IDNO

P.86185.PAT

Description

Five expedition members standing at a launch site, with James Wordie having just released a pilot high altitude balloon. Next to the men is an astronomical telescope mounted on a wooden tripod. In the background is the Isbjørn moored in the harbour, and in the distance is a large French or Danish ship.

Place

N America; Arctic; Greenland; Godhavn

Cultural Affliation

Named Person

James Mann Wordie

Photographer

None

Collector / Expedition

Paterson, Thomas Thompson

Date

15 - 24 July 1937

Collection Name

Paterson Collection

Source

Paterson, Erik T.

Format

Print Black & White

Primary Documentation

Other Information

Related Image: imilar image mounted in James Wordie’s 1937 album with the number and caption:
“July 15 - 24”
“163. Wordie releases the balloon.”
See Related Documents File. [Jocelyne Dudding 7/3/2008]


Bibliographical Reference: J. M. Wordie; H. Carmichael; E. G. Dymond; T. C. Lethbridge, ‘An Expedition to North West Greenland and the Canadian Arctic in 1937’ in The Geographical Journal, Vol. 92, No. 5. (Nov., 1938), pp. 385-418.
Text on pp. 389 includes:
“Godhavn was reached on July 15, and preparations at once began for the first balloon flight. ... We had decided that the smaller pilot balloons, which were to be flown daily to test weather conditions, should be under as careful and continuous observation during flight as the larger instrument-carrying balloons. In this way in addition to the main object, which was to predict the probable landing place of the instrument balloons, we were also able to make a study of the movements of the upper air. Observers had to be trained in instrument use and in routine, and this was done with the pilot balloons, each about 4 feet in diameter, during the first three days of our stay, while Dymond, Hunter, and Carmichael were unpacking and assembling their instruments. A base was laid out, one end near where McClintock's Fox lies, her ribs and keel still exposed at low tide, the other about 1 mile distant across the harbour at the "watering place”. [JD 14/2/2007]

P.86084.PAT to P.86583.PAT were found wrapped in the card now numbered C446/1/.

This catalogue record has been updated with the support of the Getty Grant Program Two. [Jocelyne Dudding 7/2/2007]