Title : Jean-Baptiste Charcot, the French polar gentleman
Speaker: Stéphane Dugast
Thematic: expeditions, adventure, polar history, sailor, explorer…
Support: Photos, videos and readings
Format: 1 hour 30
Targets: General public, businesses, institutions, schools, associations
September 16, 1936, 5:30 in the morning.A violent storm of equinox off the coast of Iceland causes a three-masted ship to sink. The toll is heavy: 23 dead, 17 missing and only one survivor. Thus disappear 40 members of the crew of the «Pourquoi-Pas?» , including one of the early-century exploration figures: Jean-Baptiste Charcot.
Jean-Baptiste Charcot is a key figure in the 20th century adventure in France. Doctor by tradition, explorer by vocation and sailor by passion, Jean-Baptiste Charcot (1867-1936) is one of the figures of the twentieth century adventure world.
It is to him whom his peers had nicknamed the «polar gentleman» that we dedicate this lecture with the writer-reporter Stéphane Dugast.