Colin Bull - Scientist, Explorer

Scientist Colin Bull served as glaciologist and cook on the 1951 expedition to Spitsbergen, north of Norway. In 2004 he published an account of the expedition in Innocents in the Artic.  The book narrates the story of ten naive young men who, driven by the desire for scientific discovery and adventure, ventured north to the nearly uninhabited, ice-covered island of Spitsbergen.  Once there, scientific success soon followed.  But so did calamitous weather, an unworthy boat, and an entertaining but ill-informed approach to arctic survival. Bull's account also brings to life arctic travel before modern technology: the team hauled their own sledge and communicated with hand-scrawled notes pinned to their leaky canvas tents. One reviewer says of the book "Bull's realistic, insider story of scientific adventure will appeal to polar enthusiasts, armchair historians, and anyone who remembers what it was like to be young and daring."  During his distinguished career, Colin Bull made over twenty-five polar expeditions and was awarded the Polar Medal by Queen Elizabeth II and the Antarctic Service Medal by the U.S. government. Two geographical features have also been named for him: the stark and dramatic Bull Pass, and Bull Lake. For more information on Colin Bull's polar expeditions, check the pdf version of an oral interview he gave in 2000 as part of the Polar Oral History Project: https://kb.osu.edu/dspace/bitstream/1811/28580/1/Bull2Transcript.pdf