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So it was practical at one point to dogsled around Antarctica, and it was practical to leave there any dogs who perished. Did this apply to both polar regions?

So it was practical at one point to dogsled around Antarctica, and it was practical to leave there any dogs who perished. Did this apply to both polar regions? Is the Arctic one enormous, 35,000-year-old frozen pet cemetery? Edit: come to think of it, this applies to humans too, at both poles.

JoeAltmaier 2y ago
America is built on top of one enormous Indian graveyard. They were living here for more than ten thousand years. That's a lot of dying.
- dmd 2y ago
  The entire world, other than Antarctica, is a human graveyard, and the American continents have been inhabited for less time than most of the rest.
- nkrisc 2y ago
  Everything everywhere is built on someone’s grave. Also, humans have been in the Americas for far more than ten thousand years, which is itself a small amount of time compared to how long humans have been present elsewhere in the world.
  - JoeAltmaier 2y ago
    Not much longer! 14,000 by some estimates. Just gave a ballpark number but sure, more than that.
    - nkrisc 2y ago
      Depends on where in the Americas you’re talking about. I’ve seen estimates up to 50k years ago for human presence in Beringia, presumably the first humans to make the trek from Asia. Much of the evidence is probably underwater now though.
      - JoeAltmaier 2y ago
        I like that!
yawpitch 2y ago
So, realistically, every continent is an old pet cemetery, Antarctica is just the newest, bleakest, coldest, and driest. It’s also been the least accessible, making it historically impossible to resupply, in turn making it non-colonizable until diesel generators and the airplanes and (sometimes nuclear) icebreakers required to feed them. The Arctic on the other hand isn’t a continent, but pretty much every winter becomes physically connected to multiple inhabited countries that already have populations, and these days road and rail, within their Arctic and sub-Arctic regions. So while the Arctic is definitely a frozen pet cemetery, it’s been a LONG time since it was devoid of dogs (or at least wolves, who colonised it without our help).
- rezmason 2y ago
  Good points! I think I'm just coming to terms (in a public forum) with the bleak fates of animals that humans transport, ie. to the ends of the Earth.
btilly 2y ago
For a frozen open air cemetery, I direct your attention to Mount Everest. Your odds of dying while climbing it are better than while attempting suicide. And most of the bodies just...stay.
- tim333 2y ago
  Nitpick from a former partial Everest climber. The ratio of deaths to summit successes used to be about 5% but the majority of climbers, including me, turn around before getting there. I think the death ratio is down now there are pretty much fixed ropes the whole way to the summit on the south side. The 'Into Thin Air' deaths were because they lost their way in a storm but now you just clip onto the guide rope and walk up/down. The attempt to death ratio is probably more like 0.5% or 0.2% though there aren't really proper figures on number of attempts.
  - bunderbunder 2y ago
    According to Wikipedia the rate of deaths to summit attempts is more like 1%. They cite the Himalayan Database as their source for that figure; I'm not sure how accurate that is. I'm assuming by "summit attempt" they mean something like ascending above the high camp, so that wouldn't include people who abandon the climb lower down the mountain? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deaths_on_eight-thousanders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deaths_on_eight-thousa...
    - tim333 2y ago
      I think the 1% is successful summits to deaths. The number comes down over time. From 1924 (Mallory's death) and 1952 (Hillary's summit) it was infinite deaths per summit as summits were zero.
      - chrisco255 2y ago
        Dividing by zero is undefined not infinity.
fifilura 2y ago
The ice layer is constantly moving and covering things up, so it will be close to impossible to find for example Scott's body and tent 100 years later. At some point some artifacts or bodies will reach the glacier edge and drop into the sea. And for the north, most of it is just ice shelfs anyway. Then again, not that many people died in arctic expeditions. As someone mentioned, mountaineering is a slaughterhouse in comparison. Particularly compared to the size of the Antarctic continent. One example of the case you mentioned though https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9e%27s_Arctic_balloon_expedition#Recovery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9e%27s_Arctic_balloon...
- ajb 2y ago
  Ah, that explains why there aren't thousands of years worth of dead penguins down there.
  - rascul 2y ago
    Maybe there is https://www.livescience.com/63525-penguin-mummies-antarctica.html https://www.livescience.com/63525-penguin-mummies-antarctica...
  - fifilura 2y ago
    Hm, that is interesting. Penguins tend to live on solid ground though AFAIK.
    - ajb 2y ago
      I guess the solid ground still has some ice cover that moves?
  - quuxplusone 2y ago
    I would have thought, also, that penguins tend to live and die near the coastline (where the ice meets the water, I mean, not where the land under the ice disappears) — and tend to correlate with things that like to eat dead penguins. But (1) the preserved Scott dog in the article is on Cape Evans maybe not too far from the coast? and (2) now I wonder if I'm wrong about penguin habits. I'd like to hear more.
madaxe_again 2y ago
The old antarctic stations and huts are littered with corpses, from dogs to ponies to seals to penguins to bits of whale. The first thing you see upon entering Scott’s hut on Ross Island is a giant stinking heap of blubber, and the stables are still full of corpses. The dead dogs outside are still chained and collared, for all eternity. The Antarctic conditions preserve bodies for a long time - in the dry valleys, there are freeze-dried seals who have been there for tens of millennia - the only thing that wears them down is the relentless wind.
- boomboomsubban 2y ago
  > is a giant stinking heap of blubber, Is it actually stinking? I'd assume no, both as most smells are associated with decay and our ability to smell is somewhat hampered in the cold, but I have no idea how much blubber normally stinks.
  - madaxe_again 2y ago
    I promise you it stinks of rancid fat to high hell, despite the interior of the cabin having been below freezing for over a century, as the freezing point of the oils in blubber is well below zero - the strips of blubber sit in a puddle of foul oil. Sour, rotten smell. Thankfully the boot room/stables are separated from the rest of the cabin by a door, so the rest of the cabin just smells of camphor and old paper. One of the people I was with had to run outside and vomit - and then carefully scoop up all of their vomit into a plastic bag, because you only leave footprints in the Antarctic, and take nothing but what you brought with you - including your stomach contents.
    - boomboomsubban 2y ago
      I wasn't sure if your use of "stinking" was literal or not, I didn't think you were lying. Thanks for clarifying!

JoeAltmaier 2y ago

America is built on top of one enormous Indian graveyard. They were living here for more than ten thousand years. That's a lot of dying.

dmd 2y ago
The entire world, other than Antarctica, is a human graveyard, and the American continents have been inhabited for less time than most of the rest.
nkrisc 2y ago
Everything everywhere is built on someone’s grave. Also, humans have been in the Americas for far more than ten thousand years, which is itself a small amount of time compared to how long humans have been present elsewhere in the world.
- JoeAltmaier 2y ago
  Not much longer! 14,000 by some estimates. Just gave a ballpark number but sure, more than that.
  - nkrisc 2y ago
    Depends on where in the Americas you’re talking about. I’ve seen estimates up to 50k years ago for human presence in Beringia, presumably the first humans to make the trek from Asia. Much of the evidence is probably underwater now though.
    - JoeAltmaier 2y ago
      I like that!

yawpitch 2y ago

So, realistically, every continent is an old pet cemetery, Antarctica is just the newest, bleakest, coldest, and driest. It’s also been the least accessible, making it historically impossible to resupply, in turn making it non-colonizable until diesel generators and the airplanes and (sometimes nuclear) icebreakers required to feed them. The Arctic on the other hand isn’t a continent, but pretty much every winter becomes physically connected to multiple inhabited countries that already have populations, and these days road and rail, within their Arctic and sub-Arctic regions. So while the Arctic is definitely a frozen pet cemetery, it’s been a LONG time since it was devoid of dogs (or at least wolves, who colonised it without our help).

rezmason 2y ago
Good points! I think I'm just coming to terms (in a public forum) with the bleak fates of animals that humans transport, ie. to the ends of the Earth.

btilly 2y ago

For a frozen open air cemetery, I direct your attention to Mount Everest. Your odds of dying while climbing it are better than while attempting suicide. And most of the bodies just...stay.

tim333 2y ago
Nitpick from a former partial Everest climber. The ratio of deaths to summit successes used to be about 5% but the majority of climbers, including me, turn around before getting there. I think the death ratio is down now there are pretty much fixed ropes the whole way to the summit on the south side. The 'Into Thin Air' deaths were because they lost their way in a storm but now you just clip onto the guide rope and walk up/down. The attempt to death ratio is probably more like 0.5% or 0.2% though there aren't really proper figures on number of attempts.
- bunderbunder 2y ago
  According to Wikipedia the rate of deaths to summit attempts is more like 1%. They cite the Himalayan Database as their source for that figure; I'm not sure how accurate that is. I'm assuming by "summit attempt" they mean something like ascending above the high camp, so that wouldn't include people who abandon the climb lower down the mountain? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deaths_on_eight-thousanders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deaths_on_eight-thousa...
  - tim333 2y ago
    I think the 1% is successful summits to deaths. The number comes down over time. From 1924 (Mallory's death) and 1952 (Hillary's summit) it was infinite deaths per summit as summits were zero.
    - chrisco255 2y ago
      Dividing by zero is undefined not infinity.

fifilura 2y ago

The ice layer is constantly moving and covering things up, so it will be close to impossible to find for example Scott's body and tent 100 years later. At some point some artifacts or bodies will reach the glacier edge and drop into the sea. And for the north, most of it is just ice shelfs anyway. Then again, not that many people died in arctic expeditions. As someone mentioned, mountaineering is a slaughterhouse in comparison. Particularly compared to the size of the Antarctic continent. One example of the case you mentioned though https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9e%27s_Arctic_balloon_expedition#Recovery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9e%27s_Arctic_balloon...

ajb 2y ago
Ah, that explains why there aren't thousands of years worth of dead penguins down there.
- rascul 2y ago
  Maybe there is https://www.livescience.com/63525-penguin-mummies-antarctica.html https://www.livescience.com/63525-penguin-mummies-antarctica...
- fifilura 2y ago
  Hm, that is interesting. Penguins tend to live on solid ground though AFAIK.
  - ajb 2y ago
    I guess the solid ground still has some ice cover that moves?
- quuxplusone 2y ago
  I would have thought, also, that penguins tend to live and die near the coastline (where the ice meets the water, I mean, not where the land under the ice disappears) — and tend to correlate with things that like to eat dead penguins. But (1) the preserved Scott dog in the article is on Cape Evans maybe not too far from the coast? and (2) now I wonder if I'm wrong about penguin habits. I'd like to hear more.

madaxe_again 2y ago

The old antarctic stations and huts are littered with corpses, from dogs to ponies to seals to penguins to bits of whale. The first thing you see upon entering Scott’s hut on Ross Island is a giant stinking heap of blubber, and the stables are still full of corpses. The dead dogs outside are still chained and collared, for all eternity. The Antarctic conditions preserve bodies for a long time - in the dry valleys, there are freeze-dried seals who have been there for tens of millennia - the only thing that wears them down is the relentless wind.

boomboomsubban 2y ago
> is a giant stinking heap of blubber, Is it actually stinking? I'd assume no, both as most smells are associated with decay and our ability to smell is somewhat hampered in the cold, but I have no idea how much blubber normally stinks.
- madaxe_again 2y ago
  I promise you it stinks of rancid fat to high hell, despite the interior of the cabin having been below freezing for over a century, as the freezing point of the oils in blubber is well below zero - the strips of blubber sit in a puddle of foul oil. Sour, rotten smell. Thankfully the boot room/stables are separated from the rest of the cabin by a door, so the rest of the cabin just smells of camphor and old paper. One of the people I was with had to run outside and vomit - and then carefully scoop up all of their vomit into a plastic bag, because you only leave footprints in the Antarctic, and take nothing but what you brought with you - including your stomach contents.
  - boomboomsubban 2y ago
    I wasn't sure if your use of "stinking" was literal or not, I didn't think you were lying. Thanks for clarifying!