2 thoughts on “What do you get when you combine tourists with Sub-Arctic conditions?”

  1. Two related ice-landscape-themed stories, none, alas with a helicopter in it:

    (1) Margaret Atwood’s short story in The New Yorker 2011 about a leisure cruise in the Arctic, “Stone Mattress” (also in a book of the same title), which begins with this winged sentence: “At the outset, Verna did not intended to kill anyone… ”

    (2) … and for those who can’t get enough of White Desolation, Jenny Diski’s non-fiction memoir “Skating to Antarctica.”
    (“at one level, a humorous travelogue about a cruise to the Antarctic… Diski’s desire for whiteness, blankness, oblivion”)

    (On my own, for ages I’ve been meaning to read a book with the fascinating title “The Birth of the People’s Republic of Antarctica,” but, on closer inspection, decided to stop at the title.)

  2. For the win: just finished Sir Earnest Shackleton’s “South”, the story of two shiploads of explorers stuck in pack ice and the Antarctic continent for most of WWI, including an 800 mile voyage in a 20 ft open boat from Elephant Island to New South Georgia, trekking across NSG practically barefoot, then two trips back, rescuing two parties left behind. 56 of 59 survived, several to die later in the last year of the war. Very few days above freezing for three years. I can understand why Shackleton did it, but no idea why the rest would join him.

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