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“We see only a few miles of ruffled snow, bounded by a vague wavy horizon, but we know that beyond that horizon are hundreds and even thousands of miles which can offer no change to the weary eye… One knows there is neither tree, nor shrub, nor any living thing, nor even inanimate rock – nothing but this terrible limitless expanse of snow. It has been so for countless years, and it will be so for countless more. And we, little human insects, have started to crawl over this awful desert…. Could anything be more terrible than this silent, wind-swept immensity?”
That’s a diary entry written by explorer Robert Falcon Scott, on his journey to Antarctica in 1905. It was, in the end, a disastrous journey. Scott wasn’t properly prepared. He had hauled along tractors, ponies, and even hay to feed the ponies, onto the ice.
50 years after Scott’s expedition, another group of explorers, much better prepared, also took a journey to Antarctica -- part of a global scientific effort to investigate the continent, called the IGY -- the International Geophysical Year.
Producer Barbara Bogaev takes a look at what it was like for those men to live and work on Scott’s “silent, windswept immensity.”
Links:
IGY Reunion
The Antarctican Society held a gathering of IGY veterans including John Behrendt, Charlie Bentley, Tony Gow, Ed Robinson and Hugh Bennett.
The International Geophysical Year
This is a brief history chronicling the creation of the International Geophysical Year.
Books:
 Ice Ages : Solving the Mystery
by: John Imbrie, Katherine Palmer Imbrie 1986
Did you experience the blizzard of 2010 and wondered when the next Ice Age will be upon us? This book may have the answer.
 Shambles
by: Stephen Tait 2009
It was 1981 when a 25-year-old adventurer, Stephen Tait, witnessed the death of two friends after they fell into a crevass. It took him 30 years to come to terms with what happened.
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Lisa Simeone
Listen to IGY: On The Ice with Real Player
To order a copy of IGY: On The Ice online
click here or call us toll-free at 1-888-38-TAPES.
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Programs by Barbara Bogaev
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Legacies
Snacktime, Naptime, Computer Time
Escape from Time
IGY: On The Ice
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