Recreating Antarctic Spaces

Before heading south to the Antarctic in 2008, I was instructed in keeping a journal by a very knowledgeable and wise young woman:

"Describe what you can't see in a photo. The taste, smell, internal emotion. Record conversations, thoughts and feelings, looking back, it will help re-create the space you were in at the time".

These are words that I have always remembered. The woman who told me these very words is now writing her own book, an impressive feat! And I have kept journals on each of my journeys; Germany when I was 16, Sub Antarctic in 2008, the Antarctic, Arctic..... (I now have eight). Some are more detailed than others. Some are full of doodling art, meandering as I meandered through a plane flight. Others are full of self analysis! But I often go back and read through them, trying to find good words to describe a place or time, and relive my personal experience of that place.


Interested person - "Wow, you have been to the Antarctic?? I have always wondered - whats it like down there?"
Me - "Well, its hard to describe, but....
Here is a clip from Wednesday 18th December 2008, 745 am:
"Antarctica is HUGE. Had the most awesome view whilst on the toilet last night, the sun was waaay over in the west and it was reflecting on this mountainside in such a way I HAD to take a photo while still on the toilet".

The Toilet from which the photo was taken.

I am ALWAYS stumped by this: What words should I use to describe the places I have seen? I am yet to find a word that accurately conveys the right emotion, senses and description of the Antarctic. Each word I try undersells what I want to say, yet grander words are also unsatisfactory!





Interested person - "Was it cold?"

I bonded with my art.

Me - "Its cold in Antarctica, a dry, seeping cold that freezes your snot so your nasal passages bleed and your knees go stiff"

This excerpt, taken from my Antarctic Journal, 16th December 2008, (sometime around 10pm) suprised me. Reading it whilst sitting in the sun outside my flat in Christchurch (after the trip to the Ice), made it seem so unreal I could hardly remember writing it!

On one of our 'final' nights at Scott Base, we gave a short presentation (apparently tradition for PCAS students and Base staff), where we thanked everyone, then I got to claim my southernmost belly dancing performance, with a makeshift costume (christmas tinsel) and Mambo Number Five soundtrack... Good times, and such epic memories!

Camp PCAS at 11 pm on our first night in the field.