Cameras left by famous Yukon explorers found after 85 years with fascinating photos
In 1937, American explorer Bradford Washburn abandoned a cache of heavy equipment, including cameras, while attempting to climb Mount Lucania in the Saint Elias Mountains of northwestern Canada. Washburn and his friend Bob Bates had to make their way back to civilization through the harsh Yukon wilderness when the weather made it unsafe for a pilot to pick them up, as chronicled in “Escape from Lucania,” a book by David Roberts. Two sentences of that book stuck in the mind of professional skier Griffin Post: According to Roberts, Washburn was heartbroken to leave behind his cameras and always wanted to go back to get them. So Post set out to do it for him, 15 years after his death — and 85 years after the equipment was abandoned. Bradford Washburn’s camera from a 1937 expedition discovered on Walsh Glacier. Leslie Hittmeier/Teton Gravity Research He got in touch with Luke Copland, a glaciologist at the University of Ottawa, to help figure out wh...