Ernest Leffingwell:
Most Righteous Early Alaskan Scientist

Ernest Leffingwell spent seven or eight years wandering around the eastern Alaskan Arctic around the first decade of the 20th century, conducting all kinds of scientific research. He wrote up much of this work in a USGS Professional Publication (No. 109) which you can download here (33 MB). It's worth reading the first chapter or two of this publication regardless of your interest in science, as it describes the adventures he undertook in order to conduct his research, which was largely funded out of his own pocket. And he was not some rich trust-funder, more like a punk kid who for whatever his reasons gave it his best shot in our neck of the woods. Below are a few photos of him and his working environment.

This kid was a scientist?

The pipe doesnt make him look much older...

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The classic Endurance shot, but before Endurance set sail for Antarctica. They took this boat apart and built a shack out of it. The story behind his travel to Alaska, and his method of sticking around, is nearly as crazy as Shakleton's but without the major screwups or support crew or PR team. His adventures, and their funding, were totally under the radar.

He surveyed huge portions of the arctic coastline, virtually on his own. That meant setting up monuments like this at various places, then paddling back back and forth between them for the triangulations, often on a raft made from old crates. Sometimes storms would arise in the meantime, knocking them down, forcing him to start over.

No wonder he stayed so thin...

This tent method is still the way to go for staying comfy in winter without spending a fortune.

Notice the headnet.

Dog mushing, after the snow melted. Somewhere in those packs is a large format camera and glass plates.

Our modern conveniences may make it quicker to get a hot drink, but sometimes there's something to be said for sitting in a snow bank and having the chance to look around.