Antarctica: A Year On Ice

Antarctica isn’t a country, but I am writing about it anyway. My blogging challenge, my rules, right?

Antarctica A Year On Ice is a documentary about life in Antartica over the winter. The continent has about 4,000 residents in the summer season, peaking in December – February, and roughly 1,000 people the rest of the time. It is governed by international treaties, and there are no internationally recognized territorial claims. Nevertheless, Argentina, Australia, Chile, France, New Zealand, Norway, and the UK have all made claims on parts of the continent, and < a href=”http://www.ga.gov.au/scientific-topics/national-location-information/dimensions/remote-offshore-territories/australian-antarctic-territory”>these are likely to intensify with climate change.

But geopolitics aside, Antartica has two types of residents. Some are scientists, especially in the summer season. The rest are the people who provide all of the support for the scientific teams. This is everything from food service to fire protection, and they have to be in place all year in order to protect the scientific work. If the HVAC system fails or the satellites go out, then all that work is destroyed.

This film was made by the folks on the winter team, who are amateurs but who also have plenty of time to experiment. There’s gorgeous scenery and some amazing time-lapse shots of the Aurora Australis (the version of the Aurora Borealis seen in the Southern Hemisphere). And there is a lot of discussion about how people manage to keep themselves sane in enclosed spaces, without sunlight, and with the same people for months on end. One key: lots of work. People put in long hours in Antarctica both because of the amount of work relative to the people there, and because work helps keep people from going buggy.

Useful advice for life in pandemic, no?

Anyway, this movie is a fun addition to your pandemic life. It is on Amazon Prime right now, and it’s a reminder that even if we could escape to the ends of the earth, we’d still be stuck inside and fighting boredom.