Travel Tales
In January of this year, a British woman, Felicity Aston, accomplished an incredible feat for adventure annals: she skied solo and unassisted across Antarctica. She is the first woman—and first human—to do so.
Videos
When you hear about the great journeys undertaken by some of nature’s smallest creatures, you can’t help but feel inspired to step into adventures of your own that may be outside your comfort zone. And no odyssey is greater than that of the Arctic tern (Sterna paradisaea).
Conservation
Cute, adorable animals are often used to garner support for environmental causes in places that are remote. After all, it’s hard to have concern for an area that is at the opposite end of the Earth from where you live and for which you have no plans to ever see.
News & More
In 1719, when cartographer John Senex was drawing a map of the English empire in America, there was still a lot that was unknown. The little information about this “new land” that he did have came from the accounts of various Jesuit and French explorers, and not much of it matched.
Antarctica & Arctic
Big dreams of exploration were not uncommon in the late 1800s and early 1900s. But one explorer may have taken such aspirations to the next level: in 1895, at a London conference on polar exploration, a Swedish engineer named Salomon August Andree declared his intention to reach the North Pole via hot-air balloon.
Travel Tales
Ever since the explorers of old used oral storytelling, flyers and published journals to spread word of streets lined with gold, fountains of youth or rich silks and spices, people have been using mass media to motivate others to go on adventures.
News & More
When early, intrepid European explorers first began trekking through the New World in the late 1400s, they were awed by the strikingly different cultures they encountered. But they also came to notice something else: remarkable physical similarities between the Asian peoples they had seen during their many travels and these new, soon-to-be-known-as “Native Americans.”
Nature & Wildlife
An arctic fox off the coast of Baffin Island has recently proved that wanderlust isn’t restricted to humans. Apparently, this little canid—and some others of her kind—has a propensity for it, too. In spring 2008, Canadian biologists fitted 29 arctic foxes with tracking collars and began monitoring their movements by satellite.
Travel Tips
It’s less than a week before Christmas, and I’ll bet by now you’re beginning to feel “gadgeted out,” tired of being bombarded with all of the e-mail, internet and TV ads for nifty electronics, smartphones, e-readers and apps. I think nature lovers, in particular, feel the commercialization of the holidays even more than others.
Travel Tales
Great adventures make for great books; and if you browse the “adventure” shelves of any bookstore, you’re likely to find tales of mountain climbing feats, polar expeditions, diving derring-do or deep wilderness hiking. Rarely, though, when we want a tome of adventure do we think of perusing the children’s books section.
Nature & Wildlife
Does the sight of a summit or the rise of a ridgeline entice you to push yourself harder? Is the reward at the end always worth the challenge or the uncertainty en route? Time to ponder life lessons from the trail.
Nature & Wildlife
On June 11, 2011, a mountain lion was killed on the busy Wilbur Cross Parkway in Milford, Connecticut. He was hit by a car. I don’t live in Connecticut—Wisconsin is my home—nor have I ever seen this particular cat.
