icegrotto
maxine • 23, she/her • polar exploration, the terror, sailing & art
138 posts
Latest Posts by icegrotto
magdalena bay, view from the peninsula of the tombs, northern spitsbergen, aurora borealis (painted around 1840) is at the louvre??? just saw it in person and shouted
sorry i never replied. everyday is blending together and im losing sense of time
Do you ever wonder, how many books can be written about the exact same story, over and over again?
yep. but luckily when it comes to polar exploration, I can read books about the same story over and over again!
ppl complain abt everyone being so boring/inauthentic/detached these days but the second u have interests they deem unusual theyll be like "waitttt thats giving neurodivergent..." like damn its so awesome that were pathologising giving a fuck about anything they dont sell at a tj maxx
Ignoring my own pains and struggles by reading about someone else’s pains and struggles (polar explorers)
Victor Frankenstein syndrome aka you spent nights over nights crying and bleeding over this work and now that it's finally done you're just like "nvm. it's trash" and go to bed
It's time to rewatch The Terror
(If you wanna read more comics, I’ve posted over 500(!!!!) of them on my patreon where you can read 20-30 new pages a month for just 3€! I use my patreon income for bills and stuff and any contribution makes a really big difference. Check out the link in my pinned post if you want to join!)
I love you PBS I love you NPR I love you public libraries I love you wikipedia I love you project gutenberg I love you librivox I love you libby I love you hoopla I love you openlibrary I love you internet archive I love you resources that make information free and accessible to the public
getting crazy sexually aroused at the thought of sending 100 of my bravest warriors on a suicide mission. i dont even really care what theyre doing out there
currently at the airport as I’m off back to England for some polar research involving this husbird of a feller! Here’s a recent sticker design in the meanwhile 🐧 🪕 polar topical songs but make it groovy baby
Fresh tracks on Charley River
Yukon
1979
Feigning interest in television show till it’s my turn to talk and I can bring it back around to ninth century monastic disputes that served as the foundation for a broader movement of mysticism later on in the 11th century
some of my favorite online resources for nautical/maritime/age of sail things - this is a longish post full of links and i spent a bit of time putting it together from my various bookmarks and collections!! please enjoy!
this blog (christine demerchant) and its many lists of terms and informative pages, for example: sails & rigs & sailing, hull & construction terms, anchors & anchorage, types of boats & ships, points of sail - at the bottom of every page there is a list of books on the topic as well!! this blog is INVALUABLE and has basically everything, and if it doesn't have something it certainly has a link to another blog or a book that has what you need. there's also lot of interesting articles about the author's adventures in making her own sails and building boats and experimenting with sailing. the site is a little difficult to navigate but the information on it is incredible and all very experience-based!!
there's also this blog (roland's model ship building) which is SUCH a delight - it is mostly model ships as the name would suggest but it is an incredibly close look at the little complicated parts of ships and a great resource for the more "how does this look" aspect if a little less "how does this work". my favorite page is the process of building model HMS surprise - it's SO fascinating and even just a quick look through makes visualizing and understanding the physics of it all easier. this in particular is a very good drawing resource for tall ships!
the ever-famous shipindex.org is a completely invaluable resource as well. pretty much anything you want to know about a specific ship can be found here, or at least it makes a spectacular jumping-off point!
another famous resource is falconer's marine dictionary, or: "A New Universal Dictionary of the Marine; Being a Copious Explanation of the Technical Terms and Phrases Usually Employed in the Construction, Equipment, Machinery, Movements, and Military, as Well as Naval, Operations of Ships: with Such Parts of Astronomy, and Navigation, as Will be Found Useful to Practical Navigators" by william falconer and expanded by william burney - the whole text is here online but it can be a little hard to read and understand so i would supplement with the other resources here!
there is also the oxford companion to ships and the sea which i do not have a copy of nor do i have online access to the full text, BUT you can search and find keywords and it will show you excerpts which is surprisingly helpful!! especially good if you don't have time to read the whole dictionary trying to find one specific term.
in the same vein is the oxford encyclopedia of maritime history - same deal as the above and i do not have access to the full text but this is SO useful for looking up specific people and places and ships and battles and such!!! there's TONS of information in this one.
also, a super interesting primary source: digital collections of midshipmen's letters and journals in the united states naval academy!! these are hefty, each link contains a ton of stuff:
Richard Mueller Nixon Letters (1926-1930)
Henry Mylin Keiffer Scrapbook (1907-1911) (one of my favorites of all time, absolutely worth at least a cursory glance)
John Porter Merrell Johnston Letters (1932-1937)
William Frederick Durand U.S.S. Mayflower journal of practice cruise (1879)
Roscoe C. Bulmer Journal (1894-1896)
Josiah G. Beckwith Letters (1853-1855)
this is not my whole collection but it is a fantastic set of jumping-off points and i tried to include the widest & most general databases that i could. if you have a great online resource to add please let me know, and if you have book recommendations i would appreciate those too!!!
Harry McNeish was a carpenter on Ernest Shackleton's Endurance expedition to Antarctica. He was also known as the caretaker of Mrs. Chippy, the cat that accompanied the men until the Endurance became trapped in pack ice.
To honor the brave kitty, the New Zealand Antarctic Society added a bronze statue of Mrs. Chippy to McNeish's grave in 2004, seen as she would usually lounge on his bed onboard the ship.
I WISH IT HAD ALL BEEN DIFFERENT!!!!!
i love you visible brushstrokes. i love you glue warped scrapbook pages. i love you awkward poems. i love you junk journal with faded receipts. i love you poorly composed journal layout. I love you unintentionally blurry photographs. i love you asymmetrical beading. i love you curling freeform crochet. i love you fingerprints on pottery. i love you reused materials. i love you improvised instruments. i love you mistakes. i love you bravery to make it anyway. i love you creativity that hasn't been wiped clean of every drop of humanity and sanitized and commodified.
How incredibly delusional are some of you people to support a fraud like Cook?
Ghost of Robert Peary, is that you?
i don't give a fuck about your portfolio get in my boiling cauldron stupid bitch
things are not going so hot for me but at least im not in antarctica rn . haha am i right? *i look at my photo of apsley cherry-garrard which i keep on me at all times. it does not respond*