From Middle Earth to the End

The Antarctic Treaty System signed in 1957 system was an international agreement between the 12 original signitories. It was agreed that Antarctica would be reserved for Peace and Science efforts, amongst other issues.  All scienctific findings would be reported and freely shared. With even more countries in agreement today, the Treaty has been withheld. Even when countries have been fighting across the sea, all tensions were disregarded for the greater good of Antarctica and science.  Pretty remarkable if you ask me.

The antient Greeks believed there must be a white place at the bottom of the world to balance out the one at the top of the world. The ‘North Pole’ was called Arktos so fittingly the ‘South Pole’ was called Antarktos, meaning the opposite or anti. Even though it had a name, it still wouldn’t be discovered for thousands of years.

This is the first time I can 110% guarantee I’ll be having a white Christmas. It will certainly be one to remember. I have to be honest, as fun as it sounds I’m offley concerned about my usual feasting habits. Its bad enough that Halloween has not escalated to a Hallmark monstrosity  and is still modestly reserved for children under the age of 8. Then Thanksgiving was forgotten about as I was stuck at Cass field station being the only American. Oh well, I was never a fan of the football games anyway.  However, missing Christmas is unacceptable. The tree, the food, the snow, the not having to go to work or school, its my favorite holiday.

   Just as I thought there was no hope for a traditional Christmas, my grandma came through again and went up another notch or 10 on the My Grandma is So Awesome scale.  This past Sunday, my family came from all over Canterbury and we had a huge Christmas feast. It was absolutely wonderful! I loved catching up with my family, some of whom I hadn’t seen yet. It was a beautiful sunny day and the food was amazing. There was chicken and stuffing, peas and carrots, stuffed tomatoes and cucumbers, fresh french bread, stir fry veggies in rice and salad. For dessert there was a special family recipe trifle, fruit salad and Ice cream. Note, all of this food may have tasted extra scrumptious because my uncle took me on a huge bike ride up Evans pass and around Godley Head. I didn’t bring my camera to take a picture but lets just say it was a big push uphill for longer than I care to remember.  After we whizzed down faster than I would have liked. It was all ‘training’ as my uncle called it. Ha. Well my calves are killing me today.

My Family

Anyway, it was a lovely day, and I was fully recovered and ready for this week. Our literature reviews are due on Friday so its double time. Not to mention only 7 days till take off!

We had a lecture from a Mr. Patrick Shepard late last week. He is an artist by trade that was asked to go to Antarctica for a special program promoting Artists of Antarctica. He presented a very interesting lecturing on different types of Antarctic art, what makes art Antarctica art and how to capture the silence of Antarctica on a music CD.  Then during our question and answer period he inadvertently gave us the most valuable information we had receive yet in lectures: The Top 10 things to do in Antarctica.

1. Take pictures of yourself      

2. Sit on top of a hill and do NOTHING

3. Walk around Scott Base at 3 a.m.

4. Talk to people

5. Visit the bar

6. Write down email address

7. Go to the library

8. Mark down where you visit

9.  Keep a diary 

10. Don’t wait until tomorrow, do it then, because tomorrow you could be off in a helicopter to another station, or the gift shops could be closed….

As you might be able to imagine, Michelle, our leader whose traveling with us to the ice, sat in the back and covered her ears.  She joked as everything she had told us about going to bed early, stay away from the bar and do as your told was shot out the window. 

I posed a question to Patrick after asking if he felt any different after going to the ice. He said that 4 years later he still dry brushed his teeth in order to save water. Before he was quite content to be himself, but now craved society. Upon seeing the efforts of humanity where we are so easily out powered by mother nature, he realized that we are all in this together.  I’m very curious to see what effect it will have upon me. In all the memoirs and historical accounts I’ve read, no one seems to come away completely unscathed. I hope I don’t turn in to an ugly purple monster with hair toes…..

” Take the Rockies, the Alps, and Mount Washington. Cover them with thick, crusted snow that, like frosting spread by a giant’s hand, has spilled down over the land to end in a jagged, uneven border where it meets the sea. Imagine yourself on a spaceship in another world- a world that for ten million years has been locked away behind ramparts of ice and where escape is blocked in all directions by a cruel, cold ocean.  Take all the adjectives in Mr. Rogets’s Thesaurus and you stil haven’t got it. For nothing,  not even Mr. Roget’s best, can convey one’s first impression of that vast, mysterious immensity of ice. lt is a lesson in humiliity, and unforgettable reminder of man’s mortality, and it is like no other place on earth.”  ~ Jennie Darlington

Another fabulous quote from a novel I’m reading about a young bride who ended up following her husband who was commander of an expedition by the US Antarctic Program to fill in the last blank spots on the Peninsula. For me, its more a shock to imagine being married at 22 than to be living in Antarctica for a year. Shows how time has changed since the mid 1950’s. Jennie was one of the first Women to step on to the Ice.   Now most of my class is filled with women.   Yeah girls!

“Eight Adelie penguins immediately came to greet us with many exclamations of interest not unmixed with disapproal. ‘Where on earth have you been? What took you so long? The Hut is around this way. Please come this way. Mind the rocks!” They insisted on our going to visit Hut Point where the large structure built by Captain Scott’s party stood, looking just as in the photographs and drawings that illustrate this book. The area about it, however, was disgusting- a kind of graveyard of seal skins, seal bones, penguin bones, and rubbish, presided over by the mad, screaming skua gulls. Our escorts waddled past the slaughterhouse in all tranquillity, and one showed me personally to the door, though it would not go in. ” ~Ursula K. Le Guin Sur

Neat piece of writing as it is Fiction, Ursula having never traveled to Antarctica. Many other authors choose this style of writing as the continent lives in many peoples minds as vividly as real life.

“The first time you travel to the Ice its for the Adventure, the second time its for the money, the third because you just don’t fit in anywhere else”

“I wanted to stand at the dead center of the carousel, if only for a moment; try to catch my bearings” ~ Thomas Pynchon

” After all, the geographical questions may have been answered, but the metaphysical ones remain, and the most foreign territory will always lie within. ” ~ Sara Wheeler Terra Incognita

Great contemporary account of a writer traveling down to Antarctica in 1995. She traveled all around to various bases and really immersed herself in the culture. Highly recommended.