Recently the news was abuzz with pictures of Lewis Gordon Pugh swimming at the North Pole in temperatures of - 1.8°C. To celebrate this unique accomplishment, Villemont, which acted as timekeeper for the challenge, has produced a limited edition of watches to mark the occasion. The company will be donating a proportion of the proceeds from the sale of watches to support WWF's fight against global warming, and in particular, their mission to save these polar regions. The "Arctic Explorer Limited Edition Lewis Pugh is an automatic chronograph and was the model that accompanied Lewis Gordon Pugh throughout his voyage to the North Pole. Th watch is limited to only 50 pieces and has the Solar Navigator®navigation system that allows easy orientation based on the position of the sun and shade. All 50 watches traveled to the North Pole and function well after withstanding the extreme temperatures. The watch has British racing green straps and around the dial and cost $9,900.

[via Professional Watches]

With global warming proceeding briskly along, a collected polar-themed library might be even more of a precious relic. On May 24 Swann Galleries in New York will auction off 160 items from the Polar Library of Dr. John M. Levinson, a past President of the Explorers Club, who has assembled an collection of works on Arctic and Antarctic exploration. One of the star lots in the auction is one of only 65 extant copies of the first book published in Antarctica, Ernest Shackleton's Aurora Australis, 1908. This copy of the book is known as the "Veal" copy because boards from a packing crate containing veal were used to create its cover. This book is inscribed to expedition member George Buckley and signed by Shackleton and others and estimated to sell for $50,000 to $75,000. Other lots include other books by Shackleton, a complete set of first editions of all three of James Cook's Voyages, in nine volumes, copies of The South Polar Times, the first Antarctic newspaper, edited by Shackleton, Louis Charles Bernacchi and Apsley Cherry-Garrard, Charles Swaine's rare Account of a Voyage of Discovery of a North-West Passage from 1748, a set of first editions of each of William E. Parry's four Voyages, and artifacts such as a message buoy used on the 1901-02 Baldwin-Ziegler Expedition to the North Pole via Franz Josef Land and silver and china from various expeditions.