Benjamin Leigh Smith, an Arctic explorer in the late 1800’s, was leading his crew back home to England when his ship hit ice and started to sink. With winter approaching, the passage they were traveling through became impassable, so the crew had to set up camp and wait out the long winter before venturing home in the smaller boats aboard their sinking ship. Unfortunately, they did not have enough clothes to stay warm for their unexpected layover. Despite that, the resourceful crew did everything they could to keep warm and well fed and lived in the Arctic for almost an entire year before they were able to return.

Photographs from the expedition are included in a new collection from the Scott Polar Research Institute, at the University of Cambridge in England.

Freeze Frame is a project to digitally archive images, drawings and historical documents, primarily from British expeditions, from 1845-1960. Teachers can find summaries of these expeditions as well as biographies of prominent explorers like Smith, Ernest Henry Shackleton, and Robert Falcon Scott, for whom the Institute is named after. Take a look at the impressive photo gallery that gives students a comprehensive view of life on these expeditions as well as historical accounts of polar exploration. You can even create your own photo gallery, selecting images from the 20,000 images available in the Freeze Frame collection.

Just released this month, Freeze Frame will continue to add more images and documents, including ones related to Arctic peoples and environmental change.