I held Antarctica as a destination inside for the better part of my life. Every since my father spun a globe in my room, the poles rooted in my imagination.
It was nothing like I imagined. There are no words to describe the majestic beauty and delicate impermanence of icebergs the size of buildings floating like nature’s Brancusi’s at sea, and as we moved closer, around the continent.
It’s fair to say that I was blinded by my ambition to walk in the footsteps of explorers. Perhaps it was blindness that drew them to the poles, repelled them away from the comforts of home and into the wild. I still can’t explain where the inclination to touch something virgin and wild comes from – perhaps it is the wellspring of all life – that we yearn to preserve what is wild within ourselves.
PETER