AJE welcomes a new team mate!

Exciting annoucement regarding a new member of the AJE team. Welcome Johnny!

Johnny is an Inuit from Igluligaarjuk, in Nunavut, and has grown up hunting, fishing and camping with his elders as Inuit have for centuries. Johnny works with various organisations that address mental health conditions through counselling and traditional activities. Johnny is a keen volunteer and youth mentor regularly teaching Arctic games and traditions at youth institutions as one of the most successful Inuit Games athletes of his generation.

He is an active Arctic Ambassador and holds Arctic Stewardship for ‘Students on Ice’, an international student development programme. In February 2012 he was awarded The Diamond Jubilee Medal by the Governor General, on behalf of Her Majesty The Queen, for efforts towards “improving the health and wellbeing of Nunavummiut”. Johnny represents an important cultural link in the Education and Outreach Programme of the expedition.

Exciting new addition to our team

The Arctic Jubilee Expedition welcomes a new team mate. Looking forward to working with you Jim!

James Gudjonson: ACMG/IFMGA Guide

James has been a professional mountain guide for the last 18 years; he became a member of the International Federation of Mountain Guides Associations (IFMGA) after training in the Canadian Mountain and Ski Guide Program (CMSG). His duties as a guide involve working as an instructor/examiner on various CMSG programs as well as coordinating contractors and students involved with the program. James has led many international expeditions including: Chile, Peru, Japan, Argentina and Alaska. James holds the Distinguished Service Award (2008) for his activity within the Alpine Club of Canada. He is also the Energy and Sustainability Manger at Thompson Rivers University, overseeing the reduction of GHG emissions and fostering a ‘culture of sustainability’ throughout the university.

James’s role on the expedition will be to work alongside Antony in leading and developing those with less experience to enhance their mountaineering skills and expedition safety; he will play a key role in skill progression.

Training in the darkness with AJE

AJE expands with new members of the expedition!

The AJE would like to welcome all the of the volunteers from Plymouth University who have joined the merry band to help in fundraising and promoting the expedition.

We look forward to working with you all!

Media Coverage for the AJE

An update on our recent media coverage. The Arctic Jubilee Expedition has been the subject of two articles in the Plymouth press. Please find links below to view these articles.

http://www.thisisplymouth.co.uk/Plymouth-team-mark-jubilee-peak-polar-experience/story-15231988-detail/story.html

http://www.thisisplymouth.co.uk/Explorers-campaign-new-heights-bid-scale-Canadian/story-15332081-detail/story.html

Upcoming events include, a radio appearance with John Govier on Radio Devon between 10am and 1pm on Saturday 24th March.

Why Barbeau Peak for the Arctic Jubilee Expedition?

Although not conducting scientific research, the features described in the last post are central to the educational and outreach aspects of the expedition. By facilitating the virtual connection of two cultures via our interactive distance learning platform and online discussion boards, a broad sense of global citizenship will be fostered. This will enable members of both communities to find out about each other’s cultural and natural environment, whilst learning about sustainability, cultural identity and climate change. Further relevance of this region to the expedition includes; the remote location of Barbeau Peak in the commonwealth, the day of the first ascent (British) which coincides with HM Queen Elisabeth II Diamond Jubilee, and the renaming of the Queen Elisabeth islands by Canada in 1952 in celebration of the coronation of HM Queen Elisabeth II.

The Importance of Quttinirpaaq National Park

In addition to its cultural significance, the region bears a high profile role in the ongoing debate surrounding anthropological climate change. The natural wonders of Quttinirpaaq National Park include spectacular geological and biological features, such as highly adapted creatures found nowhere else on the planet and a wide variety of rock types representing numerous paleontological time periods. The area has seen recent attention from the scientific community in an attempt to understand how the local environment is changing, which could determine global patterns of climatic change in the Arctic. A lot of this work was conducted in accordance with the International Polar Year in 2008.

What is the significance of the name Barbeau?

In 1969, Barbeau Peak was named in honour of Dr. Marius Barbeau, a Canadian anthropologist who was internationally recognised for his work on various indigenous cultures of North America, including the Inuit. This is testament to the regions surprisingly rich anthropological and archaeological history. The Innu and Inuit peoples which inhabit Ellesmere Island today are suggested to be direct descendants of early migrants who can be traced back to Siberia over 4000 years ago. It is this cultural legacy that documents the human occupancy of the area, which is closely associated with the deep reliance that remote Arctic communities hold with the environment.

Barbeau Peak

Barbeau Peak is a mountain located in Qikiqtaaluk, Nunavut, Canada. Situated within the boundaries of Quttinirpaaq National Park on Ellesmere Island, it is the highest mountain in the region of Nunavut and Eastern North America. The first ascent was made by Geoffrey Hattersley-Smith, a British geologist and glaciologist on the 5th June 1967. Ellesmere is known to the Inuit as ‘Quttinirpaaq’ and when translated it means “top of the world”, an apt name considering its location; only 800km from the geographic North Pole and approximately 100km from the North-west coast of Greenland. Ellesmere Island and Barbeau Peak bring a new meaning to the term remote.

Welcome

Welcome to the official blog for The Arctic Jubilee Expedition. We thank you for your interest in the project and visiting us. Please watch this space to keep yourself up to date with all of the goings on related to The Arctic Jubilee Expedition.