SOUTHERNING

SOUTH SHETLANDS / ANTARCTIC PENINSULA

Drawn by diverse icelands, my travels trace a polar arc. From southeast Greenland to the southern Great White Continent.

In the company of strangers, I travel farther than ever from human habitation. Yet as we cruise the Antarctica Peninsula we’re engulfed by inhabiting others. Pelagic seabirds, whale pods, seal colonies and penguin rookeries rouse and populate our senses.

We move closer to shore and the ice itself becomes animated, animal: shape-shifting, magnifying, terrifying, alluring. In zodiacs we explore icebergs and icebound coves and bays, seeking eye-level encounters with basking, ice-borne creatures. When we explore on foot the creatures approach us and for an unreal moment we and the wild become intimate.

We welcome this proximity to the ice, so preciously accommodated by our luxury ship. But when the ice, not the ship, frames our perspective, immersion feels more like invasion. Or a vain escape from the Anthropocene. Anchored in the familiar, we revel in the alien and lose track of our footprint.