Photograph by Charles Harris Phelps, National Geographic Stock

June 2013

A COOL WELCOME

Flags, birds, a boat, and an arch made from bales of codfish greeted Crown Prince Gustav during his 1887 visit to the Norwegian port of Hammerfest, one of the northernmost towns in the world. “The entire town is built of timber,” claim notes that came with this photo.

All that wood would prove to be a problem. In 1890 the town was destroyed by fire. Then the rebuilt Hammerfest was burned down again in 1945—this time on Hitler’s orders—as occupying Nazi forces fled a Soviet advance. Thousands were left homeless. Many rode out the winter in local caves.

Yet Hammerfest rose from the ashes once more. Today some 10,000 people call it home, and maritime pursuits are still the overarching industry.
— Margaret G. Zackowitz

Photograph by Artur Pastor, National Geographic Stock

May 2013

NETTING PROFITS

“On the northern coast [of Portugal], at some small localities by the names of Apulia and Ver-O-Mar,” say the notes accompanying this 1950s photo, “the inhabitants occupy themselves with the gathering of sargassum and various sea-weeds which they gather in big nets. The ‘harvesting’ takes place near the coast, for the rough sea brings huge quantities.”

Today the bulk of seaweed collected is for human consumption, not for fertilizing local fields, as this Portuguese take was. Production is dominated by Asian countries, often China and Japan. In Europe most seaweed is brought in mechanically, though some is still harvested by hand, using knives, rakes, pitchforks, sickles, and nets. Portugal is the only European producer of the briny commodity to employ diving.
— Johnna Rizzo

Photograph by B. Anthony Stewart, National Geographic Stock

April 2013

THE RIGHT STUFF

One of William L. Brown’s first assignments as a taxidermist was to preserve specimens that Teddy Roosevelt brought back from his 1909 expedition to Africa for the Smithsonian. In his 51-year career at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., Brown worked on almost every imaginable kind of animal, including this timber wolf in 1947.

Some of Brown’s work is still on display at the museum. Of his favorite piece—a hippo with a hide made supple through a Russian tanner’s chewing—he wrote: “This was when I was best. 40 yrs old. As a taxidermist. I was the first person ever to mount a successful hippo and probably will be the last.” The museum’s most recent taxidermist, Paul Rhymer, said it was the best preserved animal he’d ever seen.
— Johnna Rizzo

Photograph by B. Anthony Stewart, National Geographic Stock

March 2013

BOOM AND TOWN

A forest of derricks rises beyond a Signal Hill, California, neighborhood in this photo from the June 1941 National Geographic. Oil had been discovered there just 20 years earlier. The caption accompanying this photo notes: “If one man drills and strikes oil, his neighbor at once drills, too, lest the first drain the pool.” Today the area’s Long Beach oil field is much depleted, but it still yields more than a million barrels a year. According to John Huff, an engineer for California’s Department of Conservation, extraction technology has moved on to more efficient pumping units. Huff’s team at the Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources placed this photo’s scene at the corner of present-day Dawson Avenue and Village Way. Some of the houses pictured are still standing, but no derricks compete with the palm trees there anymore.
— Margaret G. Zackowitz

Photograph by National Geographic Stock

February 2013

ONCE BITTEN

“The viper is dead; the boy will live,” read the caption for this photo, published in the October 1943 issue of National Geographic. “At Kasauli, in the Himalayas, is the Central Research Institute which produces serums against snakebites and rabies. Since the identity of the Russell’s viper was known [the father holds the dead snake at left], the frightened lad has a nine-to-one chance for recovery.”

The Indian clinic specialized in producing antivenoms and rabies serums. During World War II it was tasked with producing large enough quantities of all manner of antidotes for both military and civilian use. The Russell’s viper—profuse in many parts of Asia—has one of the deadliest bites.
— Johnna Rizzo

Photograph by U.S. Air Force, National Geographic Stock

January 2013

SEATING ARRANGEMENTS

“United States Air Force pilots are finding it much safer and more comfortable to lie down while handling the controls of a plane,” according to notes that accompany this 1949 photograph. “Shown here is the prone position pilot bed developed by Air Materiel Command’s Aero-Medical Laboratory. The prone seat produces less fatigue on long flights and permits the pilot to withstand greater gravitational pull without danger of blackout.”

Lying down didn’t fly. Neck support for military pilots, as seen above, continues to be a concern, though. Recent studies by the U.S. Army Aeromedical Research Laboratory have covered neck stress caused by today’s heavier helmets and the effects of head tilt in banking aircraft.
— Johnna Rizzo