Skiing across Greenland

Today I was talking to my students about Greenland (we are reading Smilla's Sense of Snow), and we were discussing traveling across snow. I was reminded of a presentation I helped arrange once at the Smithsonian of two Norwegian explorers who had skied unassisted across Greenland. I remember in particular one little detail of their journey. As they were running a bit behind schedule, they had to stretch out their food supplies. And they were hungry, really hungry. So they used to have long discussions about food, even arguing with one another if it would be better to have a steak dinner or a thick slice of chocolate cake. It struck me as so strange to have long conversations about such things, when the prospect of getting even enough food to survive was not so good.

Anyhow, I think I depressed my students this morning.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Nope. No way!

Flying over is enough for me:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hildigunnur/5526659437/
April 8, 2011 at 9:11 PM
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