glacier_kitty

Today mom and I attended a presentation about Ernest de Koven Leffingwell, an arctic explorer I'd never heard of! Janet Collins just published a book about him called On the Arctic Frontier: Ernest Leffingwell's Polar Explorations and Legacy. He was a geologist and created the first accurate map of a large part of the Alaskan arctic coastline and he was the first to scientifically describe permafrost. He was inspired by Fridjof Nansen and was on an expedition with Vilhjalmur Stefansson. I was surprised I'd never heard of him before, since he was connected with Nansen and Steffanson and did such great work. I looked at my books when I got home, and I only saw him mentioned in Steffanson's autobiography, which I haven't read yet (I don't really like him, he abandoned his men on his own expedition because he was bored of being stuck in the ice or something. His ship the Karluk sunk and most of the men died). Janet asked why I was at the presentation, and was super excited when I said I loved polar exploration lol. Looking through the book I told her I recognized names like John Franklin and Elisha Kent Kane, and she was like "ooooh, we have a hot one over here!" And then she was like "I'm sure you know of Shackleton? Scott? Amundsen?" But of course! :D I think she was impressed by how much I knew about polar exploration lol. I about died when she said she had gone to Antarctica and followed Shackleton's route, and she had sailed the Inside Passage and saw the graves from Franklin's men. Wow! It look her about ten years for her to publish the book (lots of research!), but she was determined to get Leffingwell's story out. Very cool, I'll definitely have to get a copy of her book! (How I love living in Alaska and having polar exploration stories at my fingertips!!) And I must say, Leffingwell was very handsome LOL