Polar Challenge
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Polar Challenge
The Polar Challenge was a competitive, 350 nautical mile (650 kilometer) team race taking place in the Arctic, to the 1996 location of the Magnetic North Pole. The race ran between mid-April and mid-May each year, taking teams approximately 4 weeks to complete, including the training time. This event should not be confused with the Polar Race, which was a different event taking a different route, and run by a different organisation. Background Competitors raced in teams of 3, many joining as individuals and forming teams when they meet other individuals during the training that led up to the race. The competitors were from different walks of life (not necessarily explorers or people with mountaineering experience), sharing a quest for adventure and to achieve something that only a few others had done. The race took place in one of the world's most extreme and hostile environments, with temperatures dropping as low as -35 °C, and where 80% of the world’s population of polar ...
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Nautical Mile
A nautical mile is a unit of length used in air, marine, and space navigation, and for the definition of territorial waters. Historically, it was defined as the meridian arc length corresponding to one minute ( of a degree) of latitude. Today the international nautical mile is defined as exactly . The derived unit of speed is the knot, one nautical mile per hour. Unit symbol There is no single internationally agreed symbol, with several symbols in use. * M is used as the abbreviation for the nautical mile by the International Hydrographic Organization. * NM is used by the International Civil Aviation Organization. * nmi is used by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the United States Government Publishing Office. * nm is a non-standard abbreviation used in many maritime applications and texts, including U.S. Government Coast Pilots and Sailing Directions. It conflicts with the SI symbol for nanometre. History The word mile is from the Latin word ...
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Pole Of Inaccessibility
A pole of inaccessibility with respect to a geographical criterion of inaccessibility marks a location that is the most challenging to reach according to that criterion. Often it refers to the most distant point from the coastline, implying a maximum degree of continentality or oceanity. In these cases, a pole of inaccessibility can be defined as the center of the largest circle that can be drawn within an area of interest without encountering a coast. Where a coast is imprecisely defined, the pole will be similarly imprecise. Northern pole of inaccessibility The Northern pole of inaccessibility, sometimes known as the Arctic pole, is located on the Arctic Ocean pack ice at a distance farthest from any land mass. The original position was wrongly believed to lie at 84°03′N 174°51′W. It is not clear who first defined this point but it may have been Sir Hubert Wilkins, who wished to traverse the Arctic Ocean by aircraft, in 1927. He was finally successful in 1928. In 1968 ...
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Fujitsu
is a Japanese multinational information and communications technology equipment and services corporation, established in 1935 and headquartered in Tokyo. Fujitsu is the world's sixth-largest IT services provider by annual revenue, and the largest in Japan, in 2021. The hardware offerings from Fujitsu are mainly of personal and enterprise computing products, including x86, SPARC and mainframe compatible server products, although the corporation and its subsidiaries also offer a diversity of products and services in the areas of data storage, telecommunications, advanced microelectronics, and air conditioning. It has approximately 126,400 employees and its products and services are available in approximately 180 countries. Fujitsu is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange and Nagoya Stock Exchange; its Tokyo listing is a constituent of the Nikkei 225 and TOPIX 100 indices. History 1935 to 2000 Fujitsu was established on June 20, 1935, which makes it one of the oldest operating ...
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King Christian Island
King Christian Island is an uninhabited member of the Arctic Archipelago in the Sverdrup Islands, a part of the Queen Elizabeth Islands archipelago, in the Qikiqtaaluk Region of Nunavut, Canada. It lies in the Arctic Ocean, from the southwestern coast of Ellef Ringnes Island, separated by the Danish Strait. The first European to visit the island was Gunnar Isachsen in 1901. Vilhjalmur Stefansson charted its southern coast in 1916. The island has an area of , measures long and wide. References External links King Christian Islandin the Atlas of Canada The Atlas of Canada (french: L'Atlas du Canada) is an online atlas published by Natural Resources Canada that has information on every city, town, village, and hamlet in Canada. It was originally a print atlas, with its first edition being publishe ... - Toporama; Natural Resources Canada Further reading * Balkwill, H. R., and Roy, K. J.; ''Geology of King Christian Island, District of Franklin''. Ottawa: Minister of Supp ...
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Bathurst Island (Canada)
Bathurst Island is one of the Queen Elizabeth Islands in Nunavut, Canada. It is a member of the Arctic Archipelago. The area of the island is estimated at , long and from to to wide, making it the 54th largest island in the world and Canada's 13th largest island. It is uninhabited. The island is low-lying with few parts higher than in elevation. The highest point is at Stokes Mountain in the Stokes Range. This in turn forms part of the Arctic Cordillera mountain system. Good soil conditions produce abundant vegetation and support a more prolific wildlife population than other Arctic islands. The island contains both the International Biological Program site Polar Bear Pass and Qausuittuq National Park. History The island was first inhabited by Independence I culture native peoples around 2000 BC. They were followed by Independence II, Pre-Dorset, and Dorset cultures. Brooman Point Village on the eastern coast of Bathurst Island was the site of Thule native tribe ...
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Cornwallis Island, Nunavut
Cornwallis Island is one of the Queen Elizabeth Islands, part of the Arctic Archipelago, in the Qikiqtaaluk Region of Nunavut in the Canadian Arctic. It lies to the west of Devon Island, the largest uninhabited island in the world, and at its greatest length is about . At in size, it is the 96th largest island in the world, and Canada's 21st largest island. Cornwallis Island is separated by the Wellington Channel from Devon Island, and by the Parry Channel from Somerset Island to the south. Northwest of Cornwallis Island lies Little Cornwallis Island, the biggest of a group of small islands at the north end of McDougall Sound, which separates Cornwallis Island from nearby Bathurst Island. Cape Airy is located at the island's southwestern extremity. Also on the southwestern coast, Griffith Island lies directly across from the island's only hamlet Resolute (Qausuittuq), separated by the wide Resolute Passage. The first European to visit Cornwallis Island was the British Arctic ...
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Ellef Ringnes Island
Ellef Ringnes Island is one of the Sverdrup Islands in the Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canada. A member of the Queen Elizabeth Islands and Arctic Archipelago, it is located in the Arctic Ocean, east of Borden Island, and west of Amund Ringnes Island. It has an area of , making it the 69th largest island in the world (slightly larger than Jamaica) and Canada's 16th largest island. Its highest mount is . The island was named by Otto Sverdrup for Oslo brewer Ellef Ringnes, one of the sponsors of his expedition. It was first sighted by Europeans in 1901 by one of Sverdrup's men. The island was then claimed by Norway from 1902 until the claim was relinquished in favour of Canada in 1930. History The first known European sighting of Ellef Ringnes Island was in 1901 by a sledging party consisting of Gunerius Isachsen and Sverre Hassel, members of the Second Norwegian Arctic Expedition of 1898–1902, which was under the command of Otto Sverdrup. The island was named to honour El ...
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Isachsen, Nunavut
Isachsen is a remote Arctic research-weather station named after the Norwegian explorer of the Arctic, Gunnar Isachsen. It is on the western shore of Ellef Ringnes Island in the Sverdrup Islands, in the territory of Nunavut in Canada. Isachsen Station was established to participate in a joint Canadian-American weather observation program. Isachsen Station operated from April 3, 1948, through September 19, 1978. Regular weather observations began on May 3, 1948. In October 1949, a Douglas C-47 Skytrain (tail number 316062) crash-landed near the station. No one was killed, but three on board were injured. The wreckage has been preserved by the cold weather and dry conditions. Climate According to Environment and Climate Change Canada, Isachsen and the surrounding area has the worst weather in Canada with a Climate Severity Index of 99 out of a possible 100. The climate of Isachsen is a severe tundra climate, with short, cool summers and long, cold winters. The record high is on ...
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Little Cornwallis Island
Little Cornwallis Island is one of the Canadian Arctic islands in Nunavut, Canada. It is located at 75°30'N 96°30'W, between Cornwallis Island and Bathurst Island in McDougall Sound, and measures . It is uninhabited. Little Cornwallis Island was the home to Polaris Mine, the most poleward base-metal mine in the world. In 1960 a vast concentration of zinc and lead was discovered on the island during mapping for oil permits. Cominco acquired land in the area and a gravity survey in 1970 detected a large anomaly. By 1973 surface drilling and underground development had outlined the Polaris ore body and defined reserves of about 25 million tons grading approximately 14% zinc and 4% lead. A mining facility was constructed on a barge at Trois-Rivières, Quebec and towed to the island; arriving in mid August 1981. Production commenced in 1982. The mile-long gravel runway allowed aircraft as large as the Boeing 727 and Boeing 737 to service the mine. The mine was closed in August 2002 ...
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Polaris Mine
Polaris zinc mine was a former underground mining (hard rock), underground mine on Little Cornwallis Island in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian territory of Nunavut (Northwest Territories prior to Nunavut's official separation). The Polaris zinc mine was located north of the Arctic Circle, and north of the community of Resolute, Nunavut, Resolute. The Polaris mine closed in July 2002 following more than twenty years of zinc production. History In 1964 Vancouver-based Cominco Option (finance), optioned all the mineral claims in Canada's Arctic that were controlled by Bankaro Mines. Mining feasibility study, Mineral and economic assessments resulted in a 23 million ton reserve at a zinc grade of 14.1 per cent. Approval of the project was obtained in 1979, then Prime Minister of Canada, Prime Minister Joe Clark waived environmental assessment hearings and pledged to ship half of the concentrate from the mine in the federally owned icebreaker MV Arctic. The entire ...
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Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by total area. Its southern and western border with the United States, stretching , is the world's longest binational land border. Canada's capital is Ottawa, and its three largest metropolitan areas are Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. Indigenous peoples have continuously inhabited what is now Canada for thousands of years. Beginning in the 16th century, British and French expeditions explored and later settled along the Atlantic coast. As a consequence of various armed conflicts, France ceded nearly all of its colonies in North America in 1763. In 1867, with the union of three British North American colonies through Confederation, Canada was formed as a federal dominion of four provinces. This began an accretion of provinces an ...
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Nunavut
Nunavut ( , ; iu, ᓄᓇᕗᑦ , ; ) is the largest and northernmost Provinces and territories of Canada#Territories, territory of Canada. It was separated officially from the Northwest Territories on April 1, 1999, via the ''Nunavut Act'' and the ''Nunavut Land Claims Agreement, Nunavut Land Claims Agreement Act'', which provided this territory to the Inuit for independent government. The boundaries had been drawn in 1993. The creation of Nunavut resulted in the territorial evolution of Canada, first major change to Canada's political map in half a century since the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, Newfoundland was admitted in 1949. Nunavut comprises a major portion of Northern Canada and most of the Arctic Archipelago. Its vast territory makes it the list of the largest country subdivisions by area, fifth-largest country subdivision in the world, as well as North America's second-largest (after Greenland). The capital Iqaluit (formerly Frobisher Bay), on Baffin Islan ...
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