IDNO

P.86324.PAT

Description

Four expedition members and one crew member inflating high altitude balloons in preparation of a flight. A large group of local Inuit watch on in the background; and in the distances are houses of Thule and a large circular tabletop hill.

Place

N America; Arctic; Greenland [Thule]

Cultural Affliation

Inuit; Inughuit [historically Polar Kalaallit; Polar Eskimo]

Named Person

Photographer

None

Collector / Expedition

Paterson, Thomas Thompson

Date

5 - 13 August 1937

Collection Name

Paterson Collection

Source

Paterson, Erik T.

Format

Print Black & White

Primary Documentation

Other Information

Related Image: Same image mounted in James Wordie’s 1937 album with the number and caption:
“August 5 -13.”
“483 - 486. A Carmichael flight was arranged: it flew off west over the sea, & was subsequently recovered”
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 p. 392 includes:
“Then the weather improved again and on August 6 we arrived at Thule in still weather and bright sunshine.
We had hopes of determining the trouble in Dymond's wireless and of completing the balloon experiments during the next week, knowing that later there was much less likelihood of favourable weather on Ellesmere Land and Baffin Land. On August 7 Paterson and Drever were left at the Thule trading post and the ship proceeded to the east side of, Wolstenholme Island, where a flight with Dymond's apparatus was made on the 8th to a height of over 12 miles. The descending balloon drifted gently eastwards over the land and was marked down less than 10 miles inland east of Cape Atholl. Dymond and Robin were therefore landed near a deserted settlement at Narssurssuk in order to recover the apparatus, and if this should not be immediately possible to go on the odd 15 miles to Thule and on the following days quarter the ground from there. The ship meantime proceeded on August 9 to the Cary Islands to see if balloon flights were possible from this mid-water position”. [JD 13/3/2007]

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]