Pole
of Cold – lecture review
A packed Ondaatje theatre at the Royal
Geographical Society witnessed a very special story told with great passion and
energy on Monday night this week.
Felicity Aston described the journey of 36
000km that she made with two companions in a specially adapted Land Rover
Defender to Oymyakon: the ‘Pole of Cold’ – so called as it is the coldest
inhabited place in the world, with temperatures getting down below -70 degrees
Celsius. There was also an excellent exhibition of images and artefacts on
display, and the Land Rover itself was parked outside the Exhibition Road
entrance, still covered in mud.
The story was told with stunning images,
taken by the photographer Manu Palomeque.
I was delighted to have the chance to speak
to Felicity before the lecture, and she thanked me for the educational resources that I wrote to accompany the journey.
For the purposes of the project, these had
to be written before the journey was finally completed, but I was able to set
in motion some enquiries that could be developed in the future, and there is
also a wealth of audio visual material on the project blog and website.
Felicity drew us in from the first minute
by asking us to imagine a place so cold that we could hear our own breath
freezing, where metal became as brittle as plastic and where every drop of
moisture was frozen solid.
There were tales of reindeer herders,
meeting Father Christmas, travelling the Road of Bones, surviving the cold, the
ice roads and the benefits of the cold.
She finished by reminding us that the
winter, which is often thought of as being dark, is actually full of colour and
that, as the ‘Lord of Cold’ who she met in Oymayakon (and gave a lift home)
said, it can also be our friend. She asked us to think about what winter meant
to us, and whether we had changed our mind after the story we had heard.
I had to leave before the questions session
as I had a long journey back to Norfolk, rather less than the 36 000 km that
Felicity had travelled, and on a day which, ironically, was the warmest of the
year. Before leaving, I had a chance to run my fingers through the Siberian mud
on the Land Rover – the closest I’ll probably get to visiting the region in
person.
Many
thanks to Steve Brace for the invitation to have drinks before the lecture, and
to Rita Gardner for her warm welcome.
Best
wishes to Felicity for her future travels.
Pole of Cold URL: http://www.poleofcold.com
Image of me and Felicity, taken by Gisli - I'm the scruffy bloke on the left..
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