Polar Explorers for Kids: Historic Expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic with 21 Activities
Note to Readers IN THIS BOOK you will find dates on which various expeditions launched numbers of men who were on them and accounts of what happened on an explor er's first voyage as opposed to his second or third There are many reliable sources of information al though unfortunately the actual journals of many of these explorers are out of print but inconsistencies do exist in various accounts for example even the birth years of some of the earlier explorers are not known with certainty In writing this book I have made every effort to present the most accurate infor
mation available You will come across some dates that are followed C 9 by B C or A D B C which stands for before Christ refers to a time in history prior to the birth of Christ AD which stands for after death refers to a time in history after the death of Christ Dates that do not include either B c or A D are always A
Introduction or centuries people have been fascinated by the exquisite icy wildernesses of the Arctic and Antarctic While both areas captured the imagination of explorers each land mass has its own distinct characteristics and appeal The Arctic where the North Pole is found has polar bears but no pen guins Antarctica home of the South Pole has pen guins but no polar bears The Arctic has land around and under some but not all of its ice Antarctica is just a giant slab of glacial ice over rock and it has active volcanoes Both poles are such powerful en gines for cold air patterns and cold water currents that they affect the climate of the whole
