Ice Coffee: The History Of Human Activity In Antarctica

I've traveled with Santiago for three austral summers and his humour and humanity have buoyed my moods while his perspectives on the birds we encountered opened my eyes to biological vistas I'd previously not spotted due to my focus on the mud.  I only just met John Marsden ten minutes before pressing record but his tales of high latitudes aviation warrant further attention than the ten minutes afforded at Seaworks.  I hope to spend a lot more time in company with these people in the future but until then here's a sonic record of our encounters.  And some faux advertising to let you know what I've saved you from/what you're missing out on. Next month, the BGLE get moving. 

Lincoln Ellsworth's money returns to Antarctica with new pilots, no meteorologist and Norwegians all but ready to throttle him.  Job's a good 'un, though, in spite of the lack of oomph, patience and skill the money bags brought with him.  Herbert Hollick-Kenyon nails one of the best put downs in Antarctic history while puffing on his pipe, munching on boiled sweets and reading westerns.  Lots of penguins, seals and Swedes in the aural background. Still holding off on throwing the switch on the Patreon account as there's one more episode in the offing, this month.  patreon.com/icecoffee

Ellsworth's money gets it into its head to be the first to cross Antarctica. Wilkins, Balchen, Braathen and another polar pig get tangled up in his weak sauce Ahab routine. Soundscapes featuring Port Circumcision and the waters just off Two Hummock Island, which I'm sure is the British Hydrographic Office's cleaned up label for a rude sailor name originally given that land mass by some sailors who'd been at sea for a really, really long time or who knew a woman with really unusually shaped breasts.   

Two interviews with three fellow Drake Passage crossers and a thunder accompanied decompression after recent upheavals. Anyone who feels hard done by in the third act is welcome to a right of reply.  Also putting out my shingle via Patreon once more. https://www.patreon.com/Ice_Coffee outlines what's on offer in return for financial support but I won't start processing episode releases through the Patreon system until people who signed up years ago have a chance to check they still want to contribute at the levels they pledged.  Back to history next episode with some more on-site recordings about Lincoln Ellsworth's further efforts to make a name for himself by paying other people to do all the things.

In an epic episode spanning an hour and a half and featuring a singing leopard seal, blowing humpbacks and the tuneless honking of the penguins the residents of Little America and Bolling Advance Base and the various dog and half-track teams reconvene and get out of Dodge aboard the Jacob Ruppert and the Bear.

Byrd gets exactly what he asks for, what he deserves, and then saved, spoiling the symmetry of an otherwise well mapped story of hubris and punishment in the Greek myth mold. 

Byrd's second expedition re-colonises Byrd's first expedition's digs after lots of digging.  Gentoo penguins under the hut floor provide ambience. 

Boom! Two episodes in two days.  Take that, incomprehensible download statistics.  Let's see me make sense of you now.  Byrd returns south to finish...    something...  something brave and stirring and laudably scientific and humanitarian, no doubt.  Prolly work it out in payroll.  Or in a post-hoc rationalisation that will remain in publication for half a century.  More importantly, I get to share music I love with you. Egoism's song "What are we doing" rounds out this episode and I hope you're inspired to check out their offerings, available at https://egoismband.bandcamp.com/

Iceolation and why it's not a big deal these days, a fourteen year old interview with Professor Timothy Naish, and an excuse to use my favourite quote from my favourite robot.

Jeff Maynard returns to the dive hut to discuss the non-voyage of the Nautilus and we receive a visitation from the ghost of an Antarctic feline. Then the sustained influence of James Wordie and the efforts of Gino Watkins get some attention to set the scene for further British efforts in the south.  Oooh, foreshadowing and ghosts.  Woooooooooooo!

Lars Christensen funds extensive coastal exploration in concert with his whaling exploits.  A decade of Norwegian effort gets compressed into a single chagrined episode. 

The best acronym in Antarctic history draws to a close and Sir Douglas leaves the southern continent for the last time.  Similarly the Discovery makes its final transit of the Southern Ocean.  | Some errors of fact that warrant addenda pass into your ears. 

The first BANZARE voyage plays out with much tension, flying and coal.

Old Dux Ipse thought he was the ducks nuts but the BANZARE looks more a dog's breakfast than the dog's bollocks.  Another not-a-race sees the Discovery racing south on its penultimate voyage.  Sir Douglas Mawson and John King Davis get on each other's nerves ninety years ago. 

Three interviews with staff at Bransfield House, Port Lockroy, one with a descendant of Bartholomew Sulivan, second mate on the Beagle under Fitzroy and Falklands Island farmer, and animal noises from the islands.  Happy April, one and all. 

Sam Edmonds is good company at high and low latitudes but you'll know that for yourself by the end of the interview, conducted north of Sydney with sulphur crested cockatoo and DeHavilland Canada Beaver accompaniment. Much has been written on high latitudes food but the residues receive less attention.  After finding out about Antarctic sewage and sewerage I now understand why, but having done the yards it's only right that I put the information in your ears.

The world didn't stand still and await the outcomes of Wilkins' and Byrd's efforts with bated breath.  This episode catches you up on Antarctic pertinent developments that the buzz caused by the aviators eclipsed. The episode also features an interview I recorded with Dr Andrew Atkin while I was in Sydney.  Yes, if you get in touch and tell me you like the series there's a chance I could turn up in your home, drink your coffee, eat your food and sleep on the spare bed, too, all while talking non-stop about Antarctica.  You never know your luck.

Victor and I spent time in the Zodiacs around the Antarctic Peninsula in late 2018.  This unassuming man quickly demonstrated a tremendous experience in and love of Antarctica and cherished the opportunities our work offered him.  I sat down with Victor to record a brief history of his Antarctic career after one of the presentations he gave to our team.  This episode comprises that interview and audio from another of the presentations he gave, detailing his experiences at Vostok Station, the most remote and coldest of the permanent human presences in Antarctica.  Vostok will feature in its own episode as the series approaches the era of the International Geophysical Year and again to re-recount the story of the winter without a power plant.  I could write at length about Victor but I think he says it better and with a cooler accent, so get him in your ears. 

Byrd and Wilkins are done in Antarctica for the 1920s and head north, leaving many loose ends in the snow next to the dog corpses.  With the depression changing the playing field it would fall to the primo fund raisers and the independently wealthy to pick those loose ends up in the 1930s but I'll get to that after covering some Australian and Norwegian 1929 action and knocking out some interviews I picked up in my travels through the austral summer.  Victor the vostoknicchi coming your way in episode 078.

Some news and a correction.