Going to Antarctica is not what it used to be. To reach the South Pole in 1911, my great-grandfather’s cousin Roald Amundsen planned for years, raised funds, recruited a team of men and dogs, borrowed a ship, sailed for months across the most dangerous waters in the world and then risked his life crossing territory no one had ever laid eyes upon.
A hundred years later, I booked passage on a pre-arranged eco-tourist expedition bound for Antarctica, maxed out my line of credit and flew to Ushuaia, Argentina, with winter gear from a local outdoor shop in my luggage.
About 25,000 people travel to Antarctica each year as tourists and have adventures similar to mine. For perspective, 40,000 people visit Disneyland each day. You have to be at least a little hardy and fit to cross the Drake Passage and to climb down rope ladders into zodiacs.
So it is true that my adventure was nothing like Amundsen’s. His voyage south marked the end of the heroic age of exploration — after the South Pole, the only goal left was the moon. And yet after all these years, Antarctica remains a pristine wilderness, hardly touched by humans. There are millions of square kilometres no one has set foot upon. Antarctica is like nowhere else on earth. It is otherworldly and off the grid, and the only infrastructure is an orbiting satellite or two, impossible to see in the sun-filled nights of the astral summer.
When I began thinking about following in Amundsen’s footsteps on the centenary of his expedition, I had romantic notions about what going to Antarctica would mean. I pictured myself looking like him, wrapped in a caribou parka with my team of huskies.
Dogs (and all other non-indigenous species except people) have been banned on the continent since 1991, and Gore-Tex and velcro are the chosen equipment now. Despite these differences, I have a sense of accomplishment. My trip was a pilgrimage to a place that had been made mythical through family stories, and the 21st-century version of travelling was, for all the disparities, still beyond my expectations. I found something spiritual in the silences of Antarctica, in my communion with penguins, and in moments of being utterly aware and utterly present.
I visited a chinstrap penguin colony across from Two-Hummock Island where, in 1897, Amundsen went ashore to test his gear and became the first person to ski in Antarctica. When I arrived, the penguin colony was completely shrouded in fog. I struggled through knee-deep snow trying not to disturb the “highways” the penguins use to go between their nests and the sea to feed. I nearly tripped over a sleeping Weddell seal because I couldn’t see it. Then the cloud lifted a little and I saw a patch of blue sky. In a few more moments, the white tuft of the peak of Two-Hummock Island appeared, and then the clouds disappeared completely, as if they were a magic trick, and it became a bright, sunny day.
The island was a jewel across the strait and I was transfixed, studying the contours to try to imagine where and how Amundsen had climbed it. I roamed among the penguins, photographing their day-old chicks and now easily avoiding seals at rest, and as I was preparing to leave a few hours later, the cloud returned and the fog settled back down until I could barely see again. Like much of the rest of my time there, that day seems like an elaborate and gorgeous dream.
Antarctica is awesome, dangerous and fragile, and we are changing it. I feel a sense of privilege to have been there on such an important occasion. Going brought me closer to my family myths and closer to myself, and the result is that I hope the way I live my life on this other side of the planet won’t change that other world forever.