Hello toads and pond dwellers, Hannah here with your second edition of Transforming Fridays. Last round we explored the Arctic regions and this time we get to morph into a bit of Tundra. Some of the creatures and land features are the same from these two regions so feel free to express yourself in the gray overlapping area if you wish. For instance, polar bears are in both regions.
The idea I wish to impress is the practice of writing in the POV of someone outside of yourself....plant, animal or a native to the area featured.
So, I’m happy to be opening up the old-great-smelling, “Classics Edition of the World Atlas-Hammond 1967” again for this brief excerpt on the tundra:
“The tundra of the far north is a place of mosses, lichens and stunted flowering plants and trees. About 6% of all land area is tundra, some rocky and barren and the rest covered with seasonally boggy earth over perpetually frozen subsoil, an area so marginal that only specially adapted life forms, such as reindeer, can live here.”
Wikimedia: File:800px-Map-Tundra.png
So, here is a list of tundra ecoregions, some of the possible choices for the areas you will be inhabiting for your poems.
Sydkapp in Scoresby Sund, East Greenland; skull of Musc Ox in the foreground; vegetation is mostly Salix glauca, Russian research vessel MV MULTANOVSKIY in the fjord. (Wikimedia: Hannes Grobe, AWI).
Kongsfjorden from Blomstrandhalvøya, Kongsfjorden, Spitsbergen (Sval), Wikimedia: Sphinx (Sphinx 00:21, 12 August 2007 (UTC))
Caribou, wolves, musk-oxen, wild yak, arctic hare, lemming, red fox, mountain goat, the tundra swan...
Bewick's Swan, Jan. 2006, Saitama, (Wikimedia: Maga-chan)
The reindeer (Rangifer tarandus), also known as the caribou in North America, is a deer from the Arctic and Subarctic, (Wikipedia/Wikimedia), Male caribou in Alaska, (Dean Biggins (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service).
...Just to name a few!!
Here’s a general image-list of wildlife,(Plants and animals that live in the tundra), that you can browse through to get an idea for POV. These are basic google images though so you may want to double check the copyright issues by going directly to the source of the image you’re interested in to find out if it can be shared.
Okay....enough of the jibber-jabber...right!!? You know the rules... 1. Have fun! 2. write something brand-new and link up below!
I look forward to reading you all...remember to visit the tundra at each other’s blogs and since it IS Friday....Have a wonderful weekend everyone!! I hope your days are filled to the brim with inspiration!!
Smiles!
Welcome dear Real Toads, this is Hannah bringing you Transforming Fridays!!
My intention is to stretch our imaginations beyond where we might normally explore in the area of our choices in point of view. In order to achieve this goal we’ll venture into each of the natural vegetation regions of the world! From the Tundra to the Rain Forest and beyond… :)
So some sweet serendipity came to me in the form of this really wonderfully old-smelling book, “the Classics Edition of the World Atlas-Hammond 1967.” My sister and I are helping my eighty-nine year old Grammy move to an assisted living home this summer that is closer to the two of us and in the process it has been great fun tripping down memory lane in the form of all the material treasures that hold so many memories for us!! This book is one of them and the excerpt below lives in it.
This week I offer you the, “Snow and Ice,” region of the world. Polar and Mountainous regions of perpetual ice and snow cover one-tenth of the earth’s land area. Windswept, always below freezing it can support life only peripherally, if at all.
(Oh, I wish you guys could smell this book!! Did I mention I love the odor of old books! ;)
For those of us feeling the heat of summer, I thought we might enjoy delving onto the ice!!
This in-flight photo from the IceTrek expedition shows the edge of the Larsen B Ice Shelf. The surface is melted, and ice flows off the edge like a waterfall. Photo Credit: Courtesy Ted Scambos and Rob Bauer, NSIDC.
The Cryosphere Glossary here’s a handy link if you have any questions or simply want to play with some arctic language.
(This thin sea ice has buckled Image courtesy Andy Mahoney and the National Snow and Ice Data Center, University of Colorado, Boulder).
So here are some links to images of some of the typical animal and plant wildlife that one would find in the arctic region.
Here’s one of my favorites! 
(Image/photo courtesy of the National Snow
and Ice Data Center, University of Colorado, Boulder).
One could embody arctic sea-smoke or become the epitome of a giant slow moving alpine glacier. The choice is yours. The only rule is that if you’re going to choose to be human you must write from the POV of a native to that region and portray life from their particular view...
(Illanguau checks the sled before the group sets off again.Image courtesy Andy Mahoney and the National Snow and Ice Data Center, University of Colorado, Boulder).
….or the perspective of one of their team of helpers!
(This paw print was left by a sled dog Image courtesy Andy Mahoney and the National Snow and Ice Data Center, University of Colorado, Boulder).
Okay, call me a fibber! There are two other rules...write and link something brand spankin’ new...no sharing oldsies and above all...have so much fun!!!
:)’s to all poetic toads and peeps in the pond today!! I hope you enjoy this, I’m looking forward to finding out who each of you chooses to be and remember to hop around to everyone’s bloggy-pads, too, when you get the chance!!
Also, if you wish to dedicate your poems to details of global awareness with topics such as the decline in sea ice etc. feel free to “go there,” if you like.
Most of the images and information I’ve gathered is accredited to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, any additional information on such topics can be found there. It’s a great informational tool!
