Researchers Keep Uncovering 'Artifacts' Within The Frozen Crevasses Of Antarctica
Antarctica isn't the safest continent: temperatures easily reach -130 F, winds whip at 200 mph, and unseen hazards hide beneath the snow. There’s a clear reason why this landmass was never colonized. Though no one settles permanently on the island, researchers and explorers do temporarily live there — and they keep stumbling over reminders of the continent's long history.
Buzz's Trip
When Buzz Aldrin — the man who so famously walked on the moon with Neil Armstrong — arrived in Antarctica, he didn't stay for long. The former astronaut, 86 years old at the time, was immediately transported to a medical facility in Christchurch, New Zealand. He came to understand the lesson all experts on the continent learn.
The Continent That Fights Back
Living on Antarctica is hard. “Humans are the only wildlife," said Andy Martinez, the technical manager at the U.S. Amundsen-Scott South Pole research station. There is "not even a mosquito." Desolate, and like nothing else on Earth, the continent wallops the unprepared — even if you once went to the moon. Even still, it's truly the apple of the scientific eye.
The Antarctic Treaty of 1961
When The Antarctic Treaty was signed in 1961, the legislation ensured the continent would be free from the issues plaguing so many nations across the world. Militaries couldn't build bases, and leaders couldn't send workers to mine the continent for minerals. It was a shared space, dedicated completely to science — which could lead to serious breakthroughs.
En Masse
So, on a freezing landmass free of war, mining, and political strife, researchers could focus on what truly mattered: science, technology, and understanding the world we live in. Biologists, oceanographers, geophysicist, marine experts and more thrived in a hub where they could work unfettered. Still, the job carried plenty of risks; researchers weren't unaware of what made their studies possible.
Too Late
Robert Falcon Scott led a team of 11 British explorers on a journey to the South Pole. The group arrived on January 17, 1912, three weeks behind Norwegian Roald Amundsen’s team. The British were disappointed — and this was only the beginning of their troubles.
Failings and Weaknesses
Captain Scott "was a very rounded, human character,” historian of polar exploration at the University of Manchester Max Jones said. “In his journals, you find he’s racked with doubts and anxieties about whether he’s up to the task and that makes him more appealing. He had failings and weaknesses too.”
"Willing to Die"
“They were prepared to risk their lives and they saw that as legitimate," Max Jones said. "You can view that as part of a mindset of imperial masculinity, tied up with enduring hardship and hostile environments. I’m not saying that they had a death wish, but I think that they were willing to die.”
No Pressure
Before Robert set off, Leonard Darwin, Charles Darwin’s son and the president of the Royal Geographical Society, gave a speech about how proud he was of the explorer’s mission: “… the self-respect of the whole nation is certainly increased by such adventures as this.” High praise only went so far.
Unnecessary Risks
Robert knew he’d face scrutiny for not getting to the South Pole first. His worry about this external pressure drove him to push his men to travel quickly back home. With their dwindling supplies, they urgently needed to get to the nearest food depot to replenish.
Trapped Together
When they were 11 miles away, a blizzard trapped the men. They grew weak from hunger and quietly died, huddled together in their tent under the snow. “I do not think human beings ever came through such a month as we have come through,” Robert wrote in his diary.
A Frozen Tomb
These deaths and horrors were never far from the minds of researchers that worked in the harsh environments of Antarctica without even mosquitos for company. As nations sent their brightest minds to the continent for more studies, the experts started uncovering physical evidence of a brutal past.
First Remains
The oldest remains found deep within the arctic tundra belonged to an indigenous Chilean woman. Her bones were discovered on the shore of Livingston Island in the ‘80s. The woman died when she was only 21, which would have been around 1820. Experts had questions: How did a Chilean woman die on Antarctica?
Braving The Journey
Between Antarctica and Chile is 620 miles of rough ocean, making the journey virtually impossible for one person. Scientists believe the woman was a guide for a sealing ship. William Smith found the island in 1819, so an excited sealing crew could have made the journey.
Uneasy Interaction
In the 1800s, women rarely were involved with seafaring. Sailors did have a trading relationship with Indigenous Chileans — the groups would exchange seal skins and knowledge. Interactions weren’t always peaceful though. The male sailors weren’t afraid to use force.
Stealing Women
“The sealers could just take a woman from one beach and later leave her far away on another,” Melisa Salerno, an archaeologist at Argentinean Scientific and Technical Research Council, said. This could be the origin of the mysterious woman’s bones on the Antarctic beach.
Incomplete Grieving
These are only a few of the freak accidents that dot the harsh continent. For those who have lost friends or family members in Antarctica, grieving can be difficult — their bodies are often unreachable. This happened to geophysicist Clifford Shelley.
Missed Goodbyes
Clifford’s friends Geoffrey Hargreaves, Michael Walker, and Graham Whitfield were lost in an avalanche on the side of Mount Peary in 1976. Their remains were never recovered. “You just wait and wait, but there’s nothing. Then you just sort of lose hope,” Clifford said. Without death rites, he struggled with his friends’ demise.
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Unprocessed Trauma
“I don’t think we did really process it,” he says. “It remains at the back of your mind. But it’s certainly a mixed feeling, because Antarctica is superbly beautiful, both during the winter and the summer. It’s the best place to be and we were doing the things we wanted to do.” Unsurprisingly, Clifford isn't the only scientist bearing this grief.
Walking On The Ice
In August 1982, Ambrose Morgan, Kevin Ockleton, and John Coll traveled to Petermann Island during the Antarctic winter. They were treated to the southern aurora while they walked across the sea ice to the island. The trio made it to a hut as a storm blew in.
Worsening Situation
The weather destroyed the ice, but the explorers had a month’s worth of supplies in their hut. More storms followed the first one, and the sea didn’t reform. They used a battery-powered radio to talk to their base until this ran out of power.
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Potential Escape
Once the radio was dead, the men felt overcome by frustration. They were getting sick from their supplies and had to resort to eating the nearby Gentoo and Adelie penguins. The base saw the men waving to them through a telescope on Friday, August 13. That day the sea ice started to reform.
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Beaten By Weather
Unfortunately, before a rescue mission was mounted, another enormous storm hit the island, once again taking the sea ice with it. When the winds abated, the base couldn’t find any of men who likely died while attempting to cross the ice before the storm.
Victoria Island
On the coast of the Arctic Circle lies Victoria Island, where the temperature is often at excruciating levels below zero degrees Fahrenheit. And below those layers of ice, the Arctic is hiding some secrets.
Population: 2000
David Kuptana is one of 2,000 people who live on Victoria Island, the eighth largest island on Earth. Few people reside there considering the island's grand size (approximately the size of Idaho).
Growing Up In Ulukhaktok
David grew up in the small coastal district of Ulukhaktok, home to only a few hundred people. While Ulukhaktok is known for its artistic musk ox-horn carvings, it's not exactly known for its farmers' markets and grocery stores.
Home Of The Polar Bears
Up north many Inuits live off of the land, rather than paying lofty prices for few-and-far-between groceries. This is where the majestic polar bears come into play.
Rising Temperatures
As the temperature heats up, polar bears spend more time on land, which gives the Inuit people the opportunity to hunt them. They resourcefully use their meat for food and their fur for pants and boots. These white, fluffy bears have long been a sacred part of their culture.
Hunting Heritage
As extinction started to creep up closer and closer on the polar bears, laws concerning hunting changed; however, hunting is still legal for Alaskan natives, and for Canada as a whole. The Ulukhaktok community is granted about a dozen polar bear hunting tags annually.
Cozy In The Snow
But things got weird for David Kuptana and his wife while on a seemingly regular and legal hunting expedition. They drove snowmobiles across the vast ice to a cozy island cabin as per usual but wound up encountering something unusual.
An Unexpected Break In
When the two arrived at the cabin, they were shocked to find that someone had broken in, most likely looking for food. After some head-scratching, David came to the conclusion that this someone was, in fact, a bear. The two spouses left the gutted cabin and drove off to find a new one.
Strange Behavior
They were appalled to find this cabin was also plundered by a bear. Among the damage, they found a mattress dragged out onto the ice and a broken window. David was perplexed, as he had never seen a polar bear behave like this.
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A Big Surprise
The Kuptanas traveled to a total of six cabins and found them all wrecked. But at the sixth cabin, they got a big surprise: they caught the bear in the act! While it wreaked havoc, they observed the creature, having noticed that something about it was a bit... off.
A Grizzly Mistake
The meddlesome beast had blonde fur with sable paws and eyes. It looked nothing like a polar bear. The spooked bear attempted an escape, but David was on the move, having chased it down on his snowmobile. David thought it was a grizzly bear, but his guess was only partially accurate.
Erratic Behavior
Because David was frightened of the bear's erratic behavior, he humanely put down the creature. He brought the bear, who still mystified him, to a local government officer who was just as puzzled.
DNA Testing
But the officer had a hunch as to what this bear-thing was. He figured it was some sort of hybrid, but to find out for sure, the officer sent the bear's DNA to a lab to be tested. They anxiously waited on the DNA results, but this was no episode of Maury.
Born In Captivity
The tests showed that years prior to David's discovery, 20 of these animals were born in captivity. But because these particular hybrid animals and their parents had been kept apart from the wild, where did David's blonde bear originate from?
Emerging Hybrids
Well, in 2006, a hunter found the first documented hybrid bear on Banks Island, Northern Territories, Canada, which is a bit northwest of where David found his hybrid in 2010. While those bears were never found to be particularly exciting or noteworthy to scientists, things changed in 2016.
Changing Climates
In 2016, a hunter discovered the third wild hybrid bear of its kind in Arviat, Canada. By this point, scientists had hypothesized that pesky climate change was the culprit behind bear interbreeding, as warming climates caused the Arctic ice to melt, which ain't good for the polar bears.
The Pizzly Bear
They figured that otherwise, polar bears wouldn't dream of mating with a foreign species. The mix of polar and grizzly characteristics would most likely create a hybrid bear that would be better equipped for warmer temperatures. The hybrid bear, appropriately named a pizzly bear, possessed the best of both worlds! Right?
The Worst Of Both Worlds
Yeah, more like the worst of both worlds. Unfortunately, the mix of grizzly and polar bear traits didn't help the pizzly bear (also known as the grolar bear, or nanulak) adapt to any environment. They don't excel on ice or land, making the climate change theory a flop.
Half And Half
When the DNA test results were in, it was revealed that the Ulukhaktok pizzly was a unique blend. Its mother was exactly 50% grizzly and 50% polar, while its father was a pure grizzly. This confirmed that the pizzly bears are in fact fertile mammalians.
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