Search Results: Arctic

Svalbard is an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean on the northwest corner of the Barents Shelf. It is 800 kilometres (497 mi) north of mainland Norway and sits roughly midway between the top of Norway and the North Pole. It is bordered by Greenland...

Henry Hudson (c. 1570-1611) was an English navigator and maritime explorer. He is known for his four voyages between 1607 and 1610 in search of a northwest passage via the Arctic Ocean to the Far East. The lure of a northwest passage became...

1598 Map of the Three Arctic Voyages (1594–1596) by Willem Barentsz. Spitsbergen (now Svalbard) is mapped for the first time and indicated as "Het Nieuwe Land" (Dutch for "the New Land"), centre-left.

An ice age is a period in which the earth's climate is colder than normal, with ice sheets capping the poles and glaciers dominating higher altitudes. Within an ice age, there are varying pulses of colder and warmer climatic conditions, known...

Sometime around 330 BCE, Pytheas, a little-known Greek merchant, embarked on an astonishing voyage. It was a voyage that would take him far beyond the known boundaries of the Mediterranean, into lands thought to exist only in myth and legend...

In the frozen Far-North of Europe, beneath the Northern Lights, lies a land of snow, endless tundra, and dense forests. Where ancient languages and songs echo on the frigid air. Where majestic reindeer roam...majestically. Anyway, this...

John Munro Longyear (1850-1922), who was the central figure behind the Arctic Coal Company which surveyed and mined coalfields on Spitsbergen, now Svalbard, from 1905 to 1916. Longyearbyen - the world's northernmost settlement and largest...

Icebergs in Disko Bay, Greenland, as seen from aboard a ship. The Disko Bay area was the place where Vikings living in Greenland came on summer hunting trips to hunt narwhals, walrus and even polar bears for ivory and skins - valuable Arctic...

A Depiction of Willem Barentsz's three expeditions in search of the coveted Northeast Passage to Cathay (China) and the Spice Islands. Woodcut. 1598.

In our interview with Gordon Campbell, we chat all about his new book Norse America: The Story of a Founding Myth. The book tells two stories. One story is that of the Norse proceeding in the 10th and 11th century from mainland Scandinavia...