The Polarquest2018 Arctic expedition A geographical report Gianluca Casagrande Geografia a libero accesso Collana a cura di Claudio Cerreti Volumi pubblicati 1. Elena dell’Agnese e Massimiliano Tabusi (a cura di), La musica come geografia: suoni, luoghi, territori 2. Margherita Ciervo, Il disseccamento degli ulivi in Puglia. Evidenze, contraddizioni, anomalie, scenari. Un punto di vista geografico 3. Gianluca Casagrande, The Polarquest2018 Arctic expedition. A geographical report The Polarquest2018 Arctic expedition A geographical report Gianluca Casagrande Certificazione scientifica Questo volume è stato sottoposto a un processo di referaggio a cura di esperti anonimi, che si desidera ringraziare per il loro determinante apporto. © 2020 Società Geografica Italiana Via della Navicella, 12 – 00184 Roma www.societageografica.it ISBN 978-88-85445-06-2 Licenza Creative Commons: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) In copertina Fotografia di Michael Struik In loving memory of Prof. Cristina Gemo La Greca (1948-2019), geographer, mentor and friend Index 5 9 Preface 13 Introduction 17 Part I – Expedition Overview 19 1. Geographical context 19 1.1 An Arctic space 27 1.2 An Arctic place 43 1.3 Local and global: Anthropic pressure and pollution 46 2. Polarquest2018: Technical and organizational aspects 48 2.1 The boat 53 2.2 Onboard scientific research programmes 53 2.2.1 PolarquEEEst 57 2.2.2 Microplastics (a.k.a. MANTANET) 59 2.2.3 AURORA (a.k.a. Polar Drones) 61 2.2.4 The crew 65 2.2.5 Safety aspects 66 2.2.5.1 Onboard safety 66 2.2.5.2 Onland safety 68 2.2.6 Ceremonial components and plans for the «first sonar search» of ITALIA’s wreck 74 3. Chronographical report 74 3.1 Iceland to Svalbard 87 3.2 Circumnavigation of Spitsbergen and Nordaustlandet 88 3.2.1 Ny-Ålesund 94 3.2.2 Lillieöökfjorden, Signehamna and Magdalenefjorden 97 3.2.3 Virgohamna, Bockfjorden and Trollkjeldene 105 3.2.4 Kinnvika, Kapp Rubin and Nordkapp 112 3.2.5 Phippsøya and commemoration at sea 116 3.2.6 Navigation to 82°07’N and multibeam mapping 122 3.2.7 Alpiniøya, Storøya and Austfonna 129 3.2.8 Freemansundet, Sundbukta and bad weather 130 3.2.9 Observations in Inglefielbukta and encounter with ALBEDO (Row Around Svalbard) 135 3.2.10 Hornsund 139 3.2.11 Navigation to Isfjorden and Pyramiden 145 Part II – Subject-Specific Reports 147 4. The former airship base at Ny-Ålesund 154 5. The AURORA research programme: Method and activities 156 5.1 An expeditive survey of the Virgohamna historical site 159 5.1.1 Salomon August Andrée’s Arctic expedition (1896-1897) 165 5.1.2 Walter Wellman’s expeditions (1906-1909) 168 5.1.3 Polarquest2018’s expeditive survey of Virgohamna 169 5.1.4 Data from «image-based» processing report and related comments 177 5.1.5 GIS documentation and observation comments 181 5.1.6 Andrée’s base 184 5.1.7 Camp Wellman 190 5.1.8 Conclusions about the Virgohamna expeditive survey 191 5.2 Survey Test 1. Detection of thermal variations in the ground surface: The Trollkjeldene hot springs 192 5.2.1 Test methodology and results 193 5.2.2 Thermal mapping test vs. full-blown cartographic application: A few remarks 194 5.2.3 Conclusions on the Trollkjeldene test 195 5.3 Observations at Kinnvika 198 5.3.1 Historical summary on the operation of the Kinnvika research station 199 5.3.2 Expeditive observation and GIS documentation of the area 201 5.4 General ortophoto of Alpiniøya and mapping of artificial litter on its shores 202 5.4.1 Data from «image-based» processing report and related comments 210 5.4.2 GIS documentation and observation comments 214 5.5 Survey Test 2. Expeditive aerophotogrammetry of the Inglefieldbreen glacier front 215 5.5.1 Data from «image-based» processing report and related comments 222 5.5.2 Conclusions on the Inglefieldbreen glacier front mapping test 223 6. Polarquest2018’s visit to Pyramiden 223 6.1 A former ghost-town in the Arctic 228 6.2 Remarks from the Polarquest2018’s visit and observations on the site 235 7. «Story-telling» about places and the expedition: The role of communication and outreach activities 240 7.1 Website and social networks 243 7.2 Meeting the descendants 245 7.3 Leg 13 245 7.4 Landscapes and objects 247 7.5 Polarquest documentary (2018) 253 7.6 Nanuq documentary (2020) 257 Conclusions 259 Acknowledgements 261 References 269 Index of names Nota bene: Unless otherwise specified, all topographical data in this book are indicated according to infor- mation made available by the Norsk Polarinstitutt, through the TopoSvalbard WebGIS platform (www. toposvalbard.npolar.no). All the last access to the different mentioned web sites can be dated to September 2020. All the photos can be dated to the expedition time-frame (July 22nd - August 24th, 2018). The source of data for Section 3 (Chronographical report) is S/Y NANUQ logbook (Gallinelli, 2018b). Data cited from this source are only marked with the page number. All time indications in this chapter are UTC. CLAUDIO CERRETI PREFACE This book is the third in the «Geografia a libero accesso» series, that the Italian Geographical Society has created to host its digital publications. The purpose of the editorial initiative is to make works by the Society’s members easier to access and cir- culate, so that results from studies and research activities may be freely disseminated. We hope that our fellows and the wide audience in the Web will appreciate this effort. Gianluca Casagrande’s book further extends the accessibility beyond the Ital- ian-speaking context: a necessary choice, since it has an international endeavor as its topic and will have international readers as a significant share of its audience. The work features – on an extrinsic level – several «new» elements; yet, in many ways, it is a sort of «translation» in present-day terms of a kind of scientific literature that must be considered – in our field – a classic. Not by chance, among the Italian Geographical Society’s publications, it has several and historic precedents: the genre we are referring to is the journey report. In the following pages, the reader will find an ex- tensive account of the geographical aspects of the Arctic research and communication expedition «Polarquest2018», in which the author participated as onboard scientist, also as a representative of the Society. As any other good journey report, this one too begins by presenting the scientific rationale of the expedition in its geographical context, clearly stating the reasons for the presence of a geographer in the crew. Then comes the account, derived from the ex- pedition logbook and from other texts written during the operations. Several scientific activities – full-blown research work and methodological tests – are then presented and discussed, putting forth some relevant results of surveys and visits conducted in various «points of interests» of the Svalbard Islands. The book could not obviously summarize the complexity of a highly multidisci- plinary international expedition, so rich in experimental characters, hosting several different and independent – both epistemologically and organizationally – research programmes. Such complexity was further developed in the multiple thematic connec- tions among the different subjects covered in the various public communication and cultural dissemination products and events that stemmed from Polarquest2018. 10 Claudio Cerreti Multiple elements of interest for today’s geography are pointed to, or hinted to, in this writing. First of all, the increasing interest for the exploitation of Arctic spaces and resources – and the Svalbard archipelago is, due to its position and well-developed infrastructures and services, one of the primary elements of this interest. The peculiar environmental, geographical and political features of Svalbard are there- fore central in a global discourse and the book either considers or touches various aspects of this matter: environmental protection, definition and management of cultural herit- age, policies and regulations regarding access and protection of territorial assets. In the second part, focusing on the «subject-specific reports», the more experimen- tal and methodological component of the expedition is presented. In a solid connec- tion to the idea – a traditional one among Italian geographers – that «geography must be done on foot», the author and his colleagues conducted a series of observations in the attempt of producing rather original geographical and cartographical data, espe- cially if one takes into accounts the innovative techniques used for their acquisition. The result is a set of methodological proposals, which meet, in several cases, lines of development in our field: familiarization of researchers with specific types of instru- ments; application of low-cost and open-access tools, towards an always good «democ- ratization» of research capabilities; a potentially strategic connection with citizen sci- ence and, finally, the creation of conceptual frameworks to foster positive cooperations between geographers and professionals in other fields. In the book the reader can find a rather complete – though with no ambition of exhaustivity – presentation of the developed activities. After all, it is a work in progress. Nevertheless, we should acknowledge the author to have offered ideas and information that are useful from several points of view. First, the book gives an original contribution to the knowledge of a specific phase in the life of relevant places and environments of the Svalbard Islands, an area which is going through a deep transformation. This is a main duty for a geographer, especially when the object of observation are places which may still be legitimately considered as «remote». Moreover, as it was previously stated, the book suggests interesting methodological perspectives: a central one, proposed by the author by jointly considering several different components of the expedition, is the reference to an «innovative research paradigm», based on the integration of low-cost, high environmental and operational sustainability, with a focus on simplicity and ef- fectiveness.