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Hudson 70 : Phase VIII The Arctic Voyage

Accession number: 
1971.0038
Production Years: 
1971

Languages:

Film Properties: 
Length (feet): 
974 (16mm)
Length (minutes): 
30
Holding Institutions: 

Library and Archives Canada: 16mm.
"A narrated film record of the Canadian Scientific Ship Hudson's fact-finding expedition around the Americas in 1970, part of Canada's participation in UNESCO's International Oceanographic Decade. Disciplines noted are physical and chemical oceanography, biology, micro-paleontology, geology (bottom sampling and seismic work), magnetic and gravity surveying, and hydrographic surveying. Brief explanations are given of the project's various phases, but emphasis is on the eighth phase, a detailed study of the Beaufort Sea in Canada's Arctic waters. Maps illustrate the Hudson's route, the ocean currents, fertile areas of the ocean, and the ocean floor's lithospheric plates. Other diagrams reveal the properties of water on the Beaufort Sea's continental shelf, and the peak and deep found off South America's coast, now called Hudson's Peak and Hudson's Deep. Other footage shows the vessel leaving its berth at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia in November, 1969; scientists and crew members at work, lowering and raising elaborate testing equipment; the Hudson negotiating icy straits at night; and the icebreaker CGS John A. Macdonald which met the Hudson in the Arctic to break ice ahead of it and allow it passage to the Atlantic waters."

Bibliography: 

Online database National Film Board of Canada.
"The circumnavigation of the continents of North and South America, long a navigator's dream, was accomplished in 1970 by the Canadian Scientific Ship Hudson as part of Canada's commitment to the International Oceanographic Decade, a project of UNESCO. Here is the ship's log on film, detailing the many kinds of research in which the Hudson engaged. The last phase of the 75 000 km voyage documented, for the first time, scientific investigations of the polar seas above Canada."