Iceberg just north of the Antarctic Circle

Day 31; February 22, 2009; Southern Ocean, Antarctic Circle
Average Daily Temperature: 33.88˚ F
Average Daily Wind Speed: 10.82 mph
Feels Like: 17.65˚ F

One doesn’t forget the first glimpse of an albatross. With wingspans up to ten feet, they are stunning in flight—ever graceful in the thick ocean wind. Albatross are known for their gliding, and hardly need flap their wings. By using the updraft of the wind off the ocean’s surface and the shape of their long elegant wings they can glide endlessly. I was quite fortunate to see five species today: the majestic wandering albatross, the sooty albatross, the light-mantled sooty albatross, the black-browed albatross and the grey-hooded albatross.

Sitting on up on the monkey deck with birder Dennis Weir, I learned a great many things about the albatross, as well as the many other birds that were emerging as we traversed the latitudes northward. It is quite amazing, these birds that live out here in the middle of the ocean, with only the restless sea to land on! Albatross can go periods of years wandering the sea before returning to the South Atlantic islands where they were born in order to mate.

Several times through the day we also saw Humpback Whales, sometimes in pairs, sometimes in pods, and often near the lone icebergs that still persisted along the horizon. I was thrilled to witness one in the distance leap completely out of the water, and caught glimpses of others waving their fins or tails above the water. These graceful marine mammals had migrated here with their young for the austral summer.

Although we are now far from their origin, the ice shelf, the icebergs endure the distance. The gray and misty day displayed their ghost-like silhouettes along the horizon. Their forms emerged and dissipated as if memories, yet in their fortitude they persevered despite the warming waters that now surround them. I cannot help but wonder at the their fate, and at the fate of Antarctica itself, as well as the Arctic, as ocean waters in general continue to increase in temperature and as Earth’s climate changes. How can we reconcile the loss of these lands and their unique phenomena? How can we bear their possible extinction by what may be our own hand? Can we make the changes necessary to save these environments, these pieces of our natural heritage?

Just after noon, we crossed latitude 66 degrees and 29 minutes, and I left the Antarctic Circle behind. I have spent 26 days in Antarctica, 22 on the continent and four in the Antarctic Ocean. I have been opened to a world that I will not soon relinquish to memory, wanting to carry this experience afresh with me in every moment until I go back. This journey has strengthened my intent with my project, and impassioned me with the courage to accomplish it.
***

Pancake ice forming on the surface of the ocean

Day 30; February 21, 2009; Penguin Bukta, Fimbul Ice Shelf, Southern Ocean, Antarctica
Average Daily Temperature: 24.53˚ F
Average Daily Wind Speed: 14.77 mph
Feels Like: 2.38˚ F

This morning I awoke to find that the sea had literally begun to freeze. All around the ship, and as far as I could see, the surface of the ocean was covered in small discs of solid ice. Though the equinox is still a month away, which definitively marks the change of seasons, one can already see the signs of the quickly approaching winter.

Watching the Southern Ocean freeze before my eyes was an awesome sight—completely profound, if not seemingly impossible.

Pancake Ice

The discs of ice that had appeared overnight are called “pancake ice,” and they are formed in a most remarkable way. As the temperature of the ocean water begins to drop to the point of freezing, the surface water, which has less salinity, will begin to freeze first. However, as the ocean is never still, when the ice begins to form it knocks about gently on the surface waves, bumping into other forming bits of ice. The persistence of the motion means the ice plates are always colliding into one another, eroding each other’s edges which results in their round shape.

The last flights from SANAE arrived before lunch, and with everyone on board, the ship embarked on the long voyage north. As we moved away from the ice shelf, and the continent of Antarctica, the boat made its way through the newly frozen surface of the calm ocean, marking our path behind us. The petrels were darting around the ship, following our northerly tack. Icebergs towered, ever luminous, in all directions.

The panorama held my vision in earnest for the next six hours. The sunlight, which disappeared occasionally behind light cloud cover, was creating the seascape anew minute by minute. Literally, I could photograph the same direction three times within a short period, and the color of the ocean would be a gloomy gray in one, a radiant gold in another, and an icy deep blue in the third. Impossibly striking scenes passed before our eyes, every direction a new opportunity to gasp. I have over 800 photographs from this day, and have found it an entirely hopeless effort to try to edit them—each one holds a unique beauty, leaving me quite confounded as to how claim one superior to another.

Before long, the pack ice, which is the ice left over from the previous winter’s freeze, was scattered across the horizon, forming a theatrical stage upon which the light continued to play. Every moment was a magnum opus. Large flat pieces of ice in the shapes of squares or triangles became like monochromatic light sculptures. Jagged pieces, which sliced upward into the sky or downward into the sea, were like truculent brushstrokes upon the foreground. As I watched the landscape before me, I esteem more deeply the paintings I had seen at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts the day before I left on this journey—a wonderfully curated exhibition of historic paintings of the Arctic and Antarctic regions.

These artists, some of the first to see Antarctica, let alone paint it, had sought to represent the landscape with an air of emotionality—they attempted to reproduce nature accurately, but ever imbued with the human effort and adventure that led them to be there. I remember, as I looked into those paintings, wondering if they were a bit sensational in their approach, but now I believe that not to be the case at all. They are sensational, yes, but insofar as they accurately portray the real and persistent drama of the nature itself. Those paintings are more impressive to me now, having seen this place with my own eyes—I couldn’t have known beforehand the land those paintings yearned after. Now, I know.

I was fortunate to catch a glimpse of penguins amongst the pack ice several times throughout the day. On one large flow, there were four Adélie penguins and one Emperor penguin, which allowed a clear view of the size difference. Scurrying along the ice, sometimes standing upright looking directly at you, and then suddenly dropping on to their bellies and sliding around on the ice, they seem somehow comical and noble at the same time. I also spotted a small pod of Minke Whales in the distance, their dark fins emerging elegantly from the water as they surfaced for air.

At dusk, light continued in vain to pursue the expanding darkness. Several times the vista before me would be entirely a dark grayish blue, save for a single iceberg in the distance, which would be fully illuminated in the warm brilliance of the remaining sunlight. Perfectly horizontal lines of light would appear and disappear in seconds. The day, indeed a masterpiece in color and light, finally dissolved into night with the sun setting on the last remaining pack ice before we reached the open ocean. Behind me, Antarctica would still be illuminated, but in my growing distance, I could no longer see it.
***

Newly formed icebergs in the waning sunlight

Day 29; February 20, 2009; Penguin Bukta, Fimbul Ice Shelf, Southern Ocean, Antarctica
Average Daily Temperature: 19.14˚ F
Average Daily Wind Speed: 18.91 mph
Feels Like: -9.23˚ F

The first day on the SA Agulhas was spent acquainting myself with my new territory. This would be my first time on a sea voyage and there was much to comprehend, not the least of which was being atop a thing which never ceases to move about below you. The seawater around the ice shelf was relatively calm, but a certain finesse was still required in getting about the ship.

My cabin, which I would eventually share with three other women, was on the upper deck. Small but workable, the best feature was the portal view. The bunks were cozy, if a bit cramped, and I remarked at the support along the outer edge, which I imagined was to keep you from falling out of bed in rough seas. As I set about unpacking my things, I began to settle into the reality that this ship would be home for the two-week journey back to Cape Town.

Having missed breakfast—sure to be a daily occurrence given that it starts at 7:30 am—I was relieved to find that the heli deck was endowed with a rather elaborate espresso machine. For all its glamour, it was undoubtedly in need of a tune-up, as it arrived at a decent brew only after a bit of perseverance and fortuity. Alas, with veritable coffee in hand, I went about setting up my studio in one of the science labs at the back of the ship where Thomas, 1stborn and I had been given space to work.

Lunch came and went, the meals here being nothing more than tolerable sustenance. The bowl of pears was rather a treat—anything resembling “fresh” is always a high commodity—and I grabbed one on my way out of the dinning room. The food on the ship is really not something I wanted to spend too much time thinking about, given that most of it was packed into containers back in early December 2008. The same, of course, was true at SANAE, but the chef at the base was somehow more adept at preparing enjoyable meals. Alas, one learns to adapt.

I spent the rest of the day up on the monkey deck, a wind-protected bench at the very top of the boat which offers a 360-degree view. It was quite cold, but the fresh air was revitalizing, and with most of my body sheltered from the wind, I was able to sit and watch the environs for hours. There was much to take in as we lingered in front of the ice shelf waiting for the rest of the flights from the base—the sea was abundant with birds!

Snow and Antarctic Petrels darted around the ship, riding the potent air currents. These little birds, indigenous to Antarctica, are quite spirited. Flitting around the boat, they sometimes gain fast altitude and then hang in the air against the wind, as if suspended, and other times race past towards the tips of the waves. The Giant Southern Petrels are quite a bit larger, and have more elongated movements, languidly making wide circles around the ship.

All the while, the horizon was dotted with floating ice castles. As the ship made its way through and around them, our ever-changing angle of view showed one façade’s contours slowly shifting into others, creating vastly different shapes from a single iceberg. On approach, an iceberg would look entirely different than once we had passed it by.

The day parted with a waning crescent moon rising over the continent, half a mile away. The early twilight barely illuminated the edge of the ice shelf, the sun having left the sky blushing.
***

Iceberg floating off the Ice Shelf

Day 28; February 19, 2009; Penguin Bukta, Fimbul Ice Shelf, Southern Ocean, Antarctica
Average Daily Temperature: 20.93˚ F
Average Daily Wind Speed: 35.1 mph
Feels Like: -31.72˚ F

Dawn both elated my soul and dimmed my heart, as this sunrise marked my last day on the continent of Antarctica for this journey. I had been up all night, again, attempting to observe and capture the ever-changing nature around me. The base was completely silent, deep in the arms of Morpheus. I, bundled in all of my gear, took the video camera outside to record the light from our massive star, which was proclaiming the day on the southern horizon.

Facing east into 30-knot winds, I sat on the ground in the tumult of wailing wind and fiercely blowing ice crystals. My body swayed in the chaotic pulsing of the wind’s force while I anchored the camera as best I could and began my 30-minute recording. The strong morning light refracted off each frozen water crystal and magnified itself throughout the snowy distance. The world around me was almost painfully radiant—as if the ice itself was ablaze. What a sublime and ethereal world Antarctica is!

This was the same phenomenon I had experienced my first day arriving at SANAE, and now on my last it seemed somehow fitting to be experiencing it again; a full circle. Cycles are the hidden breath of our being—the innate rhythm of traversing time. The closing of one cycle always denotes the opening of another, and as I looked out across the luminous layer of snow that hovered almost two feet from the ground, my own body seemingly suspended in its westerly flow, I surrendered to the cold, the wind, and my last moments on the Ice. Antarctica has shown me so much of its magnificence—I’m ever stunned and awed by its force and sovereignty.

Upon my return from outside, I rushed to put the remaining things into my bags and joined Thomas and 1stborn, and headed off to the heli-pad. It would take three days to transport everyone from the base to the ship, save the ten people remaining for the winter, and we had been scheduled to depart on the very first flight to the ship. Having secured the sole window seat in advance so I could photograph the landscape during our hour-long journey to the sea, I peered out of the bulbous aperture and watched as the helicopter leapt upward into the air currents. Neall and Kevin, our pilots, were generous with our flight, and we had a great tour of the nunataks and their wind scoops en route to the ice shelf. Beyond the mountain range, we passed over massive geometries of crevasses, and the elongated patterns of cloud shadows stretching, as if lines, across the snow-covered landscape.

With my eyes lost on the horizon, my mind turned inward, and before long emotion overtook me. I was leaving Antarctica, and the deep feeling of loss that emerged surprised me. My affinity for this land had been immediate and absolute, and my departure from the ice continent filled me with enormous sorrow. Tears flowed in gratitude for the pure beauty and grace of my experience here, and for the gifts Antarctica had bestowed. It is, indeed, a privilege to come to this land and experience its phenomenal nature. Antarctica shall never leave me.

My melancholy transformed instantly as the ice shelf became visible below, revealing the birthplace of icebergs. From this vantage point, I could see clearly where staggeringly large areas of the shelf had just broken off, and where others would soon follow. These ice islands, entirely unmoored, drift freely northward on their lonely voyage out to sea, where they continue to break down and melt as they traverse the latitudes toward warmer waters.

The sight was literally breathtaking—hundreds of colossal icebergs floated effortlessly along the coast, despite their sheer mass. Tiny air bubbles caught in the ice layers make the icebergs particularly buoyant, causing them to rise even higher than the surface of the shelf itself once they are freed from it. Amazingly, the visible area of an iceberg—above the ocean’s surface—displays only 30 percent of its actual size. The remaining 70 percent lies hidden under the sea.

It is a wondrous experience to see these remarkable forms scattered across the horizon, appearing as impossible mountains. Their surreal, luminous grandeur seemed in stark contrast to the grey-bronze sea. As I marveled at their amorphous shapes, the sun streaked golden light behind the thick clouds, painting the dark water with a warm shimmer.

We had begun our descent, and quickly the red deck of the SA Agulhas Research Vessel appeared below. We landed with the ship at sea, the watercraft rocking in the waves as I stepped off the helicopter. Finding my balance, and attuning my body to what would be two weeks aboard this ship, I looked back toward the continent. The icebergs, which I had seen from the air, were now towering around us, their presence insistent and hypnotic. The ice shelf behind them glowed brightly in the now midmorning sun.
***

Goundhog automatic weather station (left), the Umthombo Womlilo wind/solar generator (center), and the ICEPAC mobile base(right)

Day 25; February 16, 2009; Vesleskaervet, Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica
Average Daily Temperature: 
Average Daily Wind Speed: 
Feels Like: 

The last three days were entirely given over to the completion of the ITASC expedition, and all of our work in the field.

After shooting the interior photographs of ICEPAC for the exhibition catalogue, and finishing each of our individual art projects, we began the complete removal of the mobile base—an exhaustive experience that took 30 consecutive hours of hard manual labor in the freezing cold.

It was a significant moment, as it marked the successful end of ITASC’s four-year undertaking. It also held the distinct poignancy, that subtle sorrow, that comes with seeing such a huge project come to fruition.

In honor of our mobile base:

Inside the ICEPAC, view of living quarters with our sub-zero sleeping bags, room lighting and video projector--all wind and solor powered!

Erika, still confounded by Merleau-Ponty’s "Phenomenology of Perception"

Thomas, sipping morning coffee in the hammock

Erika and 1stborn lounging around at ICEPAC

***

Day 11; February 2, 2009; Vesleskaervet, Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica
Average Daily Temperature: 17.24˚ F
Average Daily Wind Speed: 16.78 mph
Feels Like: -7.93˚ F

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Announcing the opening of the Antarctic portion of Intemperie: the 2nd Bienal del Fin del Mundo, a collection of site specific installations produced during the project ITASC at SANAE IV (71 ° 40.433’ S 002 ° 48.700’ W) and ICEPAC (71 ° 40.433’ S 002 ° 48.700’ W) in Vesleskaervet, Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica. The exhibition focuses on weather, climate and Antarctica. The main venue of the Bienal del Fin del Mundo is in Ushuaia (Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, April 23 – May 25, 2009) with satellite exhibitions taking place at Centro Cultural Oi Futuro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (Jan 19 – March 1, 2009), SANAE IV, Antarctica (Feb 3 – 17 2009), and OCA, Sao Paulo, Brazil (March 7 – April 12 2009).

Exhibition Dates: February 3 – 17, 2009, 12am-12pm
Opening Reception: February 2, 8pm

Artists:
ARQZE
Erika Blumenfeld
Adam Hyde
Rebecca Mattos
Thomas Mulcaire
Siphiwe Ngwenya
Ntsikelelo Ntshingila
Amanda Rodrigues Alves
Manuel Sanfuentes
Pol Taylor

Curator:
Alfons Hug

Realized with the support of the South African National Antarctic Program, Goethe Institut and Oi Futuro, Rio de Janeiro.

Intemperie
by Alfons Hug

In Antiquity, philosophers believed that for reasons of symmetry the southern hemisphere must contain a counterweight to the landmass of the northern hemisphere. Mercator’s 16th century maps also claim the presence of a “large southern continent” (Terra Australis Incognita), which was regarded as a tropical paradise.

The intensive search for the real Antarctic during the 19th century was guided by the conviction that contact with the end of the world would unearth new insights for the human spirit. Not until 1820 did the Baltic German captain Fabian Bellingshausen (who was in Russian service) and the American seal hunter Nathaniel Palmer both finally discover the white continent at the same time.

Even so, highly respected contemporary personalities, including Edgar Allan Poe, still subscribed to the superstitious belief that there was an opening in the globe at the South Pole through which travelers could reach a civilized world, which they suspected within the Earth’s crust.

Today, 4000 scientists committed to peaceful research from all over the world (1000 in the winter) work in 80 stations scattered all over the Antarctic, which is about as big as Brazil and Europe together (almost 14 million square kilometers). The sparse tourism is still ecologically defensible – so far.

The Antarctic Treaty (1959), which was signed at the peak of the Cold War and froze all territorial demands until further notice, was an exemplary agreement which still maintains a key status in global environmental and peace policy today.

The Antarctic is therefore the only continent with no military weapons, no economic exploitation, and no land ownership; not even the plentiful mineral resources may be exploited: Utopian conditions indeed. While the rest of the world wears itself out in endless conflicts, a destructive exploitation of resources, and ownership claims of all kinds, the Antarctic, that classic no-man’s-land, has a higher calling: it belongs to no one and therefore to everyone.

Its natural cycles are certainly very closely interwoven with our own, and its fragile ecosystem reacts sensitively even to disturbances caused in other areas of the world. It functions as the Earth’s “measuring instrument.”

Although affected by the environmental sins committed by the rest of the world, the southern continent is largely still in a state of sublime innocence. It is the land before the Fall, perhaps the final great promise to mankind since the Tropics lost some of their paradisal beauty. The icy ground of this mythical region resembles an enormous archive in which the climatic history of the Earth is stored. The Antarctic is frozen time.

This zero point of culture is well suited for intellectual and artistic reflections on the world: emptiness, silence and seclusion, but also purity, clarity, peace and spirituality are some the existential categories that will be discussed in the transcendental Antarctic. The artists begin where the scientists and their measurements cannot reach, thus allowing a new and fresh perspective on this neuralgic point of the Earth.

The artists will also have to come to terms with the color white, which was regarded by the impressionists as a non-color, yet in the eyes of Kandinsky was an “insurmountable, indestructible, almost infinite cold wall,” a silence that can suddenly be understood. “It is a void that is juvenile or, more precisely, a void that is before the beginning, before birth” (Kandinsky, Concerning the Spiritual in Art).

And just as the “white cube” of the modern art galleries, in its complete neutrality, mercilessly reveals the weaknesses of a work of art, so the naked, white expanse of the Antarctic exposes the inadequacies of human activity.

Websites:
ITASC http://www.icepac.org
IPY http://www.ipy.org
The Polar Project http://www.thepolarproject.com

Photo Credits for Images at Top of Post: Left: Construction of ICEPAC Site-Specific Installation, Vesleskaervet, Antarctica, 2009. PHOTO: ITASC/Ntsikelelo Ntshengila. Right: South African Base SANAE IV, Vesleskaervet, Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica, PHOTO: ITASC/Adam Hyde

***

SANAE Station, Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica

Day 8; January 30, 2009; Vesleskaervet, Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica
Average Daily Temperature: 15.26˚ F
Average Daily Wind Speed: 22.82 mph
Feels Like: -18.97˚ F

My first day at SANAE felt a bit like the first day of school. The splendid, albeit institutional, accommodations coupled with the rules and safety regulations orientation had me oscillating between the pure excitement of being were I was, and the childhood irrational fear that that arose when the first school bus of the year peaked around the bend. But the mood of the base, and of the fantastic people who live and work here, was quite jovial, welcoming, and intimate. With only 80 people on the base, it was hard to feel like an outsider for very long.

The base is run on cooperation and collaboration—it wouldn’t function otherwise. We all have cleaning duties to help distribute the general workload of running such an immense undertaking in the middle of the lonely continent. Upon waking, I made my way down to the dining room for breakfast. Ross Hofmeyr, the Base Commander for the 2008 season, which is just coming to an end, very apologetically said that he was putting me on the morning’s schedule for what’s known as “skivvies,” and my task was to clean the dining room throughout the day’s meals. Having only had 5 hours sleep after the long day of travel, I was a bit downhearted to take on a project. Yet, there is really nothing like cleaning to make you feel like you are a part of a place. Thus, as I set about straightening cereal boxes and learning the particular ways to wash dishes and floors in an environment that requires conservation of water and reduction of waste, I felt myself settling in to my curious new home on the ice.

Water consumption and waste production are very serious matters in Antarctica. The Antarctic Treaty has very strict rules as to how to exist sustainably in this environment with as little contamination as possible. Absolutely everything you bring to the continent must come back out with you. This includes all trash, food scraps, and even human excrement. Grey and black water are processed here in the waste facility in the lower level, and undergo normal treatment before they are stored in large containers that are marked “Return to South Africa”. They will be dragged by tractor to the coast, loaded onto the ship there in late February, and brought back to South Africa for final disposal.

Water here is melted from the snow around the base by a smelting machine that people here call “the smelly.” Everyone must volunteer their time to shovel snow into the hole at the top of the machine, as this can only be done manually. Our sole source of water is through this process, so if winds are high and conditions make it difficult to accomplish this task, then we go on high water alert, and no unnecessary water consumption is allowed. In normal water availability, showers are still limited to every other day, and laundry requires sign up days in advance, and is limited to 4 people twice a week.

The base itself is a three-segment structure, denoted by the letters A, B and C , all of which are connected by indoor links. Sleeping quarters are upstairs in the A and B blocks, and science labs and research offices are on the main floor below. C block is mostly the utility rooms, the generators, and at the far end is the helicopter pad. But there is also a library, a pool hall, a bar, a sauna, a media room, a gym, and, of course, wireless internet throughout the base. Homemade meals (although all are fashioned from frozen or canned foods) are served 3 times a day, but then there is also “pie” at 10:30am (always fresh made!) and “tea” at 4pm. For those who think I’m roughing it, I must confess that as long as I’m up here at the main base, I cannot claim anything of the sort. Our mobile base, however, will not be so well endowed with amenities.

The first order of business after my cleaning stint was setting up our offices. A long 24 foot desk built into the wall would be long enough to accommodate all four of us ITASC crew. As I started pulling out my almost 80 pounds of electronic gear, I was stopped suddenly by the view out my two windows. I have the far corner of the building, and so I see both the easterly and southerly directions.

Realizing that I was never going to get used to the breathtaking landscape, I just sat a while and watched as the wind carried the top layer of unconfined snow up the long incline. Things that happen here seem to be somehow imbued with a sense of infinity. The longer you watch, the deeper into time you go.

ICEPAC, our mobile field base

In the afternoon we all four piled onto a skidoo and headed to ICEPAC, our mobile base 1 kilometer away down the gently down-sloping ice field behind SANAE base. Firstborn, with the generous help of many people from the base, had already erected the geodesic structure and the tarps and initial insulation were intact. The design is incredible—the slightly oblong shape, and the manner in which it is secured under the snow and ice below, keeps it completely steady and stable. The black outer layer and even the first layers of insulation keep it substantially warmer than the outside air.

We checked the wind generator and the solar panels, as well as the weather station, and then tried out our fancy ice saws. Amazed at how easily they slice through the packed snow and ice, we cut the first few blocks in only a couple of minutes—we would be able to construct an igloo in no time at all! After picking the igloo site, which would become the outhouse for our mobile base, we laid down the first two slabs and then promptly sat down on the ice to have a beer.

The interesting thing about drinking a beer outdoors in the Antarctic is that the longer it takes you to drink it, the colder it gets. As with anything here, if it is exposed to the open air, it drops in temperature rapidly. At first we had put them in the snow to try to chill them, but even after 30 minutes they were still only just slightly cooler than room temperature—because the snow actually insulates the bottle.

Hurrying back to SANAE to catch the end of dinner, and then back to our office to catch up on emails, I prepared for what would be my first art-making in Antarctica. At this time of year here, the sun descends toward the southern horizon at around midnight and then rises again shortly thereafter. Tonight was the last night that it didn’t actually fall below the horizon, so I wanted to document the light in eight directions: north, south, east, west, northeast, northwest, southeast, southwest. The light would be slightly different in intensity and color depending on what direction I faced, and I wanted to capture the full surround of this phenomena.

To accomplish this piece, I decided to shoot it from the rooftop of the SANAE base, where I would have the best 360-degree view of the horizon. The panorama was remarkable up there, and the clouds and snow mist in the distance created an incredible array of warm sunset colors, mostly in the pink hues, although I did see a bit of subtle lavender and hot orange as well. The snow seems to soak up the hues, and in fact requires that I reconsider something I said in my very first blog, when I was imagining coming to Antarctica. I said that my mind was abound with all the possible permutations of white. Yet now that I’m here experiencing the light as it changes minute by minute, I realize that I’ve, in fact, seen almost no white in Antarctica. Every surface of snow and ice is suffused with the ambient colors of the sun’s rays refract through the air particulate and ice crystals—everything white, holds light.

***