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Antarctic Comrades An American with the Russians in Antarctica Gilbert Dewart Antarctic Comrades An American with the Russians in Antarctica Gilbert Dewart Antarctic Comrades chronicles an American sci­ entist's unique adventure with a Soviet research team in 1960. Science buffs and intrepid explorers alike will enjoy Gilbert Dewart's description of the work accomplished at the Mirnyy research station and the four-month summertime trek inland to Vostok, another Soviet station in the coldest part of Antarctica. Dewart's account illuminates an early attempt at glasnost during the Eisenhower/Kennedy/Khrushchev era and the evolution of the international scientific community. Dewart joined a Soviet scientific crew to study the geophysics of the solid earth of the region, and his presence marked the resumption of a one-on-one exchange program between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. His ability to relate to various kinds of people and his knowledge of Russian helped him fit in and enabled him to accompany his Soviet colleagues on field trips. Taking advan­ tage of the inevitable proximity, Dewart learned what he could about the mysterious Russians and their secretive society. He found the coastal research station at Mirnyy to be a microcosm of Russian society, complete with laborers, Communist party members, and intellectuals. He recorded their group interactions during emer­ gencies, from a minor truck repair to a major fire; their exultation over scientific findings; the Soviet approach to science and technology; and their government's attitudes toward research scientists in isolated areas. Just as important, Dewart got to know his col­ leagues as people, seeing their strengths and weaknesses during difficult but often satisfying times. The result is a fascinating look at the ben­ efits of international cooperation during the height of the Cold War. Antarctic Comrades Antarctic Comrades An American with the Russians in Antarctica Gilbert Dewart THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS COLUMBUS Copyright © 1989 by the Ohio State University Press. All rights reserved. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Dewart, Gilbert, 1932— Antarctic comrades: an American with the Russians in Antarctica/ Gilbert Dewart. p. cm. ISBN 0-8142-0490-2 1. Dewart, Gilbert, 1932- . 2. Explorers—United States—Biography. 3. Sovetskaia Antarkticheskaia ekspeditsiia (1955-) I. Title. G875.D49A3 1989 919.8'904—dc20 89-3354 CIP The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources. Printed in the U.S.A. 98765432 1 It is not until we come far down into the full day­ light of history that we find men setting out with the conscious purpose of exploring the unknown for its own sake. With those early hunters it was doubtless new ground and new game that drew them on, but they too were attracted, consciously or unconsciously, by the spirit of adventure and the unknown—so deep in the soul of man does this divine force lie, the main­ spring, perhaps, of the greatest of our actions. In every part of the world and in every age it has driven men forward on the path of evolution, and as long as the human ear can hear the breaking of waves over deep sea, so long will the fascination of the unknown carry the human mind forward and upward. —Fridtjof Narisen Contents Preface IX Chapter 1. The White Vortex 1 Chapter 2. A Polar Voyage with the Russians 14 Chapter 3. The Settlement Mirnyy 35 Chapter 4. Airborne Surveys of the Ice Shelves 49 Chapter 5. Winter Life at Mirnyy 66 Chapter 6. Conversations with the Comrades 101 Chapter 7. Explorations of the Mind 122 Chapter 8. Tragedy 138 Chapter 9. To the "Pole of Cold" 143 Chapter 10. Do Svidoniya! 176 Glossary 185 Illustrations follow page 94 Preface It is now more than a quarter of a century since the International Geophysical Year opened a new era in Antarctic exploration. At that time the Antarctic continent was still largely unknown; maps of Ant­ arctica published in the 1950s bear a suggestive resemblance to those early charts of colonial America in which scattered coastal features were given descriptive or personal names, but the interior was left virtually blank except for a few guesses and fancies. Today, although it contains vast areas that humans have never trodden, the "last con­ tinent" is substantially a part of the known world. The exploration of the south polar regions has moved within one generation from de­ pendence on isolated, precarious outposts and long, broadly focused, over-snow journeys to the ability to do intensive, specialized scientific studies. Organizationally it has progressed from small expeditions limited in duration and scope to large-scale, continuing, many-fac­ eted research programs. Before the International Geophysical Year, Antarctic expeditions were frequently financed privately or by subscription; today they are almost invariably government funded. In the old days it was common for an expedition to be promoted, organized, and commanded by one charismatic leader who stamped his character on the whole enter­ prise: the explorers of the "heroic age" like Amundsen, Scott, Shack­ leton, Mawson, Wilkins, and Byrd. Today Antarctic research tends to be a bureaucratic, apparently faceless operation run among drifts of paperwork by committees and secretariats. However, it should x Preface never be forgotten that even now the real work is still done by indi­ viduals and small parties, and just as in those rugged, simpler days, they all have their own particular motives, talents, and dreams. It has been my great privilege and pleasure to have taken part in the exploration of Antarctica during this exciting period of transition and achievement, and it has been my special good fortune to have served for some of that time with a Russian expedition. The story told here is mostly a personal narrative about my participation in that little-known project. I digress from time to time in order to provide geographical or historical background information, to relate impor­ tant events occurring elsewhere in the Antarctic and the rest of the world, or to present major scientific results. This book is, however, essentially one man's view of a small but vital part of a great and complex human endeavor. The period of the International Geophysical Year and the ensuing International Geophysical Cooperation was a watershed in many ways besides the sphere of polar exploration. One thinks immediately of Sputnik and the Space Age and the revolutions in geology and oceanography that were then just getting under way. The end of the 1950s and the beginning of the 1960s were pivotal not only in science, technology, and exploration, but also in politics (which inevitably impinged upon us even in the "nonpolitical" Antarctic). This was the time of the Eisenhower/ Kennedy changeover in the United States and the crest of the "Khrushchev Era" in the Soviet Union, marked by momentous developments both within the U.S.S.R. and in that na­ tion's relations with the U.S. and China. In our geographical isola­ tion in Antarctica my companions and I were in the deceptively quiet eye of this political hurricane, perceiving it from afar through the distorting lenses of the Voice of America, Radio Moscow, and the British Broadcasting Corporation. The Soviet expedition to East Antarctica in 1959-61 was one of several national expeditions that uneasily combined the quest for scientific knowledge with a striving for national prestige, which is nothing new. For those of us actually on the ice our remote and primi­ tive situation was not always very different from that of polar ex­ plorers of the past. Our experience as modern pioneers from urban twentieth-century civilization in a barren, unforgiving land was a challenging blend of the old and the new and of things that are time­ Preface xi less. In my account I have not tried to be a completely unbiased ob­ server, but I think that my point of view is clear enough to be easily taken into consideration. Here we are entering a hazardous arena, in which the difficult meeting of science with diplomacy often takes the center of the moving stage. Figuratively speaking, we make a trip not only to Antarctica, but also to Russia, which has created a revealing microcosm of its society in this distant outpost. It is my fervent desire that the reader can learn something of value from my intimate associ­ ation with these redoubtable neighbors of ours. If to think is to exist, one can also say that to know is to survive. A polar expedition is a time machine of sorts: its members are transported a few thousand miles in distance and many more thou­ sand years in time back to the Pleistocene ice age, when great conti­ nental glaciers covered not only Antarctica and Greenland but also vast areas of North America and Eurasia—up to thirty percent of the earth's land surface. We see the world as it was in the past and as it presumably will be again in the future. That, indeed, is one reason for our probing this mysterious region, to find clues to the direction in which the climate of our vulnerable and changeable planet is heading. Those of us who work in science and technology frequently com­ plain that we are misunderstood by society in general, and especially by people in public life. We are right, certainly, but it is partly our own fault. Whether we like it or not, science and technology have become inextricably entangled with politics; today the community of scholars can exist only as an interdependent part of the larger com­ munity.

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