Powered by OpenAIRE graph
Found an issue? Give us feedback
image/svg+xml art designer at PLoS, modified by Wikipedia users Nina, Beao, JakobVoss, and AnonMoos Open Access logo, converted into svg, designed by PLoS. This version with transparent background. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Open_Access_logo_PLoS_white.svg art designer at PLoS, modified by Wikipedia users Nina, Beao, JakobVoss, and AnonMoos http://www.plos.org/ Publikationer från K...arrow_drop_down
image/svg+xml art designer at PLoS, modified by Wikipedia users Nina, Beao, JakobVoss, and AnonMoos Open Access logo, converted into svg, designed by PLoS. This version with transparent background. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Open_Access_logo_PLoS_white.svg art designer at PLoS, modified by Wikipedia users Nina, Beao, JakobVoss, and AnonMoos http://www.plos.org/
Publikationer från KTH
Part of book or chapter of book . 2022 . Peer-reviewed
https://doi.org/10.4324/978100...
Part of book or chapter of book . 2022 . Peer-reviewed
Data sources: Crossref
versions View all 3 versions
addClaim

This Research product is the result of merged Research products in OpenAIRE.

You have already added 0 works in your ORCID record related to the merged Research product.

Walter Wood and the legacies of science and alpinism in the St Elias Mountains

Authors: Peder Roberts;

Walter Wood and the legacies of science and alpinism in the St Elias Mountains

Abstract

This chapter explores how the American mountaineer and geographer Walter Abbott Wood built a personal and institutional legacy in the St Elias Mountains between Yukon and Alaska. After his early experience as part of the “golden age” of United States mountaineering in Alaska, Wood participated in cold-weather warfare research during World War II, followed by a research program in glaciology (Operation Snow Cornice) under the auspices of the Arctic Institute of North America (AINA). Wood’s personal connections to the region only deepened with the 1951 death of his wife and daughter in the mountains, and they took their most concrete form in the Icefield Ranges Research Programme, co-sponsored by AINA, which grew during the 1960s and early 1970s from a glacier-focused venture to a study of the total environment of the region from a base camp at Kluane Lake. The chapter examines how Wood’s personal attachment to the region mapped onto contemporary military imperatives, particularly for knowledge of human physiological reactions at high altitudes, and why this prompted speculation in Canada about connections to US military plans in south and east Asia. The creation of the Kluane Lake National Park in 1972 coincided with a shift toward research focused more on life than earth sciences and with Wood’s own retirement from active involvement at the site. A strand that runs throughout the chapter is the nature of Wood’s inscription of his own ambitions on to the mountains - and how that facilitated, and perhaps even necessitated, an erasure of the First Nations wholived in and around the Kluane Lake region. While the continuing AINA presence at Kluane Lake no longer ignores First Nations, the chapter concludes that reflecting on how legacies are made and personal connections inscribed on landscapes must involve consideration of structural visibility and invisibility. QC 20230614 ERC StG 716211

Country
Sweden
Related Organizations
Keywords

History, Historia

34 references, page 1 of 4

1 For an overview of this research, see Ryan K. Danby, Andrew Williams, and David S. Hik, “Fifty Years of Science at the Kluane Lake Research Station”, Arctic 67, supplement 1 (January 2014): iii-viii and Garry K.C. Clarke, “A Short and Somewhat Personal History of Yukon Glacier Studies in the Twentieth Century”, Arctic 67, supplement 1 (January 2014): 1-21.

2 No biography has been written of Wood, and the extant material on his personal life is slight. For an overview of his life, see, for instance, the obituary written by his son Peter Wood, “Walter Abbott Wood 1907-1993”, Arctic 47, no. 2 (June 1994): 203-204.

3 Maurice Isserman, Continental Divide: A History of American Mountaineering (New York: W.W. Norton, 2016), especially 230-251.

4 Peter Lloyd, “Noel Ewart Odell 1890-1987”, The Alpine Journal 93 (1988): 309.

5 Wood is barely mentioned in Continental Divide, Isserman's magisterial history of American mountaineering, something that I feel reflects Wood's status as it was perceived by his contemporaries rather than any oversight on the part of the author.

6 David Roberts, The Last of His Kind: The Life and Adventures of Bradford Washburn, America's Boldest Mountaineer (New York: Harper, 2010), especially pp. 66-67.

7 Wood, “The Ascent of Mt. Steele”, The American Alpine Journal 48, no. 252 (1936): 81-85.

8 Roberts, Last of His Kind, 66.

9 Wood was sufficiently well respected to be charged with leading the American Alpine Club's inquiry into the ill-fated 1939 K2 expedition, a report that criticized the authoritarian leadership style of its German-born leader Fritz Wiessner. Isserman, Continental Divide, 259.

10 Walter A. Wood, “The Wood Yukon Expedition of 1935: An Experiment in Photographic Mapping”, Geographical Review 26, no. 2 (1936): 228-246.

  • BIP!
    Impact byBIP!
    citations
    This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
    0
    popularity
    This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network.
    Average
    influence
    This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
    Average
    impulse
    This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network.
    Average
  • citations
    This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
    0
    popularity
    This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network.
    Average
    influence
    This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
    Average
    impulse
    This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network.
    Average
    Powered byBIP!BIP!
Powered by OpenAIRE graph
Found an issue? Give us feedback
citations
This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Citations provided by BIP!
popularity
This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Popularity provided by BIP!
influence
This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Influence provided by BIP!
impulse
This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Impulse provided by BIP!
0
Average
Average
Average
Funded by
Related to Research communities
GOTRIPLE - Social Sciences and Humanities Discovery service