Video of Shackleton's Whiskey Recovered

I posted about the whiskey being recovered a few days ago here. Today I found out about a YouTube video about the recent recovery of Shackleton's whiskey. The video is below.

Whale Wars 2010: Another Clash of Boats

Earlier this year one of the activists boats were sunk in a clash between the whalers and the activists. The most recent clash was the ramming of the activist's ship, the Bob Barker, with one of the Japanese whaling ships, the No. 3 Yushin Maru. As usual they blame each other and there really is not much of a way to say who was really at fault.

Shackleton's Whisky Salvaged

Back in November I posted about the mission to salvage some of Shackleton's whisky from his 1909 Nimrod expedition. The whisky has now successfully been recovered. The team was sent to recover some of the McKinlay and Co whisky, but they also ended up recovering two cases of Hunter Valley Distillery Limited brandy. The majority recovered (3 cases) was of the McKinlay and Co whisky. The current owners of McKinlay and Co (Whyte and Mackay company) hope to be able to get a sample of the whisky and recreate the rare long discontinued brand of whisky.

Antarctic Documentary: Shackleton

Shackleton is an amazing movie based on Shackleton's Endurance expedition. The title is slightly misleading making it seem like it is about all of Shackleton's life, but it is pretty exlusively about the Endurance expedition. It is, however, a well-done movie based on the diaries of the men on the expedition. I have read a lot about the expedition and seen other documentaries, but this one truly stands out.

The main thing that stands out is that this movie spends a good deal of time focusing on the preparations for the expedition and the struggle just to get the expedition together. Of course, the main struggle is on the ice and in the James Caird, but it is nice to see how just getting to the ice too a lot of work in terms of getting the funding.

The 3-DVD set is mostly the movie, but the third disc is also full of special features worth checking out (note: that if you rent it through Netflix like I did you have to manually go in and add the bonus disc, as it does not add it when you add the movie to your queue and I almost missed it entirely). The bonus materials include an interesting documentary on the making of the movie and the difficulties of getting the right conditions to recreate the scenes. There is also a documentary that really is about all of Shackleton's life, as well as a feature on the general history of Antarctic exploration and research.

Race to End of the World Exhibit Opens at American Museum of Natural History in May 2010

The American Museum of Natural History in New York City is opening a new temporary exhibit on May 29, 2010. The exhibit is about the race to the South Pole in 1911-1912. The exhibit is mostly about the final competition between Roald Amundsen and Robert Falcon Scott. Perhaps it will have a little on the earlier attempts, too. The exhibit is going to have interactive parts. The exhibit is expected to be on display until January 2, 2011.


Source

Whale Wars 2010: Japanese Sink Protest Boat

This article is one of many floating around right now about the Japanese being "accused" of sinking a protest boat. To me the word accused makes it seem like maybe they did not do it or they are not admitting it and thus is misleading. Anyways there is as expected dispute over the incident and the Japanese doing it intentionally or could not prevent the collision, but there is not denying they caused the boat to be destroyed and sunk.

The incident involved the Japanese Shonan Maru No. 2 colliding with the protester's Ady Gil. The Ady Gil was cut in half by the collision, but fortunately all 6 on board were rescued, although one ended up with broken ribs.

From what I have seen of the show it would seem that they might have purposely been in front of the ship and challenged it. Sure the Japanese should have turned and they very well probably tried, but the activists are probably just as much at fault. Of course, I really have not a clue about what really happened and the news at this time does not shed much light with it being so much on the activists side. By the way I am on their side as far as their views on the Japanese not killing the whales, but it seems the Japanese side is at least not published in English much.

Whaling Research without Killing to be Carried Out in Antarctic Region

The past few years the Japanese whaling program has been one of the hot news topics about the Antarctic region. The Japanese go down every year to kill whales supposedly for scientific research. This year the Australia and New Zealand governments are funding a scientific whaling expedition that does not involve killing the whales. It the newest way to challenge the Japanese way of carrying out whaling research.

The success of this expedition should be a great way of convincing those in the middle that the whales do not need to be killed to carry out the research. In fact I imagine not killing them will allow for more observation of their actual behavior and such, which will allow for more research results. I can understand there might be a few things hard or impossible to research without a dead whale, but at the same time it does not seem that the Japanese are really about the scientific value of killing the whales.

However, at the same time I have not looked at the Japanese side of it to know whether they have any research and would not be surprised if the news is exaggerating the lack of scientific research from the Japanese program. Although, it does still seem that whale meat is almost as important to the Japanese as the research purpose if not more important.

Read more about the Australia and New Zealand expedition here.

Mawson's Plane Found in Antarctica

I thought this article about finding the first plane in Antarctica sounded familiar. I searched through my posts and found that almost a year ago I posted about the search for Mawson's plane left behind in Antarctica. I think that is what I was remembering, as there is no way I read about it being found before today, since it was only found yesterday (January 1, 2010) and I did not read my Antarctic news alerts for the past few days until today.

The plane has quite an interesting story with it never making it to Antarctica in tact to even be flown, although technically it still was the first airplane in Antarctica when it was brought in 1911 without wings to be used as a tractor. It never was really successful for that purpose either, but nonetheless it is still a wonderful artifact of Antarctic history to have been rediscovered finally.

First Meteorite Found by China's 26th Antarctic Expedition Team

On Wednesday, December 30, 2009, China's 26th Antarctic Expedition Team found their first meteorite in Antarctica. It is believed to be made of Chondrite. The meteorite was found near the southern foot of the Glove Mountain peak. I knew about meteorites being easier to find in Antarctica, but I found this article about them finding it interesting because I learned about how they are mostly found around mountains and why that is so. The Glove Mountain area is actually one of the best places discovered so far for meteorite finds.

Department 56 North Pole Village Penguin Visitor Center

For over a decade my brother has had a growing collection of building and accessories in Department 56's North Pole Series. Every Christmas he gets a new building. This year we got him the Penguin Visitor Center. I never expected or even wanted penguins to be in his village until I heard about this building. The main thing is that penguins do not naturally live in the Northern Hemisphere it really bugs me to see Christmas decorations even suggest that they do or even represent them with polar bears. So, why do I think this is okay?

First off, of course, the village is fictional. The real thing, though, is that it is rooted in truth that penguins do not live at the North Pole because it presents them as visitors. Sure, it makes them antropomorphic tourists, but that is a line I am okay with, as long as it is not trying to continue the lie too many believe about penguins living in the same place as polar bears. Besides they are still so cute.