The above image appeared in The Irish Independent‘s Weekend Magazine, on April 2013, as part of Behind the Lens, a series where the editors ask “Ireland’s best known photographers to send us a shot of their proudest work and explain in a few lines why it’s their favourite piece. ”

So, here’s what I wrote:

Sleeping Dragon, Kangerdlugssuaq Fjord, East Greenland, 2009.

I keep returning to this image of the Sleeping Dragon – sometimes on my own, sometimes through the eyes of others, who take personal impressions from the photograph that I never could. On a practical level it’s weatherworn iceberg, calved from a fast-moving Greenland glacier. The sunlight filtered by a cloud of fog has made the image almost monochrome – but, this is actually a color picture made from a passing ship, as fog was burned off by the Arctic sun. The photograph freezes a moment in time, but that moment is all about change; perhaps when humans began understanding how they are altering the planet’s climate mechanisms through CO2 emissions and pollution. Today, this iceberg will not look the same as it did in 2009, which is a natural phenomenon – ice forms and melts. However, it is the rate of change in the Arctic that is alarming – all thanks to our insistence on warming up the planet.

This iceberg is calved from Kangerdlussuaq glacier, the largest glacier on the east coast of Greenland’s ice sheet and probably the world’s fastest moving glacier. Kangerdlugssuaq tripled its speed between 2004 and 2005, and is now rapidly moving mass out of the middle of Greenland’s ice sheet, in the form of icebergs. This has urgent implications for both the mass balance of the Greenland ice sheet, and for the rate of sea level rise globally. Taken from the deck of the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise, during a 2009 expedition to investigate the effects of climate change in the Arctic.

Greenpeace: Save the Arctic

Brunnich’s Guillemot © Dave Walsh

So, penguins live in the south, and polar bears in the north – never the twain will meet, despite the best efforts of toymakers and cartoons. But was there ever penguins in the Arctic? Dave investigates.

First published on the Greenpeace International website July 2010

Throughout the Esperanza’s journey around the coast of Svalbard, we’ve been kept company by several species of alcid – the auks and the guillemots. There are the cute little auks, the clownish puffins and the garrulous black guillemots, with their chatty red beaks and red feet.

There’s the more sociable Brünnich’s guillemots, that seem to form well-organized welcoming delegations wherever we stop the ship off the north coast, providing the crew with great entertainment – especially in how they seem to use their feet as airbrakes when “cornering”. The chattier black guillemots get the most laughs – Captain Joe, Erik and I watched three of them standing on a piece of ice, where they got into such a heated argument that they all lost their balance, and off into the water with a splash. Several crewmembers have noted that the guillemots and auks remind them of penguins. Maybe so, but the major difference is that all the birds around here can actually fly, unlike penguins. True, the auks and guillemots may not the most efficient looking in the air, but evolution has granted them a compromise; they can also “fly” under water, and dive to depths of tens of metres. It’ an impressive thing to witness the white wing flashes of a black guillemot torpedoing along under the ocean’s surface.

Auks – Images by Dave Walsh

But these auks and guillemots are definitely not penguins: after all, there are no penguins in the Arctic. Or is there? Someone told me that there was a misguided and failed attempt to introduce penguins to the island of Lofoten, of the Norwegian mainland, but that doesn’t count. What about those cheesy greeting cards showing penguins trying to wake up polar bears with crashing cymbals (a colleague, Sara, has this card on her desk in Amsterdam)? If it were true, it probably would make poor evolutionary sense for a penguin to do such as thing anywhere near a hungry bear.

Up or Down?
To be honest, it’s pretty easy get confused about the whole penguin issue, and other polar facts. Sometimes, when I tell people that I’m off to the Arctic, I see a vague uneasy look in their eye. There’s a pause before they ask shly:

“Is that the one at the top or the bottom? Does it have polar bears?”

On other occasions, I get a more cheery, confident “say hello to the penguins for me!”

I don’t have the heart to tell them that not only is there no polar bears in Antarctica, there are most definitely no penguins in the Arctic. Despite cartoons and popular images, never the twain will meet. Which is lucky for the penguins, and means the polar have to stick mostly to unlucky seals.

Now that we’ve got this little fact straight, and before I start contradicting myself, let’s settle a few other issues; the Arctic is most definitely in the north; the Antarctic is in without doubt in the south. The ancient Greeks named the Arctic after the constellation Arkitikos, the Great Bear; the Antarctic is the opposite of the Arctic.

The Antarctic is a huge continent, covered in freshwater ice, surrounded by the salty sea ice of the Southern Ocean. The Arctic is a sea-ice-covered ocean, surrounded by the landmasses of North America and Eurasia, parts of which, such as Greenland are covered in thick glacial icecaps of freshwater.

The North Pole itself is actually in the middle of the ocean; but there is no “pole” at the North Pole – and even if you put one there, it wouldn’t stay for long, before drifting off with the piece of sea ice it’s attached to. There is a pole at the South Pole, a rather questionable stripy pole with a silver ball attached.

Yes We Have No Penguins Today
But there are still no penguins in the Arctic. Got that?

I thought I had got it, until earlier this year, when this “fact” came up in conversation with a French friend of mine, Marie-Catherine. I explained the whole polar bear vs. penguin confusion, but she took issue with my claims and promised research. The next day, I receive an email from her confirming her suspicions. In French, the word manchot is used to describe the penguins we know and love in Antarctica. However, the word pingouin is used to describe guillemots and auks of the northern hemisphere; for instance, the ‘petit pingouin’, is the Razorbill, Alca torda.

I did a bit more reading, and found that the true northern ‘penguin’ was the now-extinct and flightless Great Auk; its Latin name Pinguinis impennis says it all. Unlike the smaller auks and guillemots that have been keeping us company this summer, the Great Auk didn’t live in the Arctic – it didn’t really stray farther north than Iceland and could be found from Newfoundland and Greenland to Scotland.

The Great Auk
The Great Auk liked to sit up straight, was an impressive 80cm tall, and could fly through the water gracefully; but it was a poor walker and unable to fly at all, making it easy prey for hunters and hungry sailors. The last authenticated kill of a great auk was in June 1844 in Iceland, ironically the result of a hunt for to supply a dealer in rare birds and eggs.

Its closest surviving relative is the razorbill, the ‘petit pingouin’ that Marie-Catherine talked about. There are a few razorbills hanging around Svalbard, but not many venture this far north, most of them living farther south in the North Atlantic.

So why is this extinct bird called a penguin? There are various theories on how the word ‘penguin’ came out. One line of thought suggests it comes from ‘pingwen’ a Welsh word, with ‘pen’ meaning ‘head’ and ‘gywn’ meaning white, referring to the white patch beside the great auk’s eyes. However it started, it seems clear that the great auk was the first bird to be called a ‘penguin’.

Jackass
It’s no clearer how the flightless birds of the Southern Ocean became the ‘penguins’ we know today. When the first explorers started wandering south, finding the Fairy Penguins of Australia and New Zealand, or the Jackass penguins of South Africa or the various penguins of South America, maybe they reminded them of the ‘penguins’ back home.

Or perhaps it was later, as explorers and sealers and whalers started visiting the subantarctic islands, where they found the breeding colonies of king penguins and other smaller Antarctic species. I think it most likely that the big king penguins, standing upright, flightless and comical, reminded them of the pingwens north of the Equator.

The rest is history. The first true penguin vanished into oblivion, thanks to human predation. Today, everyone knows what a penguin looks like (even if they don’t know where they live, but few people have ever heard of the great auk.

And that is why, ladies and gentlemen, there are no penguins in the Arctic. Unless, of course, you count the millions of little auks, black guillemots, Brünnich’s guillemots, razorbills, common guillemots and puffins.

First published by Greenpeace International, July 2010
- Dave

Other reading:
The Great Auk (Wikipedia)
The Great Auk: The Extinction of the Original Penguin (Google Books)
The Last Great Auk (Thoughtomics)
The Home of the Great Auk (Popular Science, 1888)
Alaskan black guillemots fight ice retreat
(BBC)

On Tuesday April 23, 2013, Greenpeace Belgium will launch Arctic: Another World?, a solo exhibition of my polar photography, at the Belgian Senate building in Brussels. Aimed at policymakers, the exhibition runs until the 26th and is not open to the general public – but I’m currently working with Greenpeace and other partners to setup a big public exhibition in Brussels in the coming months – more news on this very soon!

“With his images, photographer Dave Walsh offers a unique look at the Arctic. A beautiful area melting at record speed. With the disappearance of the ice, the dark sea water will absorb more heat, increasing the Earth’s temperatures by several degrees. The North Pole is not a mythical place or “another world” but a threatened area, capable of impacting our lifestyles”.

The Arctic: Another World? Exhibition – Images by Dave Walsh

I’m delighted to share these images with you – my picture of an iceberg, made in Nugatsiaq, West Greenland in 2009, has been featured on the front cover of the March 2013 issue of GEO France magazine (circulation 250,000). I made the image, of a high altitude cloud ‘erupting’ over a triple-arched iceberg, while sailing by on the Greenpeace icebreaker, Arctic Sunrise.

GEO also features another image of mine in a double spread, the Sleeping Giant, photographed in Kane Basin, Greenland:

View it large »

More of my polar work here.

I’ve done a few interviews recently, all of which have had the unexpected outcome of telling me more about myself, my photography, and my reason for doing things than I had expected. The latest interview was by the insightful writer, photographer and web designer David Moore, who has been a friend and colleague for almost 16 years. We know each other from our days in Dublin. Now, he’s in New Mexico and I’m in Brussels, we had to catch up over Skype, instead of over Guinness in Ryans of Parkgate St.

David has devised a simple, and intriguing interview format: each photographer suggests two of their own images and two by other photographers, and David asks questions about the photographer’s relationship with each.

Two and Two: Interview with Environmental Photographer Dave Walsh

Off the coast of southeast Ireland lie the two small Saltee Islands. Their simple, low-slung landscapes, four or five kilometres of the Wexford fishing village of Kilmore Quay belie their layers of history, folklore and bizarre stories. On approach, there are few warnings of the extent of the islands’ abundant wildlife, but more than 220 species of birds live, nest, or migrate through the Saltees, including gannets, fulmars, kittiwakes, puffins, shearwaters, razorbills and guillemots, all completely unfussed by human visitors. Curious grey seals eat fish scraps from the hands of fishermen, and stalk daytrippers who walk the cliffs – their big doe eyes staring up plaintively from the azure waters below.

Nothing is ordinary here. So I didn’t write anything ordinary.

The Saltees have their own Prince, Michael the First, now succeeded by his son – Michael the Second. An extraordinary man, Michael Neal – brought up on the nearby mainland, he bought the land here in the 1940s, and declared himself ruler in answer to a vow he made to his mother around 1920. After a protracted bureaucratic battle with the authorities, Prince Michael was left alone to rule.

“All people young and old, are welcome to come, see and enjoy the islands, and leave them as they found them for the unborn generations to come see and enjoy.”

- Michael the First

Micronation: The Saltee Islands – Images by Dave Walsh

Arrival
Salt. Saltwater. Salt Ey, in Old Norse: Salt Island, Saltee Islands Great and Little, whipped, licked and spat on by the wild Atlantic waves. Graveyard of a thousand ships, lured onto savage reefs and rocks. Shipwrecks, born of shipwreckers, tied lanterns to grazing cattle to lure homesick skippers into the jagged shores. Countless lost, more lost saving them, or fighting for the salvage booty of booze, sugar, maize. St. Patrick’s Bridge sometimes usable at low ebb, thrown together by a roman Welshman – unknown for his civil engineering acumen – in a fit of rage while pursuing the Devil himself from Co. Tipperary. Pirate caves full of gold, smugglers of brandy and wine. Unwilling revolutionary hero, Bagnel Harvey found hiding in the caves, hung on Wexford Bridge, beheaded.

The island’s own prince, Michael the First, Lord of this wondrous micronation off the coast of Wexford. Boat out of kilmore with barefoot Cap’n Bates. Salt in the eyes from the ocean spray, on a good day, gannets kiting behind. Ashore via rubber boat, and up to the flag and Welcome Stone. The strange presences of the Absent Twelve. Past the house, through the bracken to the windward side, stone throne – dedicated to the Prince’s Mother. An obelisk, “symbol to all children that by hard work, perseverance, their dreams and ambitions may also be realised”.

The sudden silence, unbothered by the wind of cacophony of seafowl. A loomery of sad, comic puffins, the occasional bury of rabbits, a bazaar of bespectacled guillemots. A strop of sceptical razorbills, offset by the chaotic potential of a plunging of gannets, only reached by running the gantelope through a hangout of hissing black shags. Doe-eyed seals stalking walkers from their azure kingdom below, countless millions or orange and black cinnabar moth caterpillars festooning every known blade of grass. An absolute improbability of shearwaters. A missing Ogham stone, stolen, sold – the perpetrator long passed.

Departure
End of day, punting back to Bate’s boat on a low tide. Another seal spies on us. Sunburned and saltee and quiete, Kilmore Quay grows larger. The Saltees grow smaller to the eye, larger in the imagination.

From the Welcome Stone on Great Saltee:

The Saltee Islands

And the waters surrounding them are an absolute possession of the prince of the Saltees and his heirs.
No man or assembly of men has any right whatsoever to interfere in the affairs of the Saltee Islands
All decisions affecting the islands are made by the prince of the Saltees and his heirs both of the male and female line.

Any decision not unanimous can be brought before the absent twelve”.
The “absent twelve” will consist of twelve fisherman only, who can come from any part of the earth.
All people young and old, are welcome to come, see and enjoy the islands, and leave them as they found them for the unborn generations to come see and enjoy.

Michael the First

More:
Saltee Island official website
From List of Micronations Wiki: Principality of the Saltee Islands

“..for most of us, caught up in the headaches, stresses, and diversions of daily life, what happens in the Arctic can stay in the Arctic and the loss of sea ice has little to do with us. The global media are beginning to wake up but often the reporting of changes in the Arctic are confusing, hysterical or incorrect. In July for instance, it was widely reported that Greenland’s ice sheets were melting but the coverage was confusing and inconsistent. In reality however, 97% of Greenland’s gigantic freshwater ice sheet is experiencing melting; more than ever before recorded. If the ice sheet were to suddenly melt, the world’s oceans would rise by a catastrophic seven meters. That might grab our attention. In reality the melting process is slower but even at current rates it is becoming a major contributor to global sea level rises.”

Read More: Inquire Magazine: The Cold Edge

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Welcome to my winter newsletter, with news on the continuing Cold Edge adventure, how you can get your hands on the Cold Edge book and a chance to catch my photographs at the Christmas Exhibition at The Copper House, Dublin, from this Thursday, November 29th.

Launch Night

On September 13, The Cold Edge opened at The Copper House Gallery in Dublin. It was a wild night – I’m still recovering – and during the weeks afterwards, hundreds of people visited the gallery to see pictures, beautifully printed by the folks at Fire.  On Culture Night, when thousands of people around Ireland flock to galleries, museums and events, the show drew a great crowd. If you managed to make it along – thank you. If you missed out on the fun, and even if the pictures are no longer on the walls, please feel free to drop by The Copper House, where the friendly staff can give you a close look at the prints for yourself. Do let me know if you would like more information.

With Christmas on the way, don’t forget thatCold Edge limited edition prints, are available in a variety of formats and sizes: have a look at the selection on The Copper House Gallery website to get a better idea of what we’ve got on offer, with prices starting at €175.  The Copper House will ship the works to you, no matter where you are (on Earth) – so don’t be shy – Cold Edge prints have travelled all over the world, and have lived to tell the tale.

Where you there? Find yourself in the exhibition launch photographs. I’d like to thank Leszek, Orla, Maureen and all the team at The Copper House for turning The Cold Edge into a physical reality, and Duncan Cleary for his great speech on the night, and Leszek for his rousing introduction. What did I say? Listen to me here.

In the flesh: The Cold Edge Images, on the wall at The Copper House. And me… just for scale.

Christmas Exhibition

The Copper House Gallery Christmas Exhibition opens on November 29th, and runs until January 8th, featuring my work alongside many talented visual artists based in Ireland.

The Cold Edge Book

Need a gift idea? There’s still a couple of weeks left for ordering online – with online publisher Blurb you can still get your hands on The Cold Edge book before December 25th. The Cold Edge – which features poetry by Duncan Cleary, features not only the 16 images from The Cold Exhibition – the full Cold Edge Collection.

25% of profits go to Greenpeace.

Preview and purchase The Cold Edge book.

And in other news:

• The Guardian: The Cold Edge: Polar Photography by Dave Walsh
• Discovery News: On Earth’s Cold Edge
• RTE 2XM Culture Cafe interview about The Cold Edge exhibition
• Interview by Roger Overall on the Documentary Photographer Podcast, about the polar regions and the relationship between the photographer and the viewer
• Photoshelter intervew: Three things you didn’t know about photographing icebergs 
• aCurator: The Polar Edge
• The Straits Times, Singapore: Knock ‘em Cold

Social Media

Twitter: @davewalshphoto

Facebook: www.facebook.com/davewalshphoto

Website

www.davewalshphoto.com

“Our Christmas Print Exhibition 2012 will showcase an eclectic range of originals and limited edition prints. We will be exhibiting a wide selection of contemporary fine art, photography and illustration from our gallery artists”.

Thanks to Lauren Margolis, and the guys over at Photoshelter for taking time out of mopping after the recent Hurricane Sandy, to publish a fun Q&A with me about photographing in icy and very sunny conditions.

Lauren writes:

Picture this: You’re out on a ship in the middle of the Arctic Ocean. From afar, the icebergs look like moderately-sized chunks. But as you get closer, you realize that your little ship dwarfs in comparison to these monstrous beings, and they’re actually not still at all, but slowly bobbing in the water. And every now and then, a hunk (the size of your head? your car? you can’t tell from here) breaks off the side.

It might sound nerve-racking, but polar and environmental photographer Dave Walsh lives for this kind of adventure. “The frozen regions of our planet have the power to ignite imaginations,” says Dave, “but for most of the 7 billion people on Earth, the Arctic and Antarctic remain abstract and unreachable.”

Continue reading on the Photoshelter website

Great news: A selection of images from The Cold Edge series has been featured by the Discovery News homepage!

The Arctic is changing. Summer sea ice extent this year was at its lowest in the satellite record as global warming tightens its grip. But change is relative. At their most hostile, the polar regions remain cold and forbidding: as photographer Dave Walsh calls them in his new book, “The Cold Edge” of the planet.

Walsh, who has traveled to Arctic and Antarctic multiple times over the last several years, launched his book with an exhibit at the Copper House Gallery in his native Ireland. “I wanted my photographs” – such as this iceberg, a bright blue as a result of ice being compressed for thousands of years – “to inspire people to not only fall in love with their home planet, but to start giving a damn and take action to protect it.” says Walsh.

View the story on Discovery News.

More about The Cold Edge, and the recent exhibition in Dublin

Thanks to Kieran at Discovery for making this happen!

Dave

Back in mid-October, The Straits Times in Singapore ran a double spread with my Cold Edge photographs, with the title “Knock ‘em cold”. It’s good to see my pictures getting a run in Asia – so far The Cold Edge has gotten coverage in Australia, Europe and the US – next, Africa!

Thanks to Malcolm McLeod, picture editor at The Straits Times for choosing the images, Niall O’Leary at Millennium Images for making this happen, and to Caroline Bowler – a friend of mine living in Singapore, for posting the newspaper to me.

View the above picture LARGE

Roger not only interviewed me about my images, he opened up many avenues in my trains of thought that had previously been unexplored – or at least unexploited. In fact, having now listened to the recording, I think it’s fair to say that I can take inspiration from Roger’s enthusiasm, my own passion, and “call to arms” – it feels a little weird, but there you have it.

As Roger writes:

“Dave a man with a complex outlook of the world. He is able to articulate environmental issues in a nuanced way that reflects the complexities of the challenges that the planet faces. “There are things to lament. There are things to celebrate,” he says. He emphasizes the need to empower people so that they can take ownership of the planet and contribute to its continued health – something he hopes his photography helps to achieve.”

Read more, and listen to the podcast here

UPDATE
After a reference I made to a Forbes article about Joel Sternfeld during the interview, Roger tracked down its author, the intriguing conceptual artist Jonathon Keats, and interviewed him about “what makes a documentary photograph”.

When I was in Dublin recently, for the launch of my Cold Edge exhibition at the Copper House Gallery, I met up with Vanessa Monaghan, who interviewed me for Ireland’s RTE 2XM radio show Culture Cafe. In the interview, I talk about the inspirations and passions that drive my work, and what draws me to the magical Arctic and Antarctic ecosystems. The Arctic and Antarctic are part of our planet – and the Arctic is not far away from Ireland – the earth is a closed, finite system – the polar regions are part of our life. It’s now threatened by pollution, and resource exploitation.

Listen to the Cold Edge Interview » (MP3, 9.7MB, 10 minutes)

Thanks to @nessymon for making the MP3 available!

Julie Grahame, editor of aCurator Magazine writes:

If you’re lucky enough to be in Dublin between now and September 29th, it looks as if you can’t miss Dave Walsh’s exhibition of polar photographs. As much as I love the back-lit screen, it seems redundant to say these must look spectacular in-person.

Thanks, Julie!

Introduced by curator Leszek Wolnik, and poet Duncan Cleary, my Cold Edge Exhibition opened on September 13th 2012, in Dublin’s Copper House Gallery, Dublin, featuring 16 limited editions prints of my polar photographs. It both was sobering and exciting to enter the gallery earlier in the day to see the work made flesh – the images that have been part of my life, part of my mind for so long, now printed, huge, and hung upon a gallery wall. From that moment, I realised, the pictures are no longer really mine – I’ve shared them with the wider world, for people to impose their own expectations and assumptions upon them. I’m quite happy about this, I have no interest in stifling my work, or worrying the chance that someone might misinterpret it. It’s out there, wild, and free to be interpreted.

The evening’s launch was funny, frenzied and busy – lots of new faces, lots of old friends, and the nervousness of standing up and explaining what it’s all about. I had some help, however, from Leszek and Duncan, who were hard acts to follow:

Curator Leszek Wolnik said: “We’re always excited when we have a new show but this is quite exceptional – the energy in here today when we were all walking around! In the morning, when you’ve gotthe morning light in the gallery, and you’ve got those images… I don’t want to overdo it, but, it almost felt, I hesitate to use the word, “sacred”, with a feeling of peace and sanctity”.
Leszek Wolnik introducing The Cold Edge (mp3)

“Everybody should have a mate like Dave… then you get to tell people ‘my mate Dave’, and about all the mad stuff that he’s done, and they don’t really believe you.”

“Dave displays a kind of dogged professionalism and persistence with what he does, which perhaps isn’t that common these days, with people’s short attention spans. And I think it should be applauded, because his commitment to his work is very clear”.
Duncan Cleary: My Mate Dave (mp3)

“These are real places, they seem like they’re on another planet, but it’s this planet… as Duncan said a lot of these pictures are ephemeral. Most of what I’ve photographer here doesn’t exist anymore, or reference which may not exist… all of these things are in flux”.
Dave Walsh, The Cold Edge

Slideshow:


The Cold Edge Launch – Images by Dave Walsh

The Guardian have featured my Cold Edge images in the run up my exhibition of Polar Photography opening tomorrow in Dublin. 

The north and the south pole are haunting and awe-inspiring in equal measure – the icebergs bathe in blues of all hues, constantly sculpted by fierce winds. Polar bears stalk the ice sheets, and underneath, ancient creatures, some still undiscovered, swim in deep dark waters. 

Dave Walsh’s photographs show what it is like to be truly on the edge. The images taken during Greenpeace expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctica, between 2007 and 2010, question our romantic relationship with remote, harsh and pristine environments of the polar regions

Read the article…

Visit my website here to see more details

Cold Edge Exhibition – Images by Dave Walsh

The Cold Edge by Dave Walsh with Duncan Cleary

25% of profits on book sales goes to Greenpeace.

Preview & Purchase the Cold Edge Book »

The Cold Edge: Exhibition and Prints

Update: Pictures from the Cold Edge Opening night

Blog from the Cold Edge launch

There comes a time in a photographer’s life when (s)he finally gets to announce the Big News; a first major solo exhibition. It’s unnerving, exciting, heartening, and reassuring. There’s also the sense of achievement, and a feeling of “yes, I was right to hammer away so for many years on something I care passionately about”. And so, many, many thanks to Leszek Wolnik, at The Copper House Gallery in Dublin who has invited me to show my work on September 13th, 2012.


View the Cold Edge Exhibition Images –

The Cold Edge exhibition comprises of 16 images from a wider collection, drawn from my many trips beyond the Arctic and Antarctic circles. I think they give a sense of uncertain beauty, fragile, yet fierce, a liminal zone where we have to face the fear of straying further – in space, but also in a metaphoric sense. But rather than scare people away from the polar regions, I want people to embrace them – not necessarily to travel there,but to embrace them as integral part of life on our planet, rather than somewhere infinitely exotic, or something simply watched on TV.

The show opens at 6:00, at The Copper House Gallery. You can RSVP via my Facebook page, and here’s directions to the gallery, which is close to Dublin’s Camden St. My friend, poet Duncan Cleary will introduce the exhibition, and I’m sure it’ll be a wild evening.

Limited edition prints of all the images are available – contact The Copper House Gallery for more details.

See also: The Cold Edge – The Book

Here’s the press release from The Copper House:

THE COLD EDGE
Polar Photography by Dave Walsh

The Copper House Gallery presents The Cold Edge, an exhibition of stunning polar images by photographer, writer and environmentalist Dave Walsh, at 6pm on Thursday 13th September 2012. Walsh’s ethereal photographs of the unforgiving wilderness, wild animals and blue icebergs question our romantic relationship with remote, harsh and pristine environments. The images resonate with a quiet tension; all may not be right in the Garden of Eden.

“While the frozen regions of our planet have the power to ignite imaginations, for most of the seven billion people on Earth, the Arctic and Antarctic remain abstract and unreachable”, says Walsh. “ I’ve been lucky enough to voyage north and south by ship, to experience the serenity of the oceans and polar regions – and realise how finite our planet is.”

“Rapid change is taking place at the poles; CO2 emissions are contributing to the loss of Arctic sea ice, and melting ice caps are fueling sea level rise. We are starting to grasp how badly we are fouling the nest, and how our acts have repercussions elsewhere. The future of the Arctic and Antarctic is intertwined with our own – through my photography, I want to make people not only fall in love with their home planet, but to start giving a damn and take action to protect it.”

Originally from Wexford in Ireland’s south east corner, Walsh has voyaged to Greenland, Svalbard (“Cold Edge” in Old Norse) and the Southern Ocean, serving as writer and press officer on board several Greenpeace ship expeditions. Currently based in Brussels, he works with the International Polar Foundation, which promotes action on climate change, energy use, and the crucial role of polar scientific research. Walsh’s photographs have been used by the Irish Labour party, The Financial Times, the HBO comedy series Flight of the Conchords, Greenpeace International, New Scientist, The Smithsonian, Sierra magazine, BBC Wildlife magazine, I Count – Stop Climate Chaos, The UK’s National Theatre, and many others.

He is the author of dozens of articles, online, in newspapers and magazines and has published two books: Haunted Dublin, the co-authored A Load of Blather. Dave is currently working on a book of polar photography, also named The Cold Edge.

Exhibitions include Parallel Worlds at The Factory, Sligo (Solo, 2007), Stand up for Photojournalism National Union of Journalists (touring UK 2009), Environmental Photographer of the Year 2009 (touring UK and Ireland in 2009/2010). Dave Walsh received a commendation at the 2009 Environmental Photographer of the Year awards, and was shortlisted for the Extreme Environment Photographic Competition 2011, at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery.

The Cold Edge, an exhibition by Dave Walsh, runs at The Copper House Gallery from 13th September – 2nd October 2012. Admission is free and all are welcome.

For further information please contact Orla Martin; Email orla@fire.ie Tel 01 478 4088 Web www.thecopperhousegallery.com

Apart from a tiny weather station, there’s feck all here – yet Hans Island has spent decades at the centre of a sometimes surreal territorial dispute.

In fits and starts of childish absurdity, perhaps rivalled only by the Rockall debacle, Hans Island – all 1.3 sq km of it – became Arctic tug-of-lovechild of Canada and Denmark. The two countries – Denmark through its ruling over Greenland – somehow how ended up fighting over this tiny place, spurred on by the media and nationalist sentiments – but recent reports are suggesting that they may carve up the island for once and for all.

Canada, has, for the better part of a century, claimed Hans Island, and therefore dominion over the local geology and resources; the International Court of Justice granted it the island to Greenland in 1933, and therefore Denmark claims it. Then, in the 80s, while both nations were signing an agreement to jointly protect the marine environment in the event of any resource exploitation, a Greenland-based historian bumped into an employee from Canadian Dome Petroleum employee wearing a hat – yes, a hat, with the words “Hans Island NWT” – Northwest Territories. The story broke into Greenlandic papers – it turned out that Dome, unknown to the politicans had been working on Hans Island. Holy war broke out. Not actual war.

Apparently – the story is semi-apocryphal – for several years a back and forth spat followed, with Danish representives showing up to plant a flag and oddly, enough leaving a bottle of aquavit or cognac, both of which would be removed by a Canadian delegation some time later, and replaced by a Canadian flag and Canadian whiskey. The Danes are also said to have left a “Welcome to the Danish Island” sign for the Canadians

Zip forward to 2003-2004, when visits by both Danish and Canadian military to Hans Island resulted in more political twists and turns.Canadian defence minister, Bill Graham even visited the island in 2005, causing a diplomatic row to break out, and even a series of Google advertisements claiming the island for both nations, was disowned by the two administrations.

But in 2007, the Canadians finally admitted that the international border is halfway across the bloody 1.3-by-1.2 kilometre island. And in April 2012, National Post journalist Adrian Humphreys – said that Canada was “preparing to go halfsies on hans”. Looking at the Wikipedia entry about the island, it seems that while Humphreys has reported on Hans Island numerous times in the last decade, it’s seems that its his very articles that seem to have served to escalate the tension. No disrespect to Mr Humphreys – it seems that there’s been plenty of people out there willing to take umbrage or nationalistic stances.

His article from a few days ago quotes someone who really hits the nail on the head:

“The political complexities of making an announcement are, in many ways, much more complicated than settling the actual territorial dispute,” said Whitney Lackenbauer, associate professor of history at St. Jerome’s University.

A couple of absurdist organisations have sprouted up in response to it all – the Hans Island Liberation Front, which seems to be made up of two ‘residents’ of Hans Island, and are both called Hans.

With the North Pole under attack by the Reds, it is more important than ever that Santa Claus relocate to Hans Island. Otherwise the Soviets will take over Christmas gift delivery for the world, filling children’s stockings with old copies of Pravda, bottles of vodka, and spare parts for Ladas. Then they will remember that religion is the opiate of the masses and ban Christmas forever! Friends, we must not let this happen! The Russkie vodka must come directly to us! And as always, we need the company. We hope some of Santa’s elves are female. Even if they aren’t, just having Mrs Claus around would be nice.

… and Radio Free Hans Island:

“This is no time to panic” declared Hansian President for Life Stefan Simpson at his luxurious north shore retreat on a bullhorn from behind elegant walls of designer barbed wire and state of the art landmines. “There is nothing, absolutely nothing wrong that we cannot fix. The facts are simple. I – that is – you, the Hans Island population, have simply spent more than I – that is you – have brought in lately. There will now follow a short period of rigidly defined doubt and uncertainty while the hard science of economics repositions our credit rating. Now go away or I’ll shoot”.

Hans island IS actualy named after a real Hans – Greenlandic Inuit Hans Hendrik, also known as Heindrich or Suersaq. To refer to Hendrik as an explorer might do him a disservice – he travelled with numerous European and American Arctic expeditions, pulled them out of trouble numerous times. His story is too amazing to do diservice to here.

Hans Island lies in the Kennedy Channel, part of Nares Strait, the body of water that cleaves the rocky shores between Ellesmere Island and northwestern Greenland. Not many people go here – in the past it was ill-prepared explorers and Inuit. Occasionally ships go by here now – I’ve heard it said that just 30 ships have been along here since World War II. Apparently, before 1948, only five ships were said to have navigated successfully north of Kane Basin. In 2009,the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise made the first known June transit into the Arctic Ocean – a month when the Strait should have been locked with ice.

What this is all about, sadly enough, is the search of oil. While Arctic nations may be starting to kiss and make up (or out?) over territorial fracas like Hans Island, the idea of anyone going to drill for oil in the High Arctic is appalling enough. Insurance giant Lloyd’s of London agree – this week the company put out a report penned by Chatham House Arctic expert Charles Emmerson, which according to The Guardian, highlights “huge potential environmental damage from oil drilling in the Arctic.”

Hans Island – Images by Dave Walsh