National Geographic: Antarctic Wildlife Adventure Page #3

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like this again-these boxes.

No one eats this kind of stuff anymore

But this is how a British base

worked 30 years ago.

And it's really worthwhile keeping

and doing something about.

The men who lived and worked in

bases like these

were taking part in an extraordinary

study effort in the Antarctic

led by a dozen countries during the

International Geophysical Year, 1957.

The scientists paved the way for

governments go to on cooperating,

and eventually, there was an

Antarctic Treaty.

It's worked ever since to hold

Antarctica as a scientific reserve.

Today, tourist ships send groups

like this one from New York's

Museum of Natural History ashore

to the sites where once

only scientists went.

Antarctica's past and present

meet here,

and perhaps show the way to the

future as well.

Some environmentalists want to see

the entire continent

now made into a world park

no development or exploitation allowed

the Antarctic to remain as it is

a place for research,

and for amateur naturalists to see

the greatest unspoiled wilderness left.

Some of the old Geophysical Year

stations are still operating.

The British base Faraday,

for instance, plays a role in

researching the periodic

huge loss of ozone in the atmosphere

over the southern polar region.

Further south

another British base Rothera,

serves as a headquarters for inland

science projects that can

only be reached by plane.

The flights take off from a runway

cleared from the glacier,

with a path well marked

so the aircraft doesn't slide into

one of the nearby crevasses

that split the surface.

From the air,

an observer easily sees the extent

of one of the great treasures

and paradoxes of Antarctica

ice.

This is the driest continent.

Hardly any snow or rain ever falls.

But what does fall is frozen

in place and remains.

So Antarctica is both the continent

with the least precipitation

and the one with the most water

almost all of it locked up in ice

Some estimates are that 70 percent

of the world's freshwater is here.

The ice here on the plateau also

provides an ancient atmospheric record

that's key to studying new

phenomenon

such as the greenhouse effect.

These operations are just underway.

When full drilling begins

the scientists will be able to

plunge the drill bit through centuries

to see what changes have

occurred over time.

on board the Damien II again

the Antarctic summer is progressing,

although it is still

not dark after midnight.

Indeed, Jerome calls this

the planet of light.

There are only a few stops left

for the travelers,

one of them a special place

for Sally and Jerome.

More than ten years ago

on their first voyage to the

Antarctic together,

they decided to stay over in the

long darkness of winter.

They had only the Damien II

for a base

frozen in a harbor

here at Avian Island.

It was a really big surprise for us

to see just how many penguins

there were

or how many birds

there were on that island,

but really surrounded by them.

They found extraordinary life

including 70,000 Adelie penguins

on the island.

Avian is located at the top of

Marguerite Bay,

and it's the breeding ground for

much of the bird life

that lives and hunts throughout

the Bay region.

If something happened here

it could seriously affect

bird life in the entire Bay area.

Besides the Adelies's...

every single bit of that island

is covered in birds.

And you're surrounded by birds.

And you really do live

part of that cycle of the summer

season with them, completely.

But the poncets are disturbed to

learn the birds may soon be

sharing the island.

A Chilean scientist from a

nearby base if examining Avian

as a possible site for future studies.

Sally and Jerome are

beginning to worry that

the many scientists and bases

could soon overwhelm the fragile

wilderness they have come to study.

Jerome navigates the Damien II

through the mouth of a narrow passage

at Terra Firma Island.

They are very far south now

nearly at the base of the peninsula

where conditions are terribly harsh.

Some years, the sea is frozen

solid here,

the air is very cold.

Nonetheless, small patches of grass

and pearlwort flourish here,

unexceptional in any way

except that these are the southernmost

flowering plants known to exist

anywhere-the furthest outpost of green

in a world that is almost all grays

and blacks and ice white.

It was the Poncets who made this

discovery

and reported it to the

scientific world

although they now realize this, too

may draw others.

People have realize what this is

and realize how they can damage it

if they come too close,

and how they can keep away and still enjoy it.

There's a bit of a compromise

to doing it,

and you can't just ban people from

coming to certain places all over

just because they might damage it.

They've got to be taught

how not to damage it

so that they can come in and enjoy it.

Many explorers must pause to wonder

a little at what they do and

at what will be done

by those who inevitably will follow.

Not many will follow this far, however

The Damien II is entering what is

called pack ice,

a great plain that's frozen

not quite solid.

You can feel that-that you've very

far south.

And there's no one else in the pack.

And you're nothing much more than

another little bit of ice.

You can really feel it as a

living thing.

You can feel it, you can see it

moving up and down with the swell

as though it's breathing.

And you see animals... the whales

which come up to breathe

just behind the boat because there's

no other space for it, and penguins.

The steel hull of the ship allows it

to smash its way through.

The ice will get worse soon

as it gets colder,

and then it will not be possible

to get through at all.

Jerome must judge what is safe.

They have hone as far as they can;

the Damien II must turn back toward

King George Island.

From the air,

the ice floes look almost impenetrable

Once you've been through a really

bad storm

and just got out or you've had to go

through a lot of ice and

just managed to get through

then the next day,

it's beautiful weather-each time,

it's really very gratifying,

each time, and very satisfying.

And you really feel as if you've

earned what you've done.

It's the feeling of it being very

difficult here and you've managed

to wade through in spite of that.

But all along the peninsula

it is clear that as

with all frontiers

this one is developing.

In the time since they left the

British base at Rothera,

perhaps the biggest cargo ship ever

to come this far south

has arrived and begum unloading

bulldozers and rock crushers,

and housing for construction workers.

The small landing strip on the snow

field above Rothera is to be

replaced by a gravel runway,

so bigger planes can come

and go regularly.

It will mean blasting away part

of a hillside,

but the scientists say it must be done

if their work is to go on.

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