Antarctica: Life on the Ice is the just-released anthology that I collected and edited to bring you first-hand stories of those who devote their lives to the most beautiful and cruel environment on the planet -- Antarctica. Inside you will meet explorers, penguinologists, geologists, iceologists, cooks, pilots and others who have been drawn, almost mystically, to life at the bottom of the world.

In the 2004-2005 austral summer, I spent six weeks in the Antarctic as part of the National Science Foundation Antarctic Artists and Writers Program. Based at McMurdo Station, I also visited the South Pole, several camps in the Dry Valleys and Cape Royds. When I was a young girl, my father regaled me with stories of the Antarctic. To walk the terrain and visit the outposts of explorers like Scott and Cherry-Garrard was the fulfillment of a childhood dream.

Following is an excerpt from my Introduction to  Antarctica: Life on the Ice (Click here for the full Introduction and Table of Contents):

In the austral summer of 2005, I made a day trip by helicopter to

Robert Falcon Scott’s hut at Cape Evans on Ross Island. This was

Scott’s base in 1910, the expedition that ended with his death and the

death of four of his crew. The story of this expedition is one of the

saddest in Antarctic history and is my favorite, so to visit the hut

where they lived was a sort of pilgrimage. The hut was busy with a crew

of New Zealand men digging out ice from its south side.  I

knew how the ice piled up there as I had read about it in Scott’s

journals and in Apsley Cherry-Garrard’s marvelous account of Scott’s

final expedition, The Worst Journey in the World. The men handed me a

pickax and for a while I chipped away with them with the great sense

that this small gesture connected me to the past, even to heroism. Soon

enough, though, this heroic traveler was tired, so I gave up my digging

and wandered into the hut.

Once my eyes adjusted to the dim light I stood, overwhelmed by what had

been left there: cans of collard greens and bottles of medical supplies

above Dr. Wilson’s bed; reindeer sleeping bags and finneskos (the

Norwegian-style boots). When I looked closely I could see that the

leather soles were peeling away. The daily lives of these explorers I

so admired became clear to me as I looked at Cherry-Garrard’s bunk bed,

and noted where Ponting processed his photos. When I saw toothbrushes

propped in glasses at the head of some of the men’s beds I wanted to

weep. For me, their lives were contained in those toothbrushes.

Daily details allow me to imagine a place and the bigger the place, the

more I need those details. Lucky for me, Scott’s narratives are filled

with passages like this from his 1901 expedition: “The first task of

the day is to fetch the ice for the daily consumption of water for

cooking, drinking and washing. In the latter respect we begin to

realize that many circumstances are against habits of excessive

cleanliness, but although we use water very sparingly, an astonishing

amount of washing is done with it, and at present the fashion is for

all to have a bath once a week.

A bath a week in melted ice water--for almost two years. With this sort

of detail the “heroic age” of Antarctic exploration is brought down to

the basics. What they ate, how they slept and other facts of daily life

make up much of the 1,200 pages of Scott’s narrative of his 1901

expedition. Readers are dragged through days of manhauling; along with

Scott and his men we suffer great cold and eat a lot of hoosh and

biscuits. It is these details that are the foundation their great feats.

What is remembered is the tragic manner in which Scott and his men died

in 1911, eleven miles from a food supply on their return from the pole.

A cross rests at the top of Observation Hill above McMurdo marking the

deaths of Scott, Bowers, Wilson, Evans and Oates. On it is inscribed

Tennyson’s great line: To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield.

When I arrived at the top of Observation Hill, breathless in the thin

clear air, tears emerged spontaneously and unexpectedly. I realized

that the cross told the same story as that contained in their

toothbrushes. I looked at the Ross Sea, made sure no one else was

nearby, and kissed the cross. (Click here for the full Introduction and Table of Contents)