A38: From Top to Bottom: Our Polar Regions – Some of Our Best Kept Secrets - 3 units 
Erwin Bohmfalk
Fri. 3:00–4:30 p.m. - Sept. 12, 19, 26         
Senior Center - Limit: 75

Erwin Bohmfalk was an Army Air Corps pilot in WWII, later receiving his Ph.D. degree in Physical Chemistry from the University of Colorado. He is a DuPont retiree and owner of The Purple Foot, a Waynesboro restaurant. He has chaired for 12 years the Board of Directors of The Wildlife Center of Virginia, where much of his effort is in organizing and hosting wildlife photo and viewing safaris in South Africa. A member of The Explorers Club, a prestigious New York organization, he has traveled extensively on all seven continents. His passions are world travel, wildlife photography and the environment.

These lectures are based on my actual travels in both Polar regions. The two regions will be shown and contrasted, as their differences far outnumber similarities. We will also discuss some of the early significant explorations that helped to advance our knowledge of these critical regions.

Session 1. The Arctic and Its Pole. We will visit the Geographic North Pole through visuals made during the first crossing of the GNP by a surface ship.  Unique experiences available only at the Earth’s axes also will be discussed, as will the general character of the Arctic region itself.

Session 2. Antarctica: The Beautiful Bottom of the World. Superlatives abound about the fifth-largest continent—the coldest, highest, driest and windiest. One can see millions of penguins (nine species), plus seals, whales, seabirds, mountains, volcanoes, glaciers and icebergs.

Session 3. Exploring Where Man Is Only a Visitor. We will visit the expedition huts of Shackleton and Scott and talk of their efforts, along with Amundsen’s, to be first to reach the Geographic South Pole. We will retrace the final footsteps of Shackleton’s ill-fated Endurance expedition, ending on South Georgia Island.

My intent is simply to create interest in learning more about the Polar regions and to appreciate their role as a key barometer of the impact of global warming.

Suggested Reading:  Shackleton’s Endurance, two books, by Lansing, and Alexander.  Amundsen’s South Pole.  Scott’s Last Expedition, by Sir Robert Scott.