ICE BOUND
“Going to Antarctica was the fulfillment of a long-held dream. I was excited, over-stimulated. There was too much to process; I felt like I’d short-circuited,” writes Rebecca Priestley on the eve of her first visit to the wide, white continent in 2011. She was a nervous flyer; she was a mother to three young children. She agonised about the carbon miles. “How could I be flying to Antarctica to write about climate change research?”
Priestley made two further trips to Antarctica, spending time with biologists, geologists, glaciologists and paleo-climatologists – exploring the landscape and observing the wildlife.
We are the wiser for her journeys south. She has written and spoken eloquently on this place in her heart, tracing the steps of early explorers and skilfully unravelling the science and mysteries of Earth’s last great wilderness.
Following her 2016 book Dispatches from Continent Seven: An Anthology of Antarctic Science, Priestley’s Fifteen Million Years in Antarctica (excerpted overleaf ) is a more personal tour of the continent. With candour, intelligence and humility, she reflects on what Antarctica can tell us about our planet’s future – and whether people even belong in this otherworldly place.
The whisky is warming in the cold.
I’d be happy to stay longer, but it’s our last night here, so after the whisky I go to the high point on the edge of the ASPA [Antarctic Specially Protected Area] and look down on a circle of
