Palace Saloon, November 3-13

PowerPoint by lamp oil in an historic setting

Join us at the Palace Saloon, Pioneer Park for some turn of the century ambiance and informal talks by local experts — all running up to our presentation of Split Knuckle Theatre’s performance of “Endurance”. A play which merges Shackleton’s Antarctic exploration with a story of modern day perseverance.

  • Monday, November 3rd, 6:00 pm
    “Watching ice grow: Wintering in Antarctica and continuing a hundred years of science in McMurdo Sound” with Andy Mahoney
  • Wednesday, November 5th, 6:00 pm
    “Rediscovered: Polar Exploration in the 20th Century” with Mike Castellini
  • Thursday, Nov 6th, 6:00 pm
    “Visions of Endurance: The Films and Photographs of Frank Hurley” with Len Kamerling
  • Monday, Nov 10th, 6:00 pm
    “Resiliency Discovered: Ernest Shackleton’s Unparalleled Leadership” with Mike Castellini
  • Thursday November 13th, 7:00 pm
    “Polar Music in the Days of Whalers and Sailors” with Paul Krejci

Refreshments will be served.

Donations accepted at the door.

Co-presented by UAF Department of Theater and Film

Sponsored by Wells Fargo Bank Alaska.

All attendees over 21 may enter a drawing for a very special door prize: a bottle of Shackleton Whiskey, to be drawn on the final evening.

SEE IT. FEEL IT. SHARE IT. FCA.
About our speakers:

Dr. Andy Mahoney

Andy Mahoney, Research Assistant Professor of Geophysics at UAF’s Geophysical Institute, is an expert on sea ice who spent the winter of 2009 on the ice in McMurdo Sound with a team from New Zealand. He’ll give a summary of their science and present a 20-minute movie he put together afterwards. While there, he was able to go into Shackleton’s Nimrod hut at Cape Royd’s from the first expedition he led. The site of the Shackleton Whiskey find!
Want to know what it’s really like to spend the winter in Antarctica? Andy is your man. If anyone can explain what happened to the Endurance, he can.
Dr. Mahoney’s research focuses on landfast and nearshore sea ice dynamics as well as human-sea ice relationships using field measurements and observations, and remote sensing data.

Currently he is involved with the Seasonal Ice Zone Observing Network (SIZONet) and the Mapping and Characterization of Recurring Spring Leads and Landfast ice in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas project. His research interests also include historic sea ice data and the growth of sea ice under the influence of ice shelves in Antarctica.

“My broad field of expertise is sea ice geophysics, but my research interests encompass climate change, coastal dynamics, ice-ocean interaction and the relationship between humans and sea ice. Arctic sea ice is a rapidly changing component of the global climate system and reports of its retreat make frequent headlines in international media. My research interests include the local implications of these changes for the Arctic residents. Sea ice geophysics also has an important role to play in providing data and information to stake holders and policy makers as commercial interests in the Arctic grow.

At the opposite end of the world, Antarctic sea ice is not undergoing the same reduction in extent. The two Polar Regions are geographically very different from each other, so a difference should not be surprising. My research interests also include the processes by which ice shelves flowing off of the Antarctic continent influence sea ice growth through ice-ocean interaction at depth. This involved over-wintering at Scott Base.”

Dr. Michael Castellini

Mike Castellini is the Dean of the School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He has been to South Georgia Island working on seal/penguin projects, visited Shackleton’s grave site and Antarctic huts in the Ross Sea. He has also previously led a UAF Leadership Institute workshop on Shackleton, speaking on concepts from the book “Leading at the Edge” by Perkins, Holtman and Murphy and some personal experience about the area and what it means to be there. He will address questions of polar science and climate change, why Shackleton’s story remains relevant and important (not to mention compelling) today and discuss Shackleton’s leadership abilities.Dr. Michael Castellini has been a faculty member of the School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences since 1989. His field of research is marine mammal physiology and he and his students have worked around the world from the Arctic to the Antarctic with seals, sea lions, whales and occasionally, penguins. Over the years, Dr. Castellini has participated in many public outreach programs discussing climate change, the Arctic and Antarctic, and how animals at those locations are critically dependent on sea ice.

Dr. Castellini has taught core classes in marine physiology to graduate students for 20 years. He has published more than 100 scientific journals articles or book chapters and has participated in over 20 scientific field expeditions on land, sea and ice. He serves on multiple scientific agency committees and journal editorial boards.

He was the founding Scientific Director for the Alaska SeaLife Center, the Director of the SFOS Institute of Marine Science, the Director of the Coastal Marine Institute, the Associate and Interim Dean of SFOS.

Professor Leonard Kamerling

Leonard Kamerling is Curator of Film  at the University of Alaska Museum of the North, and Professor of English at UAF.   Over the last 25 years, he has produced numerous critically acclaimed, international award winning documentary films about Alaska Native cultures and Northern issues.  He received his training at the London Film School,  and earned his MFA in Creative Writing from UAF. He joined the Creative Writing Faculty in 1999 where he specializes in teaching writing for film, theater and television.
His film, “Heart of the Country,” was nominated for the American Film Institute’s prestigious Par Lorenze Award. Recently his documentary,  “The Drums of Winter,”  was named to the National Film Registry at the Library of Congress.

Throughout his career, Leonard Kamerling has been concerned with issues of cultural representation in film, cross-cultural communication and the role that  film and film writing can play in eliminating stereotypes and in credibly translating one culture to another.

A Tribute to Filmmaker Leonard Kamerling by Steve Elkins, based on a 2009 conversation between the two

 

Dr. Paul Krejci

Music History, Alaska Native Music
Paul Krejci holds a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Studies from the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF).  His research combines the disciplines of music and anthropology and examines musicultural change and early musical processes of globalization among indigenous cultures of northern Alaska and northwestern Canada during the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries.  His ethnohistorical studies also include current ethnomusicological fieldwork focusing on the state of present-day indigenous musical forms.  In the summer of 2013, he conducted research on a 46-foot motorsailer that spent six weeks traveling along the Arctic coastline from Nome, Alaska to Baillie Island, Canada.  In the summer of 2014, Krejci participated as a 38th Voyager, a project organized by Mystic Seaport, Connecticut, marking the return of the Charles W. Morgan, the last of America’s 19th-century whaling fleet to the sea.  His study highlights the global importance of whaling music during the 19th and 20th centuries with a particular focus on the Arctic.

Krejci currently teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in music history (MUS 221, MUS 222, MUS 421, MUS 422, MUS 423, MUS 424, MUS 625) and Alaska Native and circumpolar music (MUS 223).  He has also worked as a staff accompanist and has taught courses for the UAF Music Department on general world music (MUS 124), music appreciation (MUS 123), the history of popular music (MUS 122), and music theory (MUS 131 and MUS 132).  He is also organizing and interpreting the archival documents of the late Dr. Thomas Johnston, the UAF Department of Music resident ethnomusicologist until 1994.  Additionally, Krejci is working on a book project focusing on the lives and careers of Arctic traders/explorers active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Krejci holds a Bachelors degree in Music from UAF, both Bachelors and Masters degrees in Piano Performance from UAF, and a Masters degree in Philosophy from the University of Sydney.  He is active as a solo pianist, piano accompanist, piano teacher, organist, and studio musician.  As a keyboardist, Krejci performs, composes, and arranges for local bands and presently leads various groups experimenting in fusion styles including jazz, funk, rock, classical, and world music.  He has composed, arranged, and produced music for television and film and was an Alaska Public Radio Network Song of the Year Winner in the Instrumental Category in 2004.  Finally, Krejci volunteers his time serving as a board and chair of the artist selection committee for the Fairbanks Concert Association, which actively promotes and presents high-quality performing arts events and educational outreach opportunities to Alaska’s Interior.

Paul Krejci Bio on Mystic Seaport 

UAF music prof will sail on 173-year-old whaling ship – News miner