Portsmouth man makes documentary about Arctic exploration

Arctic exploration is not an easy affair. Adolphus W. Greely found that out the hard way after spending three unforgiving years near the North Pole in the late 19th century. Twenty men died during Greely’s expedition to take meteorological, gravitational and scientific readings of the harsh Arctic climate.

Portsmouth resident Dr. Geoffrey Clark first became interested in the story of this polar explorer when he and his family traveled to Ellesmere Island, the northernmost island in the Canadian Arctic. Clark’s guide recommended Greely’s book, “Three Years of Arctic Service,” as a way to learn more about the region. The book inspired Clark to create a documentary film about Greely’s near-death experience. He started a production company called Cocked Hat Ventures and enlisted the help of director/producer Gino Del Guercio to create “Abandoned in the Arctic: Adolphus W. Greely and the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition, 1881-1884.” The film plays at the Music Hall on Saturday, June 23, at 7 p.m., as part of its Wildcard Film Series.

Greely’s adventure began in 1881, when 11 countries set up research stations in the Arctic as part of the first International Polar Year. The United States had two stations, one of which was manned by Greely, a native of Newburyport, Mass. A steamship dropped off the explorer and his crew of 25 men in the Arctic, leaving them with a prefabricated house, food and scientific instruments. The crew was supposed to receive new supplies in 1882 and return home by the summer of 1883, but formidable weather and unexplained circumstances disrupted the supply delivery. While they were stranded, Greely and his men were exposed to biting cold, blinding snow and the eerie isolation of the frozen desert. Food was in such short supply that Greely had one of his men executed for stealing provisions. It was not until 1884 that the crew, whose numbers had by then dwindled to six, was rescued. “In the Army, there is a term for it: FUBAR,” Clark said. “Fucked up beyond all repair.”   

The survivors were brought to the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, and a reception was held in downtown Portsmouth to honor the men on Aug. 3, 1884. But the celebration was tarnished when accusations of cannibalism surfaced. Although the men denied the allegations, several bodies “had definitely been picked on,” Clark said.

Survival sometimes demands drastic measures, but Greely and his men never forgot their original mission. At one point, Greely offered to dump the scientific equipment and the data they had collected, but the crew voted against it. In the last days before they were rescued, Greely stashed the data and marked the spot with a giant pendulum used to measure gravity. The Navy spotted the pendulum and found six men near starvation close by.

To document Greely’s perilous journey, Clark, Del Guercio, six kayakers, a camp manager and a professional explorer paddled the 250 miles of Greely’s final retreat to Cape Sabine, where remains from the original camp are still intact. A mobile base camp motored in every couple of weeks to replenish the group’s supplies. One of the kayakers was David Shedd, a 25-year-old Jackson, N.H., resident and great grandson of Adolphus W. Greely. Although their trip went much smoother than Greely’s, Clark and his party did experience misfortune when an ice shelf crushed a kayak and injured the cameraman inside it. The man had to be evacuated, but in true Greely fashion, Shedd stepped up to the challenge and took over some of the filming and narration responsibilities.    

“The biggest problem is the logistics of working 450 miles from the North Pole, where there are no permanent settlements,” Clark said. There was a weather station 200 miles away, and the closest human settlement was more than 500 miles off in the town of Resolute, which has an airstrip, a grocery store and a medical center.

Clark will deliver a lecture titled “The Making of an Arctic Documentary” on Saturday, Aug. 4, at 10 a.m. in the Randall Gallery at the Portsmouth Athenaeum. An upcoming exhibit at the Athenaeum includes a replication of Greely’s pendulum, along with several other artifacts from the original expedition. Susan Kress Hamilton of Phineas Press designed the exhibit, which includes diaries, journals, a prayer book and other objects borrowed from The Explorer’s Club in New York, Dartmouth College and elsewhere. An opening reception will be held at the Athenaeum on Thursday, June 21, from 5 to 7 p.m. The exhibit is free and open to the public in the Randall Gallery from 1 to 4 p.m. on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.

Also in conjunction with Clark’s film is a lecture by Paul Mayewski, of the Climate Change Institute at the University of Maine, Orono, who will speak about the effects of global warming on the Arctic region. February kicked off the fourth International Polar Year, with scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association using Greely’s original data to help measure what changes have occurred in the past 125 years. Mayewski’s lecture, “The Ice Chronicles and Climate Change,” will be held in the Levenson Room of the Portsmouth Public Library on Thursday, July 26, at 7 p.m. 

“It’s hard going up there once or twice and getting a good feeling for the effects of global warming,” Clark said. But scientists who study the region say, “there is nothing subtle about it at all. It changes every year,” he added.