A trio of Penn State Abington students joined a team of international researchers in Norway this summer, documenting the early exploration of the world's northernmost archipelago. A grant awarded to Abington's resident polar explorer and professor of anthropology, P.J. Capelotti, funded the experience.
Jacqueline Lanning, Amanda Lockerby, and Alejandro Cruz presented their research to historians, polar explorers, and social scientists in the capital city of Oslo. They illuminated their findings on Franz Josef Land using the lenses of history, art, film, and photography.
"This was a fantastic opportunity to do some primary research for a region where very few people know the history of its geographic place names," Cruz, a psychology major, said after the conference.
The senior delved into why explorer Evelyn Baldwin named a bay in the islands for writer Rudolf Kersting. He found evidence of a friendship between the men cataloged in an Oslo museum's archives but needed to read the century-old letter to confirm his theory.