Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum
Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum
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Exhibits
Exhibits
- Exhibits
- The Roosevelt: A Model of Strength
- The North Pole
- The Permanent Collection
- This Extraordinary Paradise: Living in Northwest Greenland
Past Exhibits
- Arctic Cinema: Early Film in the Far North
- Them Days, A Magazine of Labrador History
- Working Through the Ice: The Bowdoin and the Effie M. Morrissey
- Four Years in the White North: Donald B. MacMillan's Crocker Land Lecture
- In Cod We Trust: Labrador's Early Twentieth Century Cod Fishery
- The Coldfront: Greenland and America in World War II
- Freezing the Moment: Photographing the Arctic
- Treasures and Trinkets: Collecting Culture in the North
- Northern Mission: Sir Wilfred Grenfell in Labrador
The Coldfront: Greenland and America in World War II
Greenland was strategically important to the Allies in WWII for a number of reasons. First, a mine at Ivigtut was the only known source of cryolite, a vital catalyst for aluminum production. Second, Greenland was ideally located as a refueling stop for planes flying from North America to Europe in the days before non-stop trans-Atlantic flights. Finally, meteorologists had shown that by monitoring Greenland weather they could more accurately forecast weather for Western Europe. When Denmark, the colonial power in Greenland, fell to the Nazis in the spring of 1940, Britain, Canada, and the United States began working out how to defend Greenland.
The generous support of the Friends of Bowdoin College has made this exhibit possible.
The USS Bowdoin
Even before the United States was at war, the need to keep Germany out of Greenland led the government to establish a military presence there. In the spring of 1941, Donald B. MacMillan was asked to cancel his planned expedition and instead to turn the Bowdoin over to the Navy. In June, 1941, the USS Bowdoin left Portsmouth, NH, with a naval crew. They spent the next five months identifying suitable locations for radio stations and landing strips in West Greenland.
