Dennis Schmitt
Template:Short description Template:About Template:Infobox person
Dennis Schmitt is an American veteran explorer, adventurer and composer.
Early life
Schmitt grew up in Berkeley, California, the son of mixed German and American parentage. His father was a plumber. Displaying early aptitude with languages, music and mathematics, Schmitt graduated from Berkeley High School in 1963,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and went on to study linguistics at UC Berkeley with Noam Chomsky in his late teens.<ref name="JHRreDWS">Template:Cite magazine</ref> Chomsky recruited Schmitt, aged 19, to travel to Alaska's Brooks Range and attempt to learn the Nunamiut dialect.
Career
Schmitt lived for four years at an Alaskan Inuit village named Anaktuvuk Pass before leading expeditions, including the Sierra Club. In 2003, Schmitt discovered one of the candidates for the title of "northernmost land in the world". Deciding that Greenland should name its own islands, he simply called it "83-42" after its latitude, a name that has remained.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Two years later, in 2005, Schmitt discovered a new island revealed by the retreat of an ice shelf in East Greenland. Uunartoq Qeqertaq, Inuit for "The Warming Island", lies 400 miles north of the Arctic Circle. The Sierra Club reported on a Schmitt quote to The New York Times:
Expeditions
Schmitt is also credited with the July 2007 discovery of another candidate for the "northernmost" title, named Stray Dog West by expedition member Holly Wenger. Stray Dog West, at 83º40'30", belongs to a shifting, semi-permanent archipelago locked in the sea ice north of Peary Land in northeast Greenland, named the Stray Dog Islands. The first island of the archipelago was discovered on July 10, 1996, by Steve Gardiner and Jim Schaefer and is commonly known as the 1996 ATOW Island after the 1996 American – Top Of The World Expedition.
Schmitt was the first person to climb the highest point of the Daly Range, part of the northernmost mountain chain on Earth,<ref name="AAJ2">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> as well as Alaska's Brooks Range from Point Hope to the Mackenzie River,Template:Citation needed and made the first traverse of Axel Heiberg Island, northern Canada.Template:Citation needed He also crossed the sea ice of the Bering Straits to the Soviet Union, and travelled through Eskimo villages of eastern Siberia. Upon his return, the FBI detained Schmitt but released him without charge.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Musical works
- Song Cycle I (Mental trash from warm bodies (plus extras))<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
- Prologue and Aurora (1977)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
- The Alaska Wilderness Adventure (1978)<ref>Template:Cite AV media</ref>
Personal life
Schmitt speaks multiple languages, including Russian, Norwegian, Danish, and French. He lives in Berkeley and composes classical music, being credited for the soundtrack to the 1978 movie, The Alaska Wilderness Adventure. Schmitt also writes sonnets under the pen name D O'Farrell.<ref name="JHRreDWS"/>
See also
Notes
Further reading
- The Wizard. 1960. p. 28
- "Vista Volunteers Go North of Nome". The Daily Illini. May 12, 1966. p. 12
- Severson, Ed (January 7, 1993). "A Spacious Mind". Arizona Daily Star. pp. 1c, 3C
- Russo, John; Schmitt, Dennis (1998; rev. 2019). Dutch Ovens for Backpacking, 28 pp.
- Template:Cite news
- Burress, Charles (June 19, 2004). "Explorers finally reach Earth's northernmost land". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. p. A-16
- Template:Cite news
- Template:Cite news
- Template:Cite news
- Template:Cite news
External links
- [https://www.imdb.com/{{#if: 13735113
| name/{{#if:{{#invoke:ustring|match|1=13735113|2=^nm}}
| Template:Trim/
| nm13735113/
}}
| {{#if: {{#property:P345}}
| name/Template:First word/
| find?q=%7B%7B%23if%3A+%0A++++++%7C+%7B%7B%7Bname%7D%7D%7D%0A++++++%7C+%5B%5B%3ATemplate%3APAGENAMEBASE%5D%5D%0A++++++%7D%7D&s=nm
}}
}}{{#if: 13735113 {{#property:P345}} | {{#switch:
| award | awards = awards Awards for | biography | bio = bio Biography for
}}}} {{#if:
| {{{name}}}
| Template:PAGENAMEBASE
}}] at IMDb{{#if: 13735113{{#property:P345}}
| Template:EditAtWikidata
| Template:Main other
}}{{#switch:{{#invoke:string2|matchAny|^nm.........|^nm.......|nm|.........|source=13735113|plain=false}}
| 1 | 3 = Template:Main otherTemplate:Preview warning | 4 = Template:Main otherTemplate:Preview warning
}}{{#invoke:Check for unknown parameters|check|unknown=Template:Main other|preview=Page using Template:IMDb name with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"|showblankpositional=1| 1 | 2 | id | name | section }}