Indice dei contenuti per Fall 2022 in The Explorers Journal

In the northern hemisphere, fall is once again upon us. As we close out 2022 and look forward to 2023, we have much to be proud of and thankful for. Many of you have turned in reports of exciting new discoveries and exploration activities; we have amazing work going on around the globe, and beyond! By now, you likely have heard the exciting news, that Laurie Marker and the Cheetah Conservation Fund (with flight support from our Middle East chapter chair, Hamish Harding) have reintroduced cheetahs into India, where they have been extinct for 70 years! Meanwhile, NASA’s DART mission has successfully redirected an asteroid, proving we can in fact save ourselves from potential Armageddon…if we can detect dangerous asteroids in time, which our Explorers Club/Discovery grantee, the B612 Foundation,…

Adventurer Griffin Post and University of Ottawa glaciologist Dorota “Dora” Medrzycka have discovered a historic cache that once belonged to legendary mountaineers Bradford Washburn and Robert Bates. In 1937, they were forced to abandon their gear—more than 450 kilograms of cameras, survey and climbing equipment, and survival rations—on the Walsh Glacier (in what is now the Kluane National Park and Reserve) after being engulfed in extreme weather on their descent from the summit of the 5,226-meter peak, Mount Lucania, then the highest unclimbed peak in North America. The expedition would go on to become one of the most harrowing tales of survival in mountaineering history, with Washburn and Bates forced to walk some 240 kilometers through the wilderness before finding safety in the small town of Burwash Landing in the…

FOUNDED IN 1904 BY A GROUP OF AMERICA’S LEADING EXPLORERS, THE EXPLORERS CLUB IS A MULTI-DISCIPLINARY PROFESSIONAL SOCIETY DEDICATED TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF FIELD RESEARCH, SCIENTIFIC EXPLORATION, AND THE IDEAL THAT IT IS VITAL TO PRESERVE THE INSTINCT TO EXPLORE. THE CLUB’S STEADFAST MISSION HAS BEEN TO ENCOURAGE AND PROMOTE SCIENTIFIC EXPLORATION OF LAND, SEA, AIR, AND SPACE, WITH AN EMPHASIS ON THE PHYSICAL AND BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES. AS A PRIMARY AND PRESTIGIOUS CENTER FOR EXPLORATION AND EXPEDITION PLANNING, THE CLUB IS A FOCAL POINT AND UNIFYING FORCE FOR EXPLORERS AND SCIENTISTS WORLDWIDE, WITH 34 CHAPTERS SPANNING THE GLOBE. For information regarding categories of membership—Fellow, Member, Friend, Term, and Student—and the process of election to The Explorers Club, visit us at www.explorers.org. The downloadable application sets forth qualifications for all levels…

A FELLOW OF THE EXPLORERS CLUB SINCE 2016, JOHN COLEMAN DARNELL IS A PROFESSOR OF EGYPTOLOGY AT YALE UNIVERSITY AND CURATOR OF ANTHROPOLOGY AT THE YALE PEABODY MUSEUM. HE HAS DIRECTED ARCHAEOLOGICAL EXPEDITIONS IN THE EASTERN AND WESTERN DESERTS OF EGYPT FOR MORE THAN THREE DECADES. COLLEEN DARNELL, ALSO A FELLOW OF THE EXPLORERS CLUB SINCE 2016, TEACHES ART HISTORY AT NAUGATUCK VALLEY COMMUNITY COLLEGE. THEY ARE THE AUTHORS OF THE ANCIENT EGYPTIAN NETHERWORLD BOOKS (2018) AND THE JUST-RELEASED EGYPT’S GOLDEN COUPLE: WHEN AKHENATEN AND NEFERTITI WERE GODS ON EARTH (ST. MARTIN’S PRESS). It has been a century since Egyptologist Howard Carter discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun. And although we know the young pharaoh accomplished great things during a nine-year reign before his tragic death at age 18-19, it was…

A FELLOW OF THE EXPLORERS CLUB SINCE 2006, ROMAN DIAL IS A PROFESSOR OF MATHEMATICS AND BIOLOGY AT ALASKA PACIFIC UNIVERSITY AND THE AUTHOR OF THE ADVENTURER’S SON (WILLIAM MORROW, 2020). HE HAS PUBLISHED ARTICLES IN NATURE, GLOBAL CHANGE BIOLOGY, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, AND ONCE APPEARED IN A PHOTO ON THE COVER OF SCIENCE. SINCE 2021, HIS RESEARCH IN THE BROOKS RANGE HAS BEEN SUPPORTED BY THE EXPLORERS CLUB/DISCOVERY, ALASKA NASA EPSCOR, THE NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION, AND THE NONPROFIT SHORELINE, INC. It’s June 3 and day one of an 80-day, 1,400-kilometer research expedition by foot and packraft across Arctic Alaska, and I turn to watch my field crew cross a knee-deep stream in the Brooks Range. They have made hundreds, if not thousands, of crossings like this during our previous research…

The Great Arctic Swim from Canada to Greenland, estimated at 43 kilometers across, was rerouted this summer when explorers Wesley Archer and Justin Fornal found themselves in a deadly ice maze. In early August, the self-funded team set off in two boats in the direction of Pim Island, Canada, with the goal of Fornal swimming the width of the Nares Strait while Archer manned a support kayak on what was to be the first-ever nonstop swim from Canada to Greenland. While en route to Pim Island, the team encountered an impenetrable wall of ice. The only option was for the swim to begin at the ice wall. On August 15, Fornal jumped from the Arctic ice sheet and began his swim toward Greenland through icy 4ºC water as Archer paddled…

CHESTER HIGGINS, A STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES FOR MORE THAN FOUR DECADES, HAS LONG FOCUSED HIS LENS ON THE LIFE AND CULTURES OF PEOPLES OF THE AFRICAN CONTINENT AND THE DIASPOR A. BETSY KISSAM IS A FREELANCE WRITER AND EDITOR. FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT SACREDNILE.COM. When the Greek historian Herodotus identified Egypt as “the gift of the Nile” in the fifth century BCE, he had no knowledge of the source of the river, which issues from Lake Tana in the Ethiopian highlands. Yet anyone who has witnessed the turmoil created by the summer rains there, some 1,800 meters above sea level, can appreciate the otherworldly beauty of the frothing foam, laden with red sediment, and its menace as it hurtles down mountainsides, tracking through ancient gullies and…

It has been more than a half century since biologist Roger Payne released his groundbreaking LP, Songs of the Humpback Whale, which allowed humans to hear whales in ways never heard before. More important, the album, which was played for members of the U.S. Congress, was instrumental in putting an end to commercial whaling in American waters. Since the album’s release in 1970, major advances have been made in understanding the nature of whale communication—the seasonality and patterns of the “songs,” sung by male humpbacks during breeding season, yet scientists have yet to unlock the language of these magnificent ocean giants. That has been until now, thanks to the pioneering work of researchers such as marine biologist David Gruber of Baruch College, who has used the latest advances in technology,…

ANJANETTE DECARLO, WHO RECEIVED HER DOCTORATE IN NATURAL RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT, CONDUCTS PRIMARY ANTHROPOLOGICAL AND ECOLOGICAL FIELD RESEARCH AND ECOLOGICAL SUPPLY CHAIN ANALYSIS ON AROMATIC AND MEDICINAL SPECIES. SHE HAS WORKED ON POST-CONFLICT EVALUATIONS OF NATURAL ASSETS, SUPPLY CHAINS, AND ENVIRONMENTAL PROJECTS CROSS CULTURALLY, IN SOMALILAND, ETHIOPIA, SIERRA LEONE, BURKINA FASO, PERU, CUBA, MEXICO, DOMINICAN REPUBLIC, CANADA, AND CHINA. A LECTURER IN THE SUSTAINABLE INNOVATION MBA PROGRAM AT UVM AND IN ANTHROPOLOGY AT SAINT MICHAEL’S COLLEGE, DECARLO IS THE FOUNDER OF THE SAVE FRANKINCENSE INITIATIVE. FOR MORE INFORMATION: SAVEFRANKINCENSE.ORG. For more than 6,000 years, frankincense, the fragrant sap of Boswellia—a genus of shrubs and trees in the Burseraceae family that grows predominantly in the rocky, arid woodlands of the Horn of Africa, as well as…

Just like the stormtroopers from the Galactic Empire in Star Wars, ticks and their diseases are on the march. Infections from ticks have more than doubled in the United States since 2004 and new tick-borne diseases have emerged. Although we think regionally, these small disease-bearers are a global problem—for the viruses and parasites carried by ticks can cause over-whelming fatigue and long-term memory issues and can be difficult to diagnose. Since these are global problems, explorers must be alert for them year-round and not just in summer. I will never forget while in South Africa on foot in the bush worrying about the sudden appearance of big cats and rhinos when an infectious disease colleague yelled and jumped. Thinking it was a mamba or other bad actor, I was amazed…