Iceland

The Extraordinary Voyage of Pytheas the Greek, by Barry Cunliffe (Walker and Co., 192 pages, $24). Setting out from the Greek city now known as Marseille, in the year 330 B.C., the explorer Pytheas traveled to the coasts of France and Denmark and then to the British isles, perhaps getting as far as Ireland and even Iceland -- making him, by most judgments, the first literate person to get to those areas that were unknown and feared by the civilizations on...

I do not consider myself old-fashioned or a stickler for detail. I'm definitely not hung up on labels.But it seems to me -- and you tell me if I'm wrong -- that any team in the Canadian Football League should, by all rights, be based in Canada.Otherwise, what's the point? Isn't the french fry dependably French? Isn't cream cheese Philadelphian? There must be some agreed-upon, universal standards.I bring this up only because it has recently come to my attention that Baltimore has a team in the Canadian Football League.

Kathryn Requardt was bargaining for a trip to Iceland and a water adventure. Instead, she'll get 10 days in Yellowstone National Park, tracking bear and elk and investigating how geysers affect life in the middle of a continent, rather than on an island.The 14-year-old eighth-grader at St. Paul's School for Girls is one of 26 students in North America and the United Kingdom taking part in the eighth annual Jason Project, a hands-on science expedition that students and teachers in far-flung classrooms will watch.

Most people take their child to work. I took mine to London. One day last year, a friend decided on a whim to fly to Paris for a few days with his wife. His cheap air-hotel package and my own envy got me thinking about taking my son on a similar trip. The timing seemed right. Off-season fares were amazingly cheap, my 9-year-old son still tolerated my company, and we had been through a difficult winter and needed some fun. My friends thought I was nuts to take Owen to a foreign country by myself.

For those tired of summer heat, the Arctic may soon be just a few hours away. Greenland's national airline, Air Greenland A.S., has applied to the U.S. government for clearance to fly between the globe's icy northern reaches and Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport. If approved, it would be the first direct flight between the countries. To get to Greenland now, U.S. travelers have to connect through Denmark, Iceland or Canada, according to travel agents. And that is hampering the country's effort to lure some of the same adventurous - and well-outfitted - American tourists who found Iceland years ago and are looking for the next unbeaten path.

CANNES, France -- There were posturing and schmooozing and power-breakfasting to be seen here over the weekend, and some of those things actually took place off the screen. The rest were on view in "The Player," which thoroughly enchanted the Cannes audience even as it lacerated much of what that audience holds dear.Shown only three days into the Cannes International Film Festival, "The Player" was cheered for its dead-on satire and its irreverence, both of which give it the earmarks of a possible winner.

Andre Mueller is a virtual explorer of virgin territory. One morning, the 25-year-old German physics student noticed a wispy line off the coast of Iceland in the patchwork of satellite imagery that makes up Google Earth. He zoomed in. It was smoke. At the end of the smoke trail, he discovered three boats. He slapped a "placemark," the program's version of an explorer's flag, on the location and reported his findings on Google Earth Community bulletin board. "What are these three ships doing there?"

He's known to the entire crew of the Liberty ship, S.S. John W. Brown, as "Blackie," the man who cheated death four times on the Murmansk run and still goes to sea after six decades.Charles F. Blockston, of Rosedale, Baltimore County, is the third engineer on the Brown, docked at Pier 1, Clinton Street, Canton. Last month, at 78, he helped sail the old freighter up the East Coast to Connecticut."Blackie's" story begins on June 27, 1942, when his ship and 37 others set sail from Iceland to Murmansk in the Soviet Union.

Anyone could identify the top athletes of the 20th century -- ESPN did just that, and the network is down to a final four of Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan, Jim Brown and Babe Ruth.The better question is, who will be the most influential sports figures of the 21st century? To fully prepare you for life after Y2K, we've compiled a little list:Zoe Swift, gold-medal figure skater. First to achieve the "spin-my-age" feat, performing a quintuple lutz at the age of 5 at the 2034 Winter Olympics in Reykjavik, Iceland -- the last place on earth with an average daily temperature below 60 degrees.

OSLO, Norway - Inviting scents of cinnamon and cardamom waft from the crowded cafes along Karl Johans Gate, where businesspeople and bellboys, shoppers and students, take time each day to sip strong coffee and linger over a good book. It is a sensuous indulgence that can be seen in town and country across Scandinavia, where decades of economic prosperity have fostered comfort and culture, giving rise to educated societies that have both a hunger for intellectual diversion and the literary talent to feed it. Writers at the top of national best-seller lists in Norway, Sweden and Denmark have turned on its head the assumption that creative geniuses must suffer for their art. It seems in this small corner of the world - which has produced far more than its share of international triumphs, such as "Smilla's Sense of Snow," "Sophie's World" and "Hanna's Daughters" - that wealth and security can provide their own inspiration.