In honor of the International Polar Year, a year-long push for research and exploration of the earth's poles, Baker-Berry Library has installed a two-part exhibit that explores the history of Dartmouth research in the Arctic. "Polar Connections: Dartmouth and the Earth's Cold Regions," which will remain in the library until Jan. 31, has replaced Wenda Gu's controversial art installation, "the green house."
The first part of the installation, located in the main hall of Baker Library, consists of a series of panels that chronicle the history of Dartmouth's polar research. "Dartmouth and the Earth's Cold Regions," features the stories of famed Arctic explorers Vilhjalmur Stefansson and John Ledyard. Ledyard, who attended the College but dropped out in 1773, is rumored to be the first American citizen to reach the West Coast of the United States. Steffansson became the College's Arctic Consultant in 1947.
"Ways of Knowing," the second part of the exhibit is displayed on the first floor of Berry library. It features objects associated with the earth's polar regions, including boots used in Arctic exploration and a snow observation kit. This installation also features "Sila Alangotok -- Inuit Observations on Climate Change," a film produced by the International Institute for Sustainable Development.
"Dartmouth has a long, impressive tradition of polar exploration," Jeffrey Horrell, dean of libraries at the College, said at the exhibit's opening reception Tuesday.
The concept for the exhibit was first mentioned two and a half years ago, visiting anthropology professor Nicole Stuckenberger said, but the idea soon grew far beyond what she and her colleagues had expected.
"It's such a complex topic that it became three separate exhibits," she said.
Along with "Polar Connections," these exhibits included "Thin Ice: Inuit Traditions within a Changing Environment," an exhibition of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Inuit hunting relics that ran at the Hood Museum of Art from Jan. 27 to May 31, 2007. Also featured was "Navigating the Northwest Passage: Just Missing the Ice," an exhibit in Rauner Special Collections Library that documented explorers' struggles to cross the passage with diary entries, maps and other media. The exhibit ran between May 25 and July 31, 2007.
Stuckenberger curated all three exhibits.
"Our goal was to look at the Arctic and at climate change from a variety of different perspectives," she said.
"Thin Ice" aimed to highlight the viewpoints of the region's indigenous inhabitants while "Navigating the Northwest Passage" provided a Western outlook on exploration of the region.
"'Polar Connections' focuses on how Dartmouth promotes itself as a northern place," Stuckenberger said. "It's a self-reflection on how we work to research and increase understanding of the poles and climate change."
Professor Ross Virginia, director of the Dickey Center Institute for Arctic Studies, who has been pivitol to the creation of the exhibit, was absent from the reception because she is currently conducting research at Antarctica's McMurdo Station, Ken Yalowitz, director of the Dickey Center for International Understanding, explained.
"The exhibit will be incorporated into the Institute of Arctic Studies website to show the history of Dartmouth's polar interests," Virginia said in an e-mail.
Both Virginia and Stuckenberger said they plan to use the exhibit to supplement their classes.
"Materials from the exhibit will definitely be used by my [environmental sciences] course in the spring, 'From Pole to Pole: Environmental Issues of the Earth's Cold Regions,'" Virginia said.
Stuckenberger said she will refer to the exhibit in the Writing 5 course she teaches, which couples writing with reading perspectives on the Arctic.
"Being at this small college-university, we really have an outstanding basis for research in the north," Stuckenberger said at Tuesday's reception.
She added that the completion of the exhibit does not mean their work is done.
"Great words should not entice you to rest on your laurels," she said. "It's really about how we look at our own environment, our way of knowing."
Yalowitz explained "Polar Connections" was a result of a collaborative effort among the Dickey Center, the Institute for Arctic Studies and the War and Peace Studies program.
"Everyone involved did an extraordinary job with pulling together all this research and making the exhibit truly interdisciplinary," he said.
This is the fourth International Polar Year organized by the International Council for Science and the World Meteorological Organization. Over the course of the year, scientists from around the world will complete a range of historical and physical research projects in order to garner up-to-date information about the state of the Arctic and the Antarctic.
