A friend asked me to help get the work out about this slide show. It sounds like it will be great and luckily I will be back from the Winds to check it out. And it’s FREE!
Explore Antarctica with Mountaineer Conrad Anker
Jackson, WY- Explore Antarctica with professional mountaineer Conrad Anker as your guide. Join Anker for an overview of mountaineering feats on Antarctica, the history of exploration on this remote continent, and the ice sheet’s future in the face of climate change.
Teton County Library presents An Antarctic Exploration with Conrad Anker from 7:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. on Saturday, January 20 at the National Museum of Wildlife Art. Anker’s lecture will be followed by his son, Sam Lowe-Anker’s 10-minute environmental film, “Antarctica.” The slideshow lecture is free and open to the public, with seating available on a first come, first serve basis. It is one of several events celebrating the traveling Smithsonian exhibition, “Wondrous Cold: An Antarctic Journey,” on display in the library’s Exhibit Gallery through March 2.
Anker has made nine trips to this hard-to-reach continent, famed for testing human survival. “The mountains just pop out of the ice sheet, and there’s no humanity anywhere,” Anker says. “It’s just like being on another planet.”
Antarctica’s untamed beauty also struck photographer Joan Myers, who captured the 50 stunning color and black-and-white photographs for the exhibit “Wondrous Cold.” The exhibition is organized by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service and made possible through the generous support of Quark Expeditions.
While Myers shows the continent with an artistic eye, Anker brings Antarctica to life through the mountaineer’s lens.
“Antarctica has a rich history of exploration, and Conrad shares that perspective as a modern-day explorer,” said Oona Doherty, Adult Program Coordinator. “Explorers are the writers of early Antarctic history. Now we have artists, scientists and other workers documenting Antarctica, but the explorers put the first stake in the ground.”
Early explorers such as Shackleton pursued Antarctic adventure for ideological rather than economic reasons – not unlike efforts to land on the moon – since the continent offered little in the way of resources to exploit, explains Anker. “There wasn’t more food or anything to mine.”
Anker’s Antarctic experience spans a decade with first ascents in three regions. In 1997, Anker teamed up with Alex Lowe and Jon Krakauer to climb the incredibly remote Rakekniven, a 2,500-foot wall in Queen Maud Land. Anker has climbed the Vinson Massif via three new routes and currently holds the speed record (9 hours and 11 minutes) for the regular route up Antarctica’s highest Peak. Anker also retraced Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton’s steps on South Georgia Island, a traverse described as a wet, cold walk through a glacial labyrinth.
Following Anker’s slideshow lecture, Sam Lowe-Anker will screen his 10-minute film “Antarctica,” an award-winning environmental film that considers climate change on this continent through the eyes of a 13-year-old.
“Antarctica is the cooling system for our planet,” says Anker. “Our generation just needs to be aware of how we’re impacting it for future generations.”
This Antarctic exploration is sponsored locally by the Teton County Library Foundation. For information, call the library at 733-2164 ext. 135 or visit the Web site www.TCLib.org.
Teton County Library offers open and equal access to information, literature and ideas…to encourage a lifetime of learning, to strengthen our evolving community, to inspire us all.
Thanks for getting the word out on a program that looks at adventure and the environment on the fringes of our planet. Might be a big draw so I recommend showing up early to ensure getting a seat.
My pleasure Rabecca!!