polar bears are the largest predators in the Arctic, and grizzlies in particular are not very social. Grizzly bears roam open areas like tundra, and their diet varies depending on the available seasonal menu.
Besides their white fur and black skin, polar bears differ from Grizzlies in that they are as much a marine mammal as a land mammal. They’re Olympic-worthy swimmers and travel from tundra, fast ice and pack ice in search of food like ringed and bearded seals, as well as an occasional whale calf. They’re not too picky – they also eat fish, plants, small animals and birds.
Grazers and browsers are vegetarians. They travel huge distances to find enough forage to survive the Arctic winter. Caribou (reindeer), moose and musk ox are the primary herd animals. The North American Caribou is the only truly Arctic species of grazer/browser, and they migrate in huge groups of 50,000 to 500,000! Musk ox gather in herds of 12 or more, and they like the tundra. Moose prefer marshy areas with a little tree cover.
Don’t forget the little fellows, like lemmings, who are common in the far north of Canada and Greenland. They eat grass and Arctic willow leaves, and they look like rat-sized hamsters. They’re well-adapted to living under the snow – their big claws are all the better for digging, plus their short tails, blunt snout, small ears hidden in fur and tiny eyes do great in the cold. Can't We All Just Get Along?
That’s a wonderful sentiment, but it depends on your perspective. The Arctic food chain includes predators and prey – meaning, some must sacrifice so that others may live.
An even bigger issue than who’s for dinner is the role of humans in the Arctic. With human interaction resulting in: oil reserves being mined from places like Prudhoe Bay; a huge pipeline that sits precariously on permafrost and slices through grazing territory of caribou; prospective drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; the hunting of ‘at risk’ animal populations by indigenous peoples; and polar ice melting at an alarming rate… the Arctic is a sensitive and controversial place. For such a cold place, its future stirs up some heated discussions!
Posted on Thu, Jun 24, 2010 @ 05:29 PM
As Santa Claus and his reindeer will tell you, the north pole is a cold, dry and windy place only fit for the Abominable Snowman.
All myths aside, the Arctic polar region is generally kinder and gentler than its southern counterpart, Antarctica. That’s because the most northern part of the Arctic is open ocean, which retains more heat and keeps the north warmer than the Antarctic.
How warm is it? Not very. By definition, “polar” indicates that it’s below freezing for more than half the year. Polar climates basically lack warm summers. Trees don’t grow, but glaciers and ice sheets do.
How dry is it? Like the Sahara, only colder. Northwest Greenland gets around 75mm of precipitation a year. That’s not much.
The Arctic is hard to describe because it covers such a huge area. One way to define the Arctic is by its climate and ecology. The Arctic is everything north of the 10°C (50°F) summer isotherm, which represents the average temperature in July. An isotherm indicates a line of equal or constant temperature, and it’s used to show temperature distributions on weather maps. The summer isotherm is basically tree line for most of the Arctic, though a lot of Arctic maps also include the Subarctic when drawing boundaries around the northern polar region.
The Arctic Circle (66° 33’N latitude) is near the limit of the midnight sun and the polar night. The Arctic winter is around nine months long, when the polar night lasts 20-24 hours. The midnight sun occurs in the summer, when the sun is still visible at midnight.
The Arctic Ocean, which is actually several seas coming together, is surrounded by a broad and shallow continental shelf. Pack ice still covers nearly half of the Arctic Ocean even in the summer, when the southern peripheral ice recedes. That means most of the Arctic waters are static.
Think of the Arctic Ocean a marine parfait – it’s multi-layered. The upper layer is the frozen crust. Below that lies a rich, thin layer of water that is fed mostly from Siberian rivers. The next water layer is deeper and warmer, and it comes from the Atlantic Ocean. Finally, an even deeper layer that sits below 800 meters (2,625 feet) is very cold and still.
The most impressive glaciers in the northern hemisphere are formed by rivers of ice that come from the Greenland ice cap. The largest of these calve off huge icebergs into Disko Bay on the west coast. Smaller icebergs are created in Scoresby Sound of East Greenland. Svalbard, Spitsbergen is also a great place to see Arctic glaciers, river beds and ice grottos up-close and personal.
The Ocean Effect
The Arctic waters manage to support plenty of wildlife, especially in the fringe areas near land, where the continental shelf is shallow and the peripheral ice melts in the summer. The nutrient-rich surface waters promote seasonal plankton blooms that nourish fish, birds, seals, and whales during their summer grazing. The Arctic Ocean’s warming effect and the surrounding land masses provide habitat for plants as well as user-friendly travel and migration routes for the local animal populations.
A Land Of Extremes
The Arctic region sees big fluctuations in climate and environment, and the ecological balance is fragile and slow to recover. Plants and animals need a lot of therapy to adapt to this stressful life.
In the winter, anticyclones – high pressure systems that rotate clockwise – dominate the region’s weather patterns. In the summer, these systems decrease and warmer, wetter ocean air visits the region.
During the winter, it’s cold, dark and the temperature rarely gets above freezing. Summer hits quickly with nearly continuous daylight from May to July, and that’s when everything comes to life in the Arctic. There’s a frenzy of growth and activity. Plants bloom and insects take over during that brief warm and sunny spell. Animals and migratory breeding birds take advantage of those few months. Spring and fall are mere blips on the Arctic radar.
[TRIP TRIVIA: The coldest spot in the north is NOT the North Pole. It’s near Verkhayansk, Siberia! That’s because the interior of Asia’s large northern landmass is too cold to hold moisture – it’s just a big frozen desert – while the Arctic Ocean is comparatively warmer.]
Posted on Thu, Jun 24, 2010 @ 05:19 PM
Name a place where the animals might eat you before you can eat them.
Besides Jurassic Park, Africa and other places where lions, tigers and bears rule, the Arctic fits that description. That’s where you find Polar Bears – the great white hunters of the north. The northern polar region was named Arctos, which is Greek for bear, and the prominent constellation Ursa Major (great bear) points to the north pole star Arcturus.
[TRIP TRIVIA: If your life-long wish is to see penguins and polar bears play together on an ice floe, you’re in for a disappointment… penguins live in Antarctica, which is the southern polar region, and polar bears live in the Arctic – the polar opposite of the Antarctic, which doesn’t host any indigenous land mammals.]
Polar bears and their close relatives of the Brown and Grizzly persuasion aren’t the only animals that call the Arctic home. Arctic-dwellers also include walruses, seals, whales and other sea-lovers as well as land mammals like moose, musk ox, caribou, Arctic fox and even wolves. Arctic animals are closely related to their cousins in other parts of the world, except that they are specially adapted to the extremely cold and windy environment.
The Arctic also supports a plethora of sea-savvy birds, including those with cool names like Phalarope, Kittiwake, Guillemot and Puffin. There is an abundance of marine animals to feed the birds.
Ocean Dining
In the summer, 50% of the Arctic Ocean is covered in permanent pack ice with an average thickness of about 3 meters. This ice pack increases to 85% in the winter. But that doesn’t mean the Arctic Ocean doesn’t support life – and plenty of it! Polar waters in general are known for promoting fewer species (less diversity), but each species typically boasts a large population (many individuals).
How do marine animals survive in the Arctic’s sun-starved and ice-covered conditions? When the ice retreats in the summer, it creates an edge effect where sunlight penetrates. That seasonal light promotes an algae bloom around the ice edge. This results in great dining for crustaceans. Plus, warmer water temperatures in the open sea and near the ice edge promote the growth of plant plankton. That means the Arctic coastal waters are full of nutrients and food.
The most abundant life in the Arctic Ocean is plankton – including diatoms, flagellates and other green algae, depending on the region – and copepods, which are tiny crustaceans that nearly everybody else eats. Copepod is Greek for “oar-footed” because these creatures paddle around using oar-shaped legs.
Polar squid is the preferred snack for male Sperm whales, Orcas, seals and many sea birds. Sea snails (pteropods) are an important food for bowhead whales. These snails graze on phytoplankton and gather in big swarms that discolor the water. Krill, which plays a central role in the Antarctic food chain, doesn’t live in the Arctic.
The Arctic supports a wide range of fish, most notably Arctic cod, which dines mostly on plankton and likes its water very cold. Arctic cod is a favorite of commercial fishermen near Iceland and Greenland, and Scandinavians dry and salt them to make klipfisk. Capelin winters in deep water and surfaces in the summer. It’s a key species in that cod, seabirds, seals and whales all eat it. Polar cod is truly circumpolar in that it lives in near-zero temperatures. Because it’s smaller, Polar cod is food for seabirds and bigger cod, but humans show little interest in it on a commercial level. Salmon species, including char, live in the ocean but stay near freshwater inlets and travel up the rivers to spawn.
The Arctic even houses the most northerly shark – the Greenland shark. This ominous fellow lurks at the surface and grows up to 6.5 meters long, making him the largest of the dogfish. The shark’s fresh meat is poisonous; it smells like ammonia because this fish actually urinates through its flesh! That’s why the Inuits first dried the shark’s flesh before feeding it to their dogs. Never wasteful, they also used the shark’s liver for fuel oil.
As an adaptive feature, all polar fish have natural anti-freeze in their blood to prevent them from becoming fish-flavored ice cubes in the cold Arctic drink. Really!
Posted on Thu, Jun 17, 2010 @ 05:07 PM
Just added $1500 Air Travel Credit on a variety of small ships traveling to Antarctica on longer voyages this November thru next February. Check out the specials at http://www.polarcruises.com/specials/
Posted on Tue, Jun 08, 2010 @ 08:50 AM
Juen 8th - Celebrate World Oceans Day. It's a great day to contemplate the amazing place called the ocean and remember that we need to protect it from the ongoing onslaught of pollution, overfishing and technological bombardment that all ocean creatures seem to be dealing with these days.
Here is a link I found interesting: you are affected by the ocean every day
Posted on Wed, Feb 17, 2010 @ 05:22 PM
(This guest post is from Sharon - our Client Services guru - who is traveling on the Polar Star on a Antarctica Circle trip from Feb 4 - 15, 2010.)
Final Thoughts on my trip:
A follow up to that knitting project that saved me from my lecture napping syndrome.
Our expedition leader raffled a wonderful chart of our voyage that was illustrated by another member of the expedition staff who is an excellent artist. The money raised is going to the Penguin Feeding Project - this is a post-graduate study she is doing to look at what Penguins eat during the winter as not much is known. This information will be shared with the commercial fishers of krill - in hopes that they will use sustainable methods to take the main source of food for the entire ecosystem of Antarctica.
Also offered were Albatross pins - money raised would go directly to the Save the Albatross Foundation.
Well, I had lots of passengers asking me if I was knitting my scarf for them. Anyway, our resident whale expert Ursula Tscherter has a Minke project that she is very passionate about. It dawned on me that I could donate the scarf to her project, and we could auction it off.
Our last night onboard there was a quiz. Teams competed for Polar Star prizes, and the scarf went up of auction just before it. We started the bidding at $35.00 because there was $50.00 worth of wool in that project. I am happy to report that the scarf went for $110.00 for Ursula's Minkes.
If you have an interest in supporting any of these important issues here are the web links:
http://www.rspb.org.uk/supporting/campaigns/albatross/
Megan Tierney
http://www.penguinfeedingproject.org/
Ursula Tscherter
http://www.ores.org/
Posted on Mon, Feb 15, 2010 @ 05:24 PM
(This guest post is from Sharon - our Client Services guru - who traveled on the Polar Star on a Antarctica Circle trip from Feb 4 - 15, 2010.)
Forget the steam rising from the sea in the caldera, forget the Weddell seals chilling out on the beach, or a few penguins courting, forget the kelp gulls and their chick, or the graveyard and whaler's detritus. After 5 voyages to Antarctica, I finally succumbed to the insanity of the Polar plunge at Deception Island.
I stripped off my clothing and after hamming for the many cameras went into the water. It was a bit too shallow to dive head first into the icy water, so I took one more step and found myself over my head in salty cold water! I swam back to where I could stand and rushed for the warmth of the pit that had been dug by the shore ( most ship don't dig one anymore). Hot water and hard volcanic pebbles greeted my cold body. As I dried off my skin felt tight and papery. The worst was getting my feet clean of pebbles.
The amazing thing about this voyage was that there were several passengers that plunged at almost every landing site - not just at the balmy waters of Deception Island (2 degrees Celsius)! We even had a skinny dipper below the Antarctic Circle.
Our final landing - Half Moon Island was sunny and again void of snow in most places. The Chinstrap penguins that made their rock nests in October or November in the only area of the island that wasn't covered in snow are now hopping from rock to rock as they return to the rookery with bellies full for the chicks they are feeding. These chicks are especially messy with guano coating their feathers! More then any we have seen on our other landings - I'm sure they are looking forward to that first polar plunge almost as much as I did.
Then it was back into the Drake - Our luck held and we enjoyed Drake Lake the whole way back to Ushuaia. Again, the ship treated us to a detour. The morning of our second day in the Drake an iceberg was spotted and the ship changed course to sail by it. To our delight there were about 30 Chinstrap penguins on top. We circum-navigated the berg, and then waited for the wind to pick up enough to bring us some birds for watching. Around the Horn we were treated to one last Wandering Albatros to welcome us home. I'm already dreaming of my trip back next month.
Posted on Fri, Feb 12, 2010 @ 05:25 PM
(This guest post is from Sharon - our Client Services guru - who is traveling on the Polar Star on a Antarctica Circle trip from Feb 4 - 15, 2010.)
Another great day on the peninsula! We had a zodiac cruise at Cierva - giant bergs, Leopard Seals, Chinstrap Penguins, Fur Seals and then Humpback Whales.
There were about 7 of humpbacks in three groups. The doctor and I were in charge of the last zodiac again. When we heard the call about whales we went racing over to where the other zodiacs were and stopped short of them to look. Nothing! All of a sudden the whales appeared, one on either side of us - so close to the zodiac that you could feel the blow on your face.
We were supposed to be a shorter cruise - I asked if anyone minded if we stayed with the whales and didn't get a response. We followed another pair and then heard that there were three more by the glacier. I had the boat race over there - when we got there the older couple said they wanted to go back - They hadn't said anything before that but I guess they were upset - most likely cold. Another zodiac had one passenger that wanted to go back as well so I swapped with them and got to stay out a bit longer. I guess I was Captain Bligh set adrift after the mutiny.
When we arrived back to the ship there were three Leopard Seals playing around an iceberg by the bow.
The afternoon was at Mikkelson harbor on Caroline Island - lots of Fur Seals, a Gentoo colony, Leopard Seals on flows and a colony of Terns flying near the glacier feeding - at least a hundred of them. The sun was shining.
We sailed into Deception at 5:00 am and did the hike. We have breakfast at 8:00 and then land at Whaler's Bay. After lunch is Half Moon and then we jump into the Drake.