Arctic Circle

North Greenland Trans-Icecap Expedition: Icecap I 1953 US Army FB-283

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• published: 26 Nov 2015
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more at http://news.quickfound.net/intl/greenland_news.html "THE STORY OF THE ARMY TRANSPORTATION CORPS EXPEDITION ACROSS THE GREENLAND ICECAP IN THE SPRING AND SUMMER 1952." US Army Field Bulletin FB-283 Public domain film from the US National Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied. The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_TUTO Camp TUTO ("Thule Take-Off") was a major U.S. Army operated research camp at the foot of the Greenland ice cap, 18 miles (29 km) east of Thule Air Base. It operated from 1954 to 1966, with revisits for follow-up research... Initially, from 1952, the Army Transportation Corps participated in cross-icecap supply trains using tracked vehicle convoys, eventually reaching as far as Station Nord on the east coast of Greenland. As the take-off point for the ice cap, the Army Corps of Engineers then built Camp Tuto for its Polar Research and Development Center (PRDC), and the site was used by the Snow, Ice and Permafrost Research Establishment (SIPRE) and its successor the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL)... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nord,_Greenland Station Nord is a military and scientific station in northeastern Greenland 1700 km north of the Arctic Circle at 81°43'N, 17°47'W. It is about 924 km (574 mi) from the geographic North Pole, on Prinsesse Ingeborg Halvø (Princess Ingeborg Peninsula) in northern Kronprins Christian Land, making it the second northernmost permanent settlement and base of the Northeast Greenland National Park and of Greenland as a whole... In June 1950, the U.S. Weather Bureau first developed plans for a joint weather station in Northeast Greenland... Next year, in conjunction with the construction of Thule Air Base, Norwegian-born USAF Colonel Bernt Balchen (who was the driving force in the American Arctic efforts) proposed a major air base in Northeast Greenland, useful for radar coverage, navigation aids, search-and-rescue, and recovery of heavy bombers returning from the USSR. Two 10,000 foot runways were contemplated. After consultations with Denmark, a weather station was operational at Nord by 1 May 1952, and a U.S.-built landing strip was available by July of that year. At that time, American interest was still focused on the possibility of a major airfield either near Nord or in Peary Land. By February 1953, USAF abandoned the air base plans and settled on a minor role for the airstrip at Nord. During that summer, an expansion of the gravel strip was carried out, a team of 41 Danes was sent to construct facilities, and the finished weather station was in operation on 1 October. The major reason for the reduction in American plans was that resupply of the station was difficult and expensive. Permanent polar ice prevents supply by sea, and attempts to move heavy supplies by trans-icecap convoys from Camp TUTO were problematic. In practice, everything had to be flown in from Thule... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland Greenland (Kalaallisut: Kalaallit Nunaat, "Land of the Kalaallit", Danish: Grønland) is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago... Greenland is, by area, the world's largest island. With a population of 56,749 (2012 estimate), it is the least densely populated dependency or country in the world. Greenland has been inhabited, though not continuously, by Arctic peoples via Canada for 4,500 to 5,000 years. In the 10th century, Norsemen settled on the uninhabited southern part of Greenland. In the 13th century, the Inuit arrived, and in the late 15th century, the Norse colonies disappeared. In the early 18th century, contact between Scandinavia and Greenland was re-established and Denmark established rule over Greenland. Greenland became a Danish colony in 1814 after being under the rule of Denmark-Norway for centuries... In 1979, Denmark granted home rule to Greenland, and in 2008, Greenland voted to transfer more power from the Danish royal government to the local Greenlandic government... with the Danish royal government in charge of foreign affairs, security (defence-police-justice), and financial policy, and providing a subsidy of DKK 3.4 billion... From 986 AD, Greenland's west coast was colonized by Icelanders and Norwegians in two settlements on fjords near the southwestern-most tip of the island... Norse Greenlanders submitted to Norwegian rule in the 13th century, and the kingdom of Norway entered into a personal union with Denmark in 1380, and from 1397 was a part of the Kalmar Union...