antarctic quotes

all taken from dr jerri nielsen's book ice bound: a doctor's incredible battle for survival at the south pole


from a 35 year-old navy polar manual "which contends that motivation is the most important factor when selecting a crew for a polar expedition. The author divides the pool of applicants into five types: He likes men (there were no women at the Poles in those days) who 'go with a specific interest, to be professional explorers, for scientific research, or the adventurous.... type who has to go "just because it is there." Less desirable because they are easily disillusioned are the idealists, the ambitious, and the glory-seekers. His second category is the 'escape artist' who signs up to 'evade family troubles with sweethearts, wives, or in-laws.' Others go to escape financial or family responsibilities, or jobs they hate. This type 'is either a good man or almost totally useless on the Ice.' There are also the 'money savers,' and 'drifters' who go because they have nothing better to do at the moment. Either can be a good man 'because the charms of isolation and beauty of polar regions puts reason in his being.' 'Least desirable' and 'most dangerous to themselves and others' are 'martyrs, sadists, homosexuals' (this, again, was the early sixties), those with strong subconscious suicidal or masochistic complexes, 'to whom a rugged life of isolation sometimes appeals.' The author concludes that the happiest candidate for the ice is a type of escape artist--'the rugged individualist who finds modern urban life intolerable with its TV and newspapers,...world crisis and crime...Many men who have never met the almighty in church meet him occasionally at the operating or delivery table, but really get to know him at the ends of the earth." (p77-78)

"Our memories were all deteriorating as chronic hypoxia ate away at our brain cells. Studies done in Antarctica showed a decrease in short-term memory of 13 percent in those staying through the winter. And that study was done at sea level! The effects on long-term memory had not been studied." (p126-127)

James Evans - "Wood comes from forests. Styrofoam comes from hell."

"There are three kinds of twilight, Civil, Nautical, and Astronomical, which begin when the sun is 6, 12, and 18 degrees below the horizon (respectively). To give you a sense of how dark each one is: at the end of Civil twilight the brightest stars are visible and the horizon is clearly defined. At the end of Nautical twilight the horizon is no longer visible, and at the end of the Astronomical twilight the indirect illumination from the Sun is less bright than starlight." (p147)