Arctic Exploration in Motion:
A Film Festival Featuring Historic Arctic Footage
Saturday, May 24, 10:00 am - 12:30 pm
Auditorium, The Academy of Natural Sciences
Free and open to the public with museum admission.
This film festival will present rare, historic motion picture film footage drawn from a number of film archives. Footage will feature Arctic explorers in action, Inuit working with explorers and involved in various pursuits, Arctic landscapes and wildlife, technological advancements in northern work, and sites and communities that have significance to the history of Arctic exploration. The organizers will offer brief commentaries, providing background information and context for watching the films, many of which are silent. cc
| Time | Title:Details |
|---|---|
| 10:00 – 10:10 am | Introduction and Welcome: Susan A. Kaplan |
| Background | |
| 10:10 – 10:30 am | Cameras at the 1901 Buffalo World’s Fair and in the Far North: Edison Films (1901) and recently discovered Crocker Land Expedition Clips (1914-1917). Audrey Amidon |
| 10:30 – 10:50 am | An Archivist’s View of an Arctic Film Archive: illustrated with clips Audrey Kupferberg |
| Explorers at Home and in the Field | |
| 10:50 – 11:20 am | Arctic Explorers in Motion Film: clips featuring over a dozen Arctic explorers, including Robert Peary, Frederick Cook, Richard Byrd, Josephine Peary, Roald Amundsen, Matthew Henson, Lincoln Ellsworth, Vilhjalmur Stefansson, Donald MacMillan, and Robert Bartlett. Susan A. Kaplan, Genevieve M. LeMoine, and Audrey Amidon |
| 11:20 – 11:25 am | Short Intermission |
| Technologies and Access to the North | |
| 11:25 – 11:55 am | Western and Inuit Technologies: Film clips featuring the dirigible Norge, the first airplanes to fly above the Arctic Circle and to the North Pole, the first radio broadcasts from the Arctic, famous Arctic ships including SS Roosevelt, Schooner Bowdoin, Effie Morrissey, and Karluk, a Model T Ford snowmobile, Inuit sledges and kayaks. Susan A. Kaplan and Genevieve M. LeMoine |
| “Under the Northern Lights.” A lecture film by Donald B. MacMillan. Silent, 14 minutes long. Susan A. Kaplan |
|
| Science and Understanding the North | |
| 11:55 – 12:25 pm | Scientific Inquiry in the North: Clips featuring archaeological work at the Martin Frobisher site in Baffin Island, anthropometric studies, Arctic animals captured for zoos, banding birds, making casts of large sea mammals, water sampling. Genevieve M. LeMoine |
| “Hunting Muskox with the Polar Eskimos.” A film by Donald B. MacMillan, sound, 10 minutes. |
|
Program Organizers are: Susan A. Kaplan (Bowdoin College), Genevieve LeMoine (Bowdoin College), and Audrey Kupferberg (Independent Film Archivist).
