T minus 10!
HOLY MACKEREL! Ten days! What seemed forever away is now a mere 10 days hence. I've been busy. It takes a lot of planning to be out for this many days. The show must go on, even if i'm not here, and so for the last few weeks my brain has been a swirling haze of ideas and concepts that either need to be taught because they're part of the curriculum, or should be taught because hey, your teacher only goes to Antarctica once and he better teach you something about it.
To be totally honest, prior to being selected as a Grosvenor Teacher Fellow I knew very little about the place. Sure, I had the basics down - it has as lot of penguin action going on, its wicked cold there, storms are insane, people who go there sometimes die, etc. In fact, when I saw it on the list of places to go, I checked it off in a 'man, i'll never actually go there myself, that would be pretty wild if they sent me there' sort of way. When National Geographic and Lindblad Expeditions informed me that i'd actually be heading there, I had a sort of duplicitous reaction. My first thought was of course 'NO WAY! AWESOME! ' which was followed closely by my second 'woh...it's crazy cold down there.' When the dust settled, and the permagrin I had on faded, the reality that someone out there read a whole lot about what I think is important about education, and what i've been trying so hard to do all these years - and they liked it, well, that entered my psyche and its stayed lodged firmly up there since. Validation like this is something we all seek, but seldom find. I count myself endlessly lucky. But what about Antarctica? I had very little sense of the place. It was time to start learning.
I started gathering info as any rock climbing, mountain biking, outdoor adventure type might, with the mind blowing adventure of Earnest Shackleton and the Endurance. READ IT! You'll not only come away with a new found respect for what people can do under brilliant leadership, but the profound ability of man to endure nature's omnipotence and survive. The dude sailed the James Caird, a 23 foot boat, through some of the roughest , coldest water on earth, (an impossible feat) and then upon landing had to climb over a crevasse filled glacier field and several peaks to find rescue for his shipmates. With no mountaineering gear. The definition of epic. Following this i've read field guides, scoured the internet for information, watched a ridiculous amount of Antarctica related documentaries, and let me just tell you folks, i've come around.
I think what strikes me most is the austerity of the place. Its bony, alabaster and slate colored coastlines, blue hued ice, the ceaseless lowing of its biting, skin freezing wind, and the inability of humanity to live there without extreme duress makes it seem otherworldly. It is a land of extremes - an unforgiving climate, and an assemblage of animals made to match it. Their sleek, hydrodynamic shapes, their lack of fear regarding man (maybe they sense our ineptness in such a place) slipping into and out of water so cold it can give a man a heart attack only adds to the mystique. It seems to me a lonely place, a place strewn with jagged stone and cast with an impossible amount of snow and ice. When I think of Antarctica, my mind recalls the memory of skiing through the woods behind my parents house in a blizzard. The near white out conditions, the silence broken only by my heartbeat, my breathing, and the gusting of wind driven snow. It was like out there somehow I could feel the massiveness of world condensed to a point, accompanied by a great stillness that bordered on emptiness, and although I wasn't that far from my family's place, and I was probably near hundreds of hunkering animals, I felt totally alone. For some reason this is the memory that comes to mind when I visualize myself in Antarctica. How similar are they? I don't know. But I can't wait to find out.
To be totally honest, prior to being selected as a Grosvenor Teacher Fellow I knew very little about the place. Sure, I had the basics down - it has as lot of penguin action going on, its wicked cold there, storms are insane, people who go there sometimes die, etc. In fact, when I saw it on the list of places to go, I checked it off in a 'man, i'll never actually go there myself, that would be pretty wild if they sent me there' sort of way. When National Geographic and Lindblad Expeditions informed me that i'd actually be heading there, I had a sort of duplicitous reaction. My first thought was of course 'NO WAY! AWESOME! ' which was followed closely by my second 'woh...it's crazy cold down there.' When the dust settled, and the permagrin I had on faded, the reality that someone out there read a whole lot about what I think is important about education, and what i've been trying so hard to do all these years - and they liked it, well, that entered my psyche and its stayed lodged firmly up there since. Validation like this is something we all seek, but seldom find. I count myself endlessly lucky. But what about Antarctica? I had very little sense of the place. It was time to start learning.
I started gathering info as any rock climbing, mountain biking, outdoor adventure type might, with the mind blowing adventure of Earnest Shackleton and the Endurance. READ IT! You'll not only come away with a new found respect for what people can do under brilliant leadership, but the profound ability of man to endure nature's omnipotence and survive. The dude sailed the James Caird, a 23 foot boat, through some of the roughest , coldest water on earth, (an impossible feat) and then upon landing had to climb over a crevasse filled glacier field and several peaks to find rescue for his shipmates. With no mountaineering gear. The definition of epic. Following this i've read field guides, scoured the internet for information, watched a ridiculous amount of Antarctica related documentaries, and let me just tell you folks, i've come around.
I think what strikes me most is the austerity of the place. Its bony, alabaster and slate colored coastlines, blue hued ice, the ceaseless lowing of its biting, skin freezing wind, and the inability of humanity to live there without extreme duress makes it seem otherworldly. It is a land of extremes - an unforgiving climate, and an assemblage of animals made to match it. Their sleek, hydrodynamic shapes, their lack of fear regarding man (maybe they sense our ineptness in such a place) slipping into and out of water so cold it can give a man a heart attack only adds to the mystique. It seems to me a lonely place, a place strewn with jagged stone and cast with an impossible amount of snow and ice. When I think of Antarctica, my mind recalls the memory of skiing through the woods behind my parents house in a blizzard. The near white out conditions, the silence broken only by my heartbeat, my breathing, and the gusting of wind driven snow. It was like out there somehow I could feel the massiveness of world condensed to a point, accompanied by a great stillness that bordered on emptiness, and although I wasn't that far from my family's place, and I was probably near hundreds of hunkering animals, I felt totally alone. For some reason this is the memory that comes to mind when I visualize myself in Antarctica. How similar are they? I don't know. But I can't wait to find out.
Enjoy yourself... ~ Trevor
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