KABLOONAS

KABLOONAS
Burial of John Franklin. Author: me

KABLOONAS

Kabloonas is the way in which the Inuit who live in the north part of Canada call those who haven´t their same ascendency.

The first time i read this word was in the book "Fatal Passage" by Ken McGoogan, when, as the result of the conversations between John Rae and some inuit, and trying to find any evidence of the ill-fated Sir John Franklin Expedition, some of then mentioned that they watched how some kabloonas walked to die in the proximities of the river Great Fish.

I wish to publish this blog to order and share all those anecdotes that I´ve been finding in the arctic literature about arctic expeditions. My interest began more than 15 years ago reading a little book of my brother about north and south pole expeditions. I began reading almost all the bibliography about Antarctic expeditions and the superknown expeditions of Scott, Amundsen, Shackleton, etc. After I was captured by the Nansen, Nobile and Engineer Andree. But the most disturbing thing in that little book, full of pictures, was the two pages dedicated to the last Franklin expedition of the S.XIX, on that moment I thought that given the time on which this and others expeditions happened, few or any additional information could be obtained about it. I couldn´t imagine that after those two pages It would be a huge iceberg full of stories, unresolved misteries, anecdotes, etc. I believe that this iceberg, on the contrary than others, would continue growing instead melting.



domingo, 6 de septiembre de 2020

POLAR EXPEDITIONS INTERACTIVE MAP: FROM THE BEGINNING TO NOWADAYS

I will be known when I die like the man who started one thousand projects and didn´t finish any of them...

Another of my most ambitious projects, apart from the Arctic Graveyard, the Polar Museums and  memorials and other polar related maps, is this one on which I am trying to draw the routes, winter quarters, cairns, shipwrecks and everything related with polar exploration since it started to the most modern routes performed nowadays. As you can imagine, this is a neverending work which likely will never end like the others.  It is however a wonderful way to spend my spare time, which by the way, is in fact inexistent, and to share what I am learning from what I am reading in books and social media with other polar enthusiasts.

Please, feel free to look for your favourite polar expedition, see if it is in the map and to suggest me to add any place, route, cairn or prominent place you think would deserve to be located in this map. My way to give thanks to those who have cooperated is to include an acknowledgement in the description of the pin who has been added. I can´t do more but at least is a way to recognise the interest of those who voluntarily wanted to collaborate. 
Enjoy the map!: