Encounters at the End of the World Page #3

or if they just keep going down

that cascading error phenomenon,

where one mistake

leads into another mistake

which leads into a third,

and it just gets really bad

Who's pulling on this line?

- Me

- Number One

Number One, don't pull on that

That's the line going back to the hut

- I got the end

- Okay, back to the hut?

- Back to the hut

- Back to the hut

Back to the hut

HERZOG But rather than

pulling everyone in,

last man first along the rope,

they drift completely off-course

- Number Two is here Is Number Three here?

- Number Three is here

Number Four?

- Towards the sun

- No, not towards the sun

- Left

- We need to go left

Left, stay left

We don't know where he's standing though,

so left might be different for him

- Correct

- Number Two

- Okay, Number One

- I'm here

HERZOG For most of our time here,

we had postcard-pretty weather conditions

This was frustrating because I loathe

the sun both on my celluloid and my skin

So it almost came as a relief when a few

days later, the weather suddenly changed

The storm soon broke and we were allowed

to venture out of McMurdo for the first time

We set out on snowmobiles, in front of us

miles and miles of frozen ocean

We were heading toward a field camp

of scientists who study seals

It was amazing to consider

that a mere six feet under us

was the expanse of the Ross Sea

These scientists here

are particularly interested

in the feeding cycle of the Weddell seal

In just a few short weeks,

pups grow rapidly, while mothers lose

some 40% of their body weight

Bagging the seal's head keeps the animal

calm as the scientists extract a milk sample

(SEAL WAILING)

OFTEDAL Well, this really is quite

a wonderful group of animals to work on

Weddell seals in particular,

you can see they're very big

They're very strong,

and yet they allow us to work with them

They're not very aggressive,

nor are they very timid

Even though they struggle somewhat

when you have them in a bag or in a net,

when you release them, they lie down

There's the mother behind us

who we just worked on,

and she's just lying quietly with her pup

We've had pups start to nurse within

a couple of minutes of releasing them

So even though they are a bit perturbed

at being handled,

they recover very quickly from it

and seem to behave normally after that,

and really that's the ideal for us is to have

an animal species that we can work on

that will not be so disturbed by the work

that's being done on them

that they behave abnormally,

'cause we want to know how these

animals survive, under these conditions

HERZOG In a field laboratory

adjacent to the colony,

they prepare the milk samples

that may ultimately provide insight

into human weight loss

This was just collected It's still warm

from the animal So if you see that

See, it's like, you know,

it's almost like pouring wax

It's really something else And if I let this

cool down, it would get pretty pasty

I wouldn't be able to pour it like that at all

It's at body temperature right now

The milk of the Weddell seal

is about 45 fat

It's about 60 dry matter, 65 dry matter

It's very, very high in protein

It's about 10 to 12 protein

and contains no lactose at all,

which is very unusual

And there's many things

about this place that are very unusual,

and one of the things that I find

very fascinating is how quiet it gets

It's the quietest place

When the wind is down,

when there's no wind,

it wakes you up in the middle of the night

because there's no wind,

and there's no sound at all,

and if you walk out on the ice,

you can hear your own heartbeat,

that's how still it is

And you can hear the

You can hear the ice crack,

and it sounds like there's somebody walking

behind you, but it's just the ice

It's sort of, you know,

these little stress cracks moving all the time,

because we're actually,

right here we're on ocean

We're not on solid ground, so

And you can hear the seals

You can hear the seals call,

and it's the most amazing sound

They make these really inorganic sounds

(SEAL CALLING)

They sound like,

I don't know, Pink Floyd or something

They don't sound like mammals,

and they definitely don't sound like animals

It's really out of this world, I can say that

OFTEDAL You get used to

a surface being solid,

and you sort of think in your mind

that you're on land, and then all of a sudden

you'll hear the sound

coming up through the floor

- You'll hear the chucks and the whistles

- And the booms

And the booms that come which are the

You realize there's

a whole world underneath you,

that seals are moving and competing

and fighting beneath you under the ice

while you're here sleeping in a tent

or working in a lab hut

(SEALS CALLING)

HERZOG We soon returned to

the prosaic world of today's McMurdo

David Pacheco works in maintenance

and construction as a journeyman plumber

He prides himself on his heritage

He is part Apache

but has claims to yet another lineage

It's funny, but I'm revealing my hands

and they are very distinct,

and I was told by my doctor

who operated me that

it is from the Aztec

and the Inca's royal family

An anthropologist told me that,

and one of our daughters is very similar,

but everywhere I go,

I try to find somebody See?

And I can turn it around too,

if you wanna see it this way

It's very distinct, the line here,

and I was at awe when they told me

it was from the royal family of the Indians

HERZOG:
When you work, with which fingers

do you work best or point best?

I don't know if I should say this It's funny,

but in school I used to not reach

the chalkboard with this,

so I used to point with this,

and they called my father in

and said that I was being a bad boy,

but I still have the habit

of pointing like that

I have a long ribcage

He could not find the gallbladder

I have a long ribcage like the Aztecs

used to have, I guess, and

If you can come to Antarctica, please do

Plus, be aware of global warming It's real

I'm a green person I'm as green as I can be

I build adobe homes, solar homes

I'm a contractor back home, too, but it's

so hard for a small minority to make it, but

(SPEAKING SPANISH)

Spirit, the fire of my ancestors

(WHOOPS)

(WHISTLES)

HERZOG Our next journey took us

We were heading from Ross Island

in the direction of mainland Antarctica

The empty interior beyond these mountains

is larger in size than

continental North America

The vast majority of it is

covered in a layer of ice 9,000 feet thick

We were heading for New Harbor,

a diving camp

which lies on the coastline of the ocean

To the right is the frozen sea

where they dive

The camp itself is built on firm ground

We were welcomed by my friend

Henry Kaiser, a musician and expert diver,

whose underwater footage

it was that brought me to this place

We had arrived at an opportune time

and went straight to this shelter

which protects a primary diving hole

next to New Harbor camp

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