1. About

What is this journal?

When I left Antarctica, I was convinced that The Place was simply too big and too awesome to be written about. I felt that “writing” would produce, at best, a terrible translation of the awesome extremes. I felt — and to a large degree I still feel — there is no way to use words to reproduce a feeling of complete submission to nature.

I had similar reservations about putting narrative onto my trip — about turning the voyage into a “story.” It’s a land encased in ice; the wildlife is unique, the conditions are unique, the techniques of survival are unique, the water is unique, the weather is unique, the topography is unique. Trying to express The Place as a linear sequence of events (“narrative”) struck me as being a hopeless or even stupid idea.

And yet.

One of the things we visitors to The Place are told, is that having seen it, we now have a responsibility. We become part of Antarctica’s foreign service. We are ambassadors: we have to translate what we saw, what inspired us, what insights we had — we have to advocate for a land that has no other voice.

As much as I do not want to use words and story to describe The Place, I also feel a moral obligation to try.

So no, I don’t know what’s coming next. I have, at best, a loose plan. This, I feel, is very much in the spirit of the trip itself, where our daily itinerary was entirely at the whim of where the wildlife needed us to be (or not be), and what the weather gave us to work with.

I have pictures. I have observations and thoughts. I did some book learning. Ultimately, I do have a beginning, middle and an end — which means I have a classic Aristotelian structure! This structure should be loose and I hope impressionistic, but it is a structure. A proper maritime adventure…

We’ll see what happens next.

As a matter of writerly process or procedure:

While I was down there, collecting information (“reporting”) or taking notes was the furthest thing from my mind. I simply wanted to stand on the observation decks and watch ice floating by. I wanted to see ice mountains rising out of mist. I wanted to be in the presence of whales and penguins and orcas and albatrosses.

It really felt like I had stepped off Earth for awhile…

-A