Journal articles | The Explorers Club

Owls of the Arctic Circle

Winter 2022/2023 - vol. 100 no.4

Even though the summer sun is high in the sky and the landscape around us is vibrant green with the 24-hour light afforded here beyond the Arctic Circle in mid-July, the wind cuts deep as it blows in off the Chukchi Sea, which is still covered in thick sea ice on the distant horizon.

The tomb that changed the world

Fall 2022 - vol. 100 no.3

Before the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings a century ago, the New Kingdom pharaoh was virtually unknown, even to Egyptologists.

Ladystone and the Jackfruit Tepache

summer 2022 - vol. 100 no.2

"You must turn back now." This was not the first time our field team had been met with a blockade during our 2,400-kilometer research trip to document the cultural traditions of Oaxaca, Mexico, and we suspected it wouldn’t be the last.

Peak Performance

summer 2021 - vol. 99 no.2

One of the biggest names in British landscape photography, “Mountain Man” Colin Prior is perhaps best known for his classic images of his native Scotland. But throughout his four-decade career he’s also undertaken numerous expeditions into the heart of Pakistan’s Karakoram range, which he describes as “one of the world’s greatest natural treasures.”

Exploration or Adventure?

spring 2021 - vol. 99 no.1

If there is a clear message emerging in the wake of the pandemic, it is this: Nature, for one, is asking us to be humble, to awaken at last to the realization that we are biological beings dwelling on a living planet, sharing its bounty with all sentient creatures, all forms of life.

Into the Great African Sea Forest

winter 2020/2021- vol. 98 no. 4

When the documentary My Octopus Teacher debuted on Netflix this past September, it ushered in a new approach to nature filmmaking, one in which the interaction between humans and other creatures takes center stage.

Moulins Bleus

winter 2020/2021 - vol. 98 no.4

With a surface area of 1.7 million square kilometers, the Greenland ice sheet is second in size only to that which cloaks Antarctica and covers some 79 percent of the largest island on Earth. If the ice sheet were to melt—and melting it is in the face of climate change—it would result in a worldwide sea-level rise of 6 meters.

Far More Than Being First

winter 2020/2021- vol. 98 no. 4

It is hard to imagine that in our own time so much of the Earth remains unexplored. We know more about the surface of the Moon than the floor of the ocean.

Into Uncharted Territory

fall 2020 - vol. 98 no.3

Had the spring field season gone according to plan, I would have been heading back down to southern Mexico with my fellow cavers to continue our push ever deeper into Sistema Huautla, which, at 1,560 meters, is the deepest cave system in the Western Hemisphere.

The Magic of Mushrooms

summer 2020- vol. 98 no. 2

I have been an explorer of the fungal kingdom for most of my life and I was always attracted to that which was forbidden—and mushrooms are strange, potent things that mysteriously pop out of the ground only to disappear in four or five days

The Art of Survival

summer 2020- vol. 98 no. 2

There is an old adage: An adventurer comes back and tells you what they did, while an explorer comes back and tells you what they learned.

Expedition Iceland

spring 2020 - vol. 98 no.1

With an otherworldly landscape forged by fire and ice and largely devoid of landmarks and vegetation, the island nation of Iceland has proven to be an ideal laboratory for the development of new technologies in the realm of space exploration—for it is an Earthly analogue for the terrain found on the Moon and Mars.

60 years at Gombe

spring 2020 - vol. 98 no.1

I fell in love with Africa at the age of eight, after reading about how Doctor Dolittle rescued animals from the circus and took them back to Africa. I was determined to go to Africa and live with wild animals and write books about them even then.

Born to Thinning Ice

spring 2020 - vol. 98 no.1

Walking on sea ice, it is easy to forget that there is an ocean below you. The early morning sun bounces off a soft blanket of freshly fallen snow under an impossibly cerulean blue sky.

The Future of Coral

spring 2020 - vol. 98 no.1

In 1842, Charles Darwin published his first scientific monograph, not On the Origin of Species, but rather on The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs.

Letter from Lisbon

winter 2019/2020 - vol. 97 no.4

Some moments seem filled with promise. Thus it was last spring when I received an email from Tom de la Cal of the noted Film Festival Agency, asking me if I would attend a “Global Exploration” summit to be held in Lisbon, Portugal, the first week of July.

Into the Realm of Nanuk

winter 2019/2020 - vol. 97 no.4

For more than four decades, I have been photographing the world’s largest aquatic animals in the wild, entering the realm of the leopard seal, the great white shark, the Okavango croc, and a host of cetaceans. In each case, I have been able to capture them on film while mingling with them virtually unnoticed.

Wouldn’t that be Rio Grande?

fall 2019 - vol. 97 no. 3

In 1977 I was a member of the first expedition on record to navigate the entire 3,038-kilometer Rio Grande.

The River and the Wall

fall 2019 - vol. 97 no.3

Santa Elena, Mariscal, Boquillas… For those of us lucky enough to have paddled through these monumental cathedral canyons, which cradle the Rio Grande as it skirts the southern boundary of the United States

Forward to the Moon

spring 2019 - vol. 97 no. 1

I am the first NASA administrator to have never seen humans walk on another world. I intend to be the only administrator with that distinction.

Lessons Trapped in Stone

spring 2019 - vol. 97 no. 1

You got lucky. And so did I. That’s the resounding, persistent message of the Earth’s rock record. Our planet’s history is a chain of happenstance, four and a half billion years long.

Return to the Flaming Cliffs

spring 2019 - vol. 97 no.1

Crack! I jolt up to the sound of thunder breaking the silence of the murky morning sky.

A Sacred Covenant at Risk

winter 2018/2019 - vol. 96 no. 4

Long revered in Hindu culture as a manifestation of one of its most important deities, Ganesha, the elephant is both worshiped and feared. Killing an elephant is considered an odious crime, made illegal by decree as early as 300 bc by the Indian Emperor Chandragupta, author of one of the first known wildlife protection edicts.

African Twilight

fall 2018 - vol. 96 no.3

Africa is the cradle of humankind and a crucible of our creativity. It is the continent on which humanity first flourished and, two hundred thousand years later, it shows no sign of slowing down.

A Visual War on Wildlife Crime

summer 2018 - vol. 96 no.2

The sale of rhino horn is probably the best known at the moment, along with the ivory trade, and there’s international action at government levels trying to put a stop to this. China banned ivory trading at the beginning of this year. Hong Kong, which is the biggest ivory market, has announced that it is going to cease trading ivory by 2021.

Beyond Roads

spring 2018 - vol. 96 no.1

We were racing the fading daylight as I danced along an alarmingly narrow ledge, no wider than a school ruler. I had left Mike Chambers, our ropes expert, to finish rigging the rappel in order to notify the team that they needed to don their harnesses and prepare to rappel off the cliff band that had become a major impediment to our progress that afternoon.

49 Hours Out of Aqaba

winter 2017/2018 - vol. 95 no. 4

July 1917: Much of Europe is gripped by the unprecedented carnage of the First World War, yet far away, in a forgotten corner of the Ottoman Empire, a different kind of battle is being fought between the German-backed Turks and the Allies, led by the British Expeditionary Force.

Expedition Antarctica

fall 2017 - vol. 95 no.3

For more than a decade, I have been drawn to Antarctica and its icy waters—the extraordinary wildlife that inhabits such a seemingly inhospitable environment, the powerful geophysical confluence of rock and ice, and the formidable physical challenges presented by the wind and currents.

Ranulph Fiennes

spring 2017 - vol. 95 no. 1

Acclaimed by the Guinness Book of World Records as “the world’s greatest living explorer,” Sir Ranulph Fiennes has undertaken numerous ground-breaking exploits, including the epic Transglobe Expedition, in which he became the first person to visit both north and south poles by surface means.

Ragnar Axelsson

spring 2017 - vol. 95 no.1

Iceland’s best-known Arctic photographer Ragnar Axelsson, or “Rax” as he is universally known, has spent three decades following in the footsteps of the great Arctic explorers to document the vanishing lifeways and landscapes of the far north.

Borderski

winter 2016/17 - vol. 94 no.4

Kate Harris is a writer and adventurer who lives off-grid in Atlin, British Columbia. Named one of Canada’s top modern-day explorers, her journeys edging the limits of nations, endurance, and sanity have taken her to all seven continents, often by bike or ski.