The Continent at the End of the World

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.