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Ghosts of Antarctica: Abandoned Stations and Huts
More ghosts per capita than any continent
Does Antarctica have the most ghosts of any continent? On a per capita basis, the answer is yes.
While the South Pole and environs doesn’t have a permanent population, there are on average 2,500 people living there during the year -- approximately 4000 in summer and 1000 incredibly hardy ones in winter. While no complete necrologies exists for theAntarctic , at least 268 people have died there since humanity first decided it was a good place to visit. So if the ghosts divvie the work evenly, each one only has to haunt 9.68992 inhabitants. (Some lists of who has died way down south include a certain Mrs. Chippy. I have chosen to leave her out of my calculations as she was a cat and if we include her we have to include penguins and then it’s Katy bar the door.)
Antarctica is a very popular place to abandon
In addition to having a light work load, Antarctic spirits also have an abundance of residences to choose from thanks to the huge number of ghost towns and other such haunts. For obvious reasons, Antarctica is a very popular place to abandon. Below is a map of places abandoned by just the British on the Antarctic Peninsula.
The most famous and disturbingly well-preserved of these places is the camp built by RobertScott and his
Does Antarctica have the most ghosts of any continent? On a per capita basis, the answer is yes.
While the South Pole and environs doesn’t have a permanent population, there are on average 2,500 people living there during the year -- approximately 4000 in summer and 1000 incredibly hardy ones in winter. While no complete necrologies exists for the
Antarctica is a very popular place to abandon
In addition to having a light work load, Antarctic spirits also have an abundance of residences to choose from thanks to the huge number of ghost towns and other such haunts. For obvious reasons, Antarctica is a very popular place to abandon. Below is a map of places abandoned by just the British on the Antarctic Peninsula.
The most famous and disturbingly well-preserved of these places is the camp built by Robert
The Walled Cities: Keeping Out The Joneses
"Us And Them." Human history, perhaps, was shaped mostly by... walls
It’d be so nice if it was true, but thefact is it ain’t: the first settlements – before bronze age , before iron age, even probably before the stone age – didn’t happen because folks liked each other’s company.
As the old saying goes: there really is safety in numbers … and fortifications.
If you have any doubt about how wood -- and then stone and later even steel – walls helped shape human civilization, all you need to do is take a close look at most of our cities, especially the older ones.
Sometimes it’s easy to see where the boundaries between "Us In Here And You Out There" once were. Just look at the lovely city of Utrecht, in the Netherlands: a picture postcard of lovely homes, sparkling waterways, brilliantly green parks, and meandering walkways – a true jewel of civilization. Except that
It’d be so nice if it was true, but the
As the old saying goes: there really is safety in numbers … and fortifications.
If you have any doubt about how wood -- and then stone and later even steel – walls helped shape human civilization, all you need to do is take a close look at most of our cities, especially the older ones.
Sometimes it’s easy to see where the boundaries between "Us In Here And You Out There" once were. Just look at the lovely city of Utrecht, in the Netherlands: a picture postcard of lovely homes, sparkling waterways, brilliantly green parks, and meandering walkways – a true jewel of civilization. Except that
Castles That Will Inspire and Haunt You
A Man’s Home: Unusual Castles …and One Very Special Village
Arguably born the day that villagers -- and the people who profited off them -- decided that wood wasn’t strong enough to keep them safe, castles quickly became more than just edifices dedicated to security. Instead of repelling borders, real or imaginary, castles became THE status symbol of status symbols. Monuments to bravado, they were stone and mortal proclamations to the age-old idea that "mine is bigger than yours."
Pierrefonds - picture-postcard example of a castle
If you want an picture-postcard example of a castle, you don’t have to go anywhere but the Château de Pierrefonds in France. Although it may have started out as a structure designed to keep some folks out and others safely in, it was later partially sugar frosted by none other than Napoleon the 3rd, who was shooting for a true nobility status symbol: a iced cake that no one but the very rich and very privileged could eat.
Pierrefonds is still a beautiful place, even if its fortifications were overly gilded –- or maybe because of it. It’s no wonder it's used to this day when central casting gets a call for a classic castle.
When fairy tale jumps from alandscape and hits you between the eyes
If you want a real Disney, fairy-tale, and totally insane castle, you have to visit the residence of one totally
Arguably born the day that villagers -- and the people who profited off them -- decided that wood wasn’t strong enough to keep them safe, castles quickly became more than just edifices dedicated to security. Instead of repelling borders, real or imaginary, castles became THE status symbol of status symbols. Monuments to bravado, they were stone and mortal proclamations to the age-old idea that "mine is bigger than yours."
Pierrefonds - picture-postcard example of a castle
If you want an picture-postcard example of a castle, you don’t have to go anywhere but the Château de Pierrefonds in France. Although it may have started out as a structure designed to keep some folks out and others safely in, it was later partially sugar frosted by none other than Napoleon the 3rd, who was shooting for a true nobility status symbol: a iced cake that no one but the very rich and very privileged could eat.
Pierrefonds is still a beautiful place, even if its fortifications were overly gilded –- or maybe because of it. It’s no wonder it's used to this day when central casting gets a call for a classic castle.
When fairy tale jumps from a
If you want a real Disney, fairy-tale, and totally insane castle, you have to visit the residence of one totally
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