Abstract
Due to the heavy storm that continues to block us in the days after Christmas 2003, the captain of the Polarstern has banned the crew from going on deck. I look out of the bridge window of this icebreaker, the pride of the Germans, and realize that, even if I were well sheltered, a man like me might not survive 2 days on deck. The winds exceed a hundred kilometers per hour and the sky is white with a blizzard that barely lets you glimpse the ice floes through the snow and ice blowing horizontally, creating graceful shapes in their path. I have the feeling of being in the most isolated place on the planet, a place where humankind is undoubtedly still a guest and without proper technology can never dominate. In fact, it is the only continent in which we were unable to survive, until the arrival of the seal hunters and whalers in the late nineteenth century and especially the early twentieth century, who tried to stay only in summer because winter overcame them.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Rossi, S. (2022). The Continent at the End of the World. In: A Journey in Antarctica. Springer Praxis Books(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89492-4_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89492-4_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-89491-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-89492-4
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)