 |
|
|
|
|
|
STUDENTS ON ICE INVITES ALL OF OUR SITE VISITORS TO PARTCIPATE IN THE
‘ONE-TONNE CHALLENGE’
Take the Challenge
MAKE A DIFFERENCE!
more >>
|
|
We’re working to make our Expedition
Carbon-Neutral!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
THE STUDENT'S ANTARCTIC JOURNEY
|
EXPEDITION JOURNALS
|
|
 MONDAY, DECEMBER 20th
WEBMASTER NOTE: Click on the Ushuaia WEBCAM Link > (right) to view daily images of Ushuaia! Watch for photos of the PORT where a glimpse of the POLAR STAR and the Students On Ice Expedition participants might be captured ... also find on this site an archive of hundreds of recent images taken throughout Ushuaia.
|
USHUAIA WEBCAM
USHUAIA General Info
WEATHER
CANADIAN BEAVERS HERE?
|
|
 Geoff Green
POSTED Monday 1:00 pm
Quick phone call from Ushuaia!!
We have arrived safe and sound in Ushuaia ... after our very early start ... we made it to the airport in great time and had a easy check-in ... then a spectacular, clear flight over the Andes -- looking down at the Beagle Channel. Everyone is great.
Upon arrival a bus took us to the National Park and this afternoon we’ll be spending time around town. We will head to the port by 5:00 to being boarding our ship - The Polar Star!!
Once we get settled into our cabins we will gather for a safety briefing and ship introduction ... then it’s time to sail - assuming the weather holds ... scheduled for 7:00 pm (5 ET).
STUDENT JOURNALS
POSTED Tuesday 7:30am
Erika Lackey
I'm sure that it has been said before, that the trip was on its way, but not as it was today. Today is December 20th and at 5:00 p.m. we -the Students on Ice group - have finally departed for the Antarctic! Now we are a true family because we are all on the ship together.
We woke at the unearthly hour of 2:30 a.m. and made our way to a deserted airport, or so it seemed until we filled it with 100 eager yet sleepy Antarctic-bound explorers. The flight to the most Southern city in the world was quite pleasant, but the view was better. We toured around all morning, had some more meat (they really, and I mean really(!!!!) like their meat in Argentina) at lunch and were treated to some more traditional dancing! It was lovely. We all got a last chance to roam through civilization in Ushuaia before we boarded the beautiful Polar Star.
Shopping was fun, but was soon forgotten when we all walked the same path as one another to our rooms on the ship. The rooms are smaller than what some of us are used to but are equipped with beds, closets, bathrooms with showers, mirrors, and at least two huge windows in each room (not to mention the great view they all have). We left port at 7:00 p.m. and so far it's been nothing but adventure! Dinner, meeting everyone, penguin sightings, exploring the ship, a dolphin sighting and just the fact that we have eyes in our heads to see the things our cameras simply can not capture! We're off to bed at 11:00 p.m. tonight after a long day; it is surprising to see the thriving energy and enthusiasm from everyone! It's great!
Let's go to Antarctica!
(PS: mom & dad, I love you and all is well, say hi to everyone! Merry Christmas!)
--------------------------------
Trudy, (Chaperone)
It was interesting speaking with Jess from East Lansing Michigan. She is a senior in high school, but her learning experiences have taken her far beyond the United States. She has visited Australia, New Zealand, France, Switzerland, Canada, Germany, and Mexico, and has now added Argentina and soon the Antarctic Continent!
Jess's passion for sports has led her to express interest in pursuing studies in a college sports management program and ultimately follow a career as a director of basketball operations. She loves the outdoors and has been affected by its beauty, especially in environments "untouched by humans."
-------------------------------
Sean Horton
Hi Everyone -
It is 11 PM right now everyone, and it is I, Sean, the weatherman reporting. Our two and a half our trip from Buenos Aires to Ushuaia brought a major weather change of about 40 degrees (Fahrenheit). Our journey via boat (Polar Star) will only bring the temperature down even more. While many people are already bundling up, I, your loyal weatherman, have been wearing shorts and a t-shirt. Eventually, this descent in temperature will bottom out at about -4 and -12 Fahrenheit. I, too, will be brought low and forced to wear some pants…maybe even a jacket. As of now, we are churning up water in a relatively protected body of water (Beagle Channel). The order has been given, though. "Batten down the hatches!" We have no clue how Drake Passage will be later, but as Shackleton found out, it isn't always good.
------------------------------
Phillip Swarts
December 20, 2004 Day 4
Today was an early morning. I didn't really like waking up at 2:30 in the morning. We loaded up the bus and headed for the airport. At the gate were a series of phones, and I took time to call my parents. It was good to talk to them, and I miss them lots. The phone cut out near the end of our conversation, which was bad.
I slept intermittently on the plane, but I was glad I woke up before we landed. The scenery coming into Ushuaia was absolutely beautiful. I think I took more pictures today then any other day so far. We started off going to a look out to see Ushuaia, and then proceeded to Tierra del Fuego. The national park actually reminds me of Scotland. I think it's the hills, and some of the flora looks similar. We were able to get out and walk around for quite a while. It was also extremely windy.
Afterwards, we headed for lunch, which included lamb, a local specialty. Then we were treated to a show of traditional Argentinian dance, which was very good. Next we had an hour to look around and shop in Ushuaia. I went to the Presidio, an old prison that has been converted into a museum. Everything was translated into English, which made it very enjoyable. I would have liked to have more time to look around. The museum was on the grounds of a naval base, and the museum itself had much naval history, along with information on the Antarctic.
Finally we met our ship, the M.V. Polar Star. It really surprised me. The ship is a lot nicer than I thought it would be. David, who was my roommate in Buenos Aires, is my roommate here too. Our room is spacious compared to what I thought it would be. We had our briefing in the Observation Lounge, and Geoff introduced the crew to us. Then the captain briefed us on the boat safety, and we had our first drill. In case of an emergency, I'm lucky, because my room is very close to where the lifeboats load. We had our first dinner, and celebrated the birthday of two people on the trip. I can't wait to explore the boat. I saw the mess hall, bridge, and observation lounge today, and I want to visit the whole ship. I also got lost several times.
Most of my evening was spent on deck, watching. The surrounding mountains are beautiful, and I love being on boats. I just hope I can survive Drake's Passage. Someone spotted a penguin, but I didn't see it. I did see a school of dolphins go by, and there was also a half sunken ship the Polar Star passed.
The daylight is strange. I'm not used to it being daylight at 10:30 at night. I don't want it to mess up my sleeping pattern, but tonight that won't be a problem because I'm so tired due to the early start. We'll be here during the summer solstice, with 24 (or more) straight hours of sunlight.
I'm glad to finally be starting to Antarctica. Argentina is beautiful, and I can only imagine what the southernmost continent must be like. First we have to cross the rough Drake's passage, and I still have to "Drake-proof" my stuff.
Hi Mom and Dad, Tramp and Scamp. I'm doing great and I hope you are too. It's really beautiful here, and I can't wait to climb aboard a zodiac to Antarctica. Good night.
-------------------------
Mosesie Arlooktoo
This is awesome! I'm all the way in Beagle Channel. I'm from Iqaluit, Nunavut.
I have met many nice youth from across North America and some parts of the world. I made new friends that I will remember for the rest of my life. I wouldn't have met them if Canadian North didn't donate a seat to me from Iqaluit to Ottawa. Canadian North's motto is right - Your north, Your airline.
Today we had to wake up at 2:30 am to catch a flight to Ushuaia where I felt right at home - much better than the capital city of Argentina - too hot for me! Fresh air at the National Forest reminded me of back home.
Hard to describe what I'm seeing at 11:15 pm, and still no darkness - hoping to see penguins, and many other things tomorrow morning with my new friends, some of whom I'm teaching my language to. Oh, and the beef in Argentina is the best - the steaks are rare & juicy, and the chicken is unlike any other chicken we get in Canada.
So far, I've learned a couple of words in Spanish - gracias, hola, & salida.
-------------------------
Ashley
It was an extremely early morning today with a wake up call from the hotel in Buenos Aires at 2:30 in the morning!!! Our flight to Ushuiaia was amazing, as we crossed the Andes once again but this time with the best view so far- followed with a spectacular tour of the southernmost city in the WORLD. You would not believe what just happened. After supper myself and a bunch of other students perched ourselves outside on the ships deck to watch for any type of wildlife. I was pretty determined that I was going to see a whale before I went to bed for the night. Any way, I came in to use the washroom and warm up a little, then saw that the computers were up for us to write a journal entry in, so I came on over. Well, I looked over out the window and there was some unusual movement in the water. I kept looking and one of the guys sitting beside the window said it was something but definitely not a bird. So I jumped up and hurried to the deck, where we spotted our first dolphin of the expedition!!!! What a feeling you get, as you are outside on the bow, wind blowing in your face and the amazingly clean air fills your lungs. It is absolutely spectacular!
I don't know how many pictures I have taken but I am so thankful for this experience, and want to capture every memorable moment.
The staff and crew aboard the Polar Star are so full of energy, knowledge and good spirits. The atmosphere around here is so accepting and it's really like we are a family. Well, they called for bed so I'd best be on my way before I end up peeling potatoes tomorrow night with the cooks. More to come in this extraordinary experience we are encountering.
-------------------------
 |
 |
The photo above at the Ushuaia Municipality was taken by webcam this morning ...
 The Tierra del Fuego, a group of islands at the southern tip of South America that have some of the worst weather in the world. The rugged islands poke into the ocean current circling Antartica, and are almost continuously battered by high winds and covered by clouds. On March 28, 2003, an early fall day, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument aboard NASA's Terra satellite captured this rare view of the islands and the Patagonia region of South America. Even in this image, however, Cape Horn, the southernmost point on the continent, remains cloudy.
CLICK HERE FOR LARGER IMAGE (of photo on right)
Magellan sailed between the Tierra del Fuego and the mainland in 1520 during his around the world expedition. Magellan named the region the Land of Fire when he saw fires along the southern shore of the Strait of Magellan. Subsequent settlement brought diseases which destroyed these cultures. The western Tierra del Fuego now belong to Chile, and the eastern side is part of Argentina.
(Source: VISIBLE EARTH NASA - a must see site!)
-----------------------
Geoff Green
POSTED Monday 8:00 am
Good Morning ... This morning we get up at 2:30am! Yikes... Then it is off to the airport and our flight south to Ushuaia. As we make our way to the bottom of South America, we will be passing over the Andes Mountain range. Hopefully the skies will be clear!
And as Fred said last evening to everyone, “we must all become observers and not passengers on the expedition”. That is mind-set that will allow the group to really learn and start absorbing the enormous experience that lies before us.
Until we touch base later today, here are some new photos ...
and a few journals from Sunday.
-----------------------
|
|
ABOUT USHUAIA
|
|
 Ushuaia, the southernmost city of the world, is the capital of the province of Tierra del Fuego, Antártida and South Atlantic Islands.
Situated on the border of the Beagle Canal and surrounded by the Mounts Martial, this city offers a unique landscape in Argentina made up of mountains, sea, glaciers and woods.
Its capricious topography has generated an extremely picturesque city that combines colours and unevenness with the silhouette of the Andes Mountain Range as background. it is important to note the building contrast between the modern constructions and the wooden houses with gabled sheet metals that give it a particular characteristic.
Its climate, in spite of its geographical situation, is not as severe as it seems, since both the mountains and the sea soften it. In winter, the snowy landscape changes its physiognomy.
The summer season is ideal for the adventure tourism activities such as trekking, horseback riding, mountain byke, sporting fishing and the most astounding tours along the Beagle Canal, Cape Horn and even the Argentine Antártida.
(SOURCE: argentinaturistica.com)
|
|
Believe it or not ... from Canada you say ...
|
|
 Title: Argentina Battles a Plague of Eager Beavers
Source: N.Y. Times News Service
Date: 8/3/98
Byline: Clifford Krauss USHUAIA, Argentina, Aug. 3, 1998 --
In 1946, someone in Gen. Juan Domingo Peron's navy came up with the idea of colonizing Tierra del Fuego with 25 pairs of beavers from Canada to promote the local fur industry.
Half a century later the Peronist innovation has taken a Malthusian twist and gone seriously awry. Today this snowy archipelago on the tip of South America is being overrun by the beavers.
These beavers are nothing if not eager. They have cut down hundreds of acres of forests to build dams hundreds of feet long. Their architectural wonders of branches and mud make fine tourist attractions, but they are also re-routing streams and rivers, thereby interrupting trout migrations to traditional spawning grounds. The beavers have created hundreds of artificial lakes that are flooding still more forest land and roads, threatening the livelihoods of island cattlemen and farmers.
But what scientists fear most is the possibility that Tierra del Fuego's beavers may one day manage to swim -- or be smuggled -- across the Magellan Strait and invade the South American mainland.
"They could take over the Andean forests,'' warned Alejandro Gonzalez, a government biologist. "They must be eliminated.''
Of all the rodents in the world, beavers still have the best reputation. They are industrious, furry and among a very few species that are monogamous. Even in Tierra del Fuego, pictures of beavers appear on postcards. But the beaver's good name has been tarnished.
"For us, the beaver isn't just some cute little creature,'' said Juan Manuel Harrington, 51, a strawberry farmer. "He's a plague whose dikes flood our forests and erode our land.''
Juan Esteban Rivero, a 52-year-old hunter, said, "If I don't hunt down these beavers, the widow who lives next door will lose all her sheep and cattle from the floods created by these little animals.''
The Peron government came up with many half-baked ideas that ruined the Argentine economy for decades. But at the time its beaver policy seemed perfectly sensible, since fashion-conscious women around the world draped themselves in pelts without thinking twice about animal rights.
The unintended consequences of the policy originated from one simple fact: Tierra del Fuego does not have any of the natural predators of beavers, like wolves and bears, which flourish in their original home in the Canadian wilds.
Consequently, beavers have thrived in Tierra del Fuego like nowhere else on earth.
Marta Lizarralde, a researcher at the Austral Center for Scientific Studies here, estimated that the original population of 50 beavers expanded to 2,500 by 1966, then to 30,000 by 1986, reaching an estimated 50,000 on the main island of Tierra del Fuego today. But her figures are for only the Argentine side of the island. There are tens of thousands more beavers on the Chilean side.
Having reached saturation point on the main island of the archipelago, the beavers have swum to several outlying islands and that makes biologists worry about an eventual continental invasion.
The problem is barely known outside Tierra del Fuego, but several Argentine government scientists are pressing for a beaver eradication campaign. Government environmentalists have trained scores of local hunters in the last year in modern trapping techniques and they are now distributing 1,100 new beaver traps to the local population.
Meanwhile, the Argentine Foreign Ministry is pressing the European Community to open its market to Argentine beavers as a way of raising pelt prices and providing greater incentives to trappers.
But the European market for furs has been circumscribed for years under the pressure of activists pressing for more humane treatment of animals. European animal lovers have not specifically attacked Argentine beaver trapping methods -- by global standards, the trapping of a few thousand beavers a year here is small potatoes. But their campaign against furs has had an impact here, according to Argentine government officials.
Since 1991, the United States, Canada, Russia and the European Community have been trying to negotiate an understanding on the humane trapping of animals. At the moment, the European Community has a list of 13 species, including lynx, sable and beaver, that can be imported into Europe only if caught in traps that immediately kill their prey.
Until very recently, Argentine hunters used restraining traps that broke the beavers' legs, a method prohibited by the European Community. To get around the ban, the Argentine government has spent more than $50,000 to train and supply trappers so they will hunt with modern, Canadian-designed traps that reduce animal suffering by immediately crushing the heads and throats of the captured beavers.
But late last year, the European Community ruled that it still could not permit the importation of Argentine beaver pelts because Argentina's trap- replacement program was confined to Tierra del Fuego.
Argentina refused to apply a nationwide ban. For now, the beavers are nowhere in Argentina but Tierra del Fuego. And officials said they were reluctant to ban restraining traps for beavers nationwide since those traps are still widely used in other provinces to hunt fox and coypu, which are not on Europe's restricted list and together represent up to $80 million in annual exports.
That animal rights activists in other countries would stand in the way of Argentina's campaign to halt the beaver scourge "is quite a stupid thing,'' said Victoria Lichtschein, director of forest fauna and flora in Argentina's Natural Resources Secretariat. "This is not a species that needs to be protected.''
|
|
|
