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Now and Then – a Personal Account of an Expedition to Antarctica Theresa Kirchner

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Now and Then – a Personal Account of an Expedition to Antarctica Theresa Kirchner Now and then – a personal account of an expedition to Antarctica Theresa Kirchner This is an account of my participation in an expedition to Antarctica over three weeks in winter term 2016 onboard the ecotourism ship Akademik Sergey Vavilov, for course credit (that’s right) towards my Master’s degree in Wildlife Science at Oregon State University. ‘…no voyage, no salty yarn; only different, less stimulating paths toward a career’. - Robert Cushman Murphy Personally, I have never really been into history. I have a lot of things to do and to occupy my mind with, and living in the past is not one of them. Similarly, I have never really cared much for philosophy. I have always pictured philosophers as old men with oversized heads sitting somewhere in a dark room thinking about things, instead of experiencing them. Maybe owing to this ignorance, I find it absolutely astonishing that over 2000 years ago, Greek philosophers (in my ignorant mind sitting somewhere in a basement in ancient Greece) were able to use logic (and clairvoyance?) to conjure up an entire continent. Raffael’s ‘The School Of Athens’ shows the Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle during a brief venture out of their basements to ruminate on life, the universe and everything, with friends and students. Photo: http://mv.vatican.va/4_ES/pages/z-Patrons/MV_Patrons_04_01.html Long before the heroic era of Antarctic exploration in the ‘testing-ground for men with frozen beards to see how dead they could get’ (Wheeler, 1996) *, these philosophers concluded that there needed to be a landmass in the southern hemisphere to balance the disproportionate amount of land in the northern hemisphere. Aristotle referred to this antipode to the land under the North Star constellation Arktos as Antarktikos. Fast forward more than two millennia, and – Booom! – turns out they were right. And I am skeptical even more than I am ignorant, but I was able to ground-truth this outrageously far-fetched hypothesis. I was able to do what Aristotle & Co. dreamt of (probably in uncannily accurate detail) - to fly down to the tip of South America, hop on a ship, cross the Drake Passage and walk around on this continent. Boom! Antarctica. Photo: Theresa Kirchner During my preparation for this voyage, naturally (my spring term grades should hopefully be carved in stone at this point so I feel that I can speak freely) I skimped on learning about the history of Antarctic exploration. So when during the expedition I attend a talk by the onboard historian Karen Williams on ‘Shackleton and the Three Franks’, the details of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition are mostly new to me, and it is pretty obvious: I am lucky, privileged, weak and I HAVE NO IDEA. This account of human perseverance and ENDURANCE is unbelievable (more accessible now that I actually am in Antarctica, but for the same reason also even more unbelievable). Had there not been a versed photographer on board to document the ordeal, I might not believe that it actually happened. Here is what I take away from this account (Let’s also keep in mind that this is only one of many Antarctic expeditions encountering less-than ideal circumstances): So 100 years ago this guy Shackleton gathers up an extremely capable and experienced crew to sail from England via South Georgia towards Antarctica in this wooden ship. He names the ship Endurance (I assume) because after several preceding brushes with Antarctic death he knows what it takes to live to tell the tale. The goal is to really push the envelope and to traverse the Antarctic continent by foot 1800 miles from the Weddell Sea via the South Pole to the Ross Sea (with the help of the Ross Sea party). However, before anyone sets foot on land, the Endurance gets trapped in sea ice in the Weddell Sea. For nine months, the crew drifts northward with their ship, in the opposite direction of where they intended to go. Eventually, they drag three small wooden boats off the Endurance and set up camp on an ice floe, just before having to suffer the disheartening sight of their ship being crushed by the ever-encroaching ice and sinking. The men drift on their floe for five months before it breaks apart and they have to take to the life boats. They manage to reach Elephant Island in the South Shetland Islands, where the majority of men is marooned to await rescue. Elephant Island. Photo: Theresa Kirchner While The Boss and five men set out in their 22-foot open boat to sail 870 miles of the most treacherous waters of the world ‘… where nature has been given a proving ground on which to demonstrate what she can do if left alone’ (Lansing, 2000) to get help from a whaling station in South Georgia, Team Elephant Island is condemned to play the waiting game, surviving on the meat of seals, penguins, limpets and sheathbills (and we all know what THOSE birds eat all day). Dinner? Photo: Theresa Kirchner After Shackles and his cronies spent over two unimaginable weeks constantly exposed to howling winds, soaked by freezing water and at risk of getting sunk by waves or colliding with ice, they reach South Georgia. And they are on the wrong side of the island. There are mountains between them and the whaling station that are considered uncrossable. So they cross those mountains. After their arrival at the station it takes four attempts to rescue the remaining crew, all 22 of which had survived four months on Elephant Island in the Antarctic winter. Now THAT puts me to shame for whining about missed flight connections on my way to Chile and the carbohydrate-heavy diet on the ship. The expedition I am on includes maids who make the beds every day and leave little chocolates on the pillows, a masseuse, a plunge pool for people who would like to experience the icy waters of Antarctica with the convenience of having a hot shower and a sauna around the corner, and chefs who cater to vegetarian, vegan, garlic-intolerant and gluten-free diets. The next day, with the harrowing account of Shackleton’s and his men’s ordeal still ringing in my ears, feeble vegetarian me steps onto the Antarctic continent, dressed like an onion with a fully synthetic water- and wind-proof high-performance ultra-technical outer peel (it’s still a bit cold). I look at the penguins. These little birds go au natural in their biodegradable foul-weather gear and make living in Antarctica look like it’s no big deal. In theory I know about the morphological, physiological and behavioral adaptions that enable them to live down here, but I still want to crouch down next to one, gently clutch the adorable little bird, stare into its eyes, and whisper ‘But really, how do you do it?’. How do you do it? Photo: Theresa Kirchner The day we spend cruising around on zodiacs near Brown Bluff in the Antarctic Sound is stunning. The sky is bright blue and the water surface is glass calm. A group of about 40 minke whales, about 40 times the size of the largest group of minke whales I have ever seen, is hunting krill near the edge of the sea ice. They disappear under the ice edge, circle around and come up all around our zodiac. Three humpbacks dive right under us, also on the prowl. It seems like swarms of krill abound in the entire area. We watch the whales for several hours before, sadly, it is time to return to the ship. Minke whales at Brown Bluff. Photo: Theresa Kirchner One day, on a zodiac cruise in a little bay, we stare at the face of a giant glacier (from a safe distance, of course), when we hear an ominous loud rumbling sound (if there is anything I definitely never thought about, it is the SOUND of ice). A piece of glacier breaks off, and I take a thousand pictures. The calving of a glacier! The birth of a little iceberg! It is so beautiful! When the ship prepares to head out of the bay, most people have retreated to their cabins to recover from the exhausting task of sitting in a zodiac for a few hours. With a cup of hot chocolate in hand I am standing on deck and turn back to look at the glacier face we had visited earlier, just in time to see a GIGANTIC piece fall off and plunge into the water. It is so big that it completely disappears under the surface for a while, before bopping back up and swaying to and fro until finding its balance. The waves created by the impact travel across the bay all the way to the ship. I really don’t know what to say. Glacier calving (the little one). Photo: Theresa Kirchner When asked about my time onboard the expedition, the word that best describes my brief encounter with the alluring beauty of Antarctica and its promise of adventure that calls like a siren, its peaceful yet maddening solitude and the history of uber-human mental and physical determination, is: humbling. (I also learned that people can come up with some pretty great ideas while sitting in their basements, stroking their beards and thinking about things.) Icebergs. Photo: Theresa Kirchner Now, before you hate on me for having the luck to go to Antarctica, for course credit (let’s face it, I probably would), and returning alive and intact (the only digits I lost were on my bank account), let me say that, like every other grad student, I worked 7 days a week during the entire term.
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