On being a writer in residence — in the Antarctic
The closest most of us will ever get to Antarctica is watching nature documentaries or animated films starring dancing penguins. For those willing to hand over the cash, there are cruises that offer “drive-by” views of its icebergs and seal colonies, but few have actually set foot on the world’s coldest, southern-most continent, let alone lived there for any amount of time.
“When you go to the Antarctic you’re initiated into a select society,” says author Jean McNeil. “It’s a little bit like being part of the NASA team; it’s like you’re off the planet. The rest of the world peels away while you’re there.”
For four months in 2005, the Nova Scotia-born author became part of that select society as a writer-in-residence with the British Antarctic Survey, working and living alongside a team of scientists. McNeil, who previously wrote a novel and poetry collection inspired by Antarctica, never intended to write a memoir about the experience, but her new book, Ice Diaries, is a welcome literary-minded addition to a category of books dominated by male explorers.
Published by ECW Press, Ice Diaries blends McNeil’s journal entries with ruminations on the harsh environment and climate change, woven with a side story- line about her rough upbringing in Eastern Canada that she recounts as being filled with its own dangers and hardship. McNeil, who now lives in London and teaches creative writing at the University of East Anglia, often had to justify her presence as a novelist to the team of geologists and oceanographers. “It’s hard to not to feel very useless in an environment where so many people are so capable,” she says. “Everyone else there could look at each other and know what they were doing; they knew so-and-so was there to put up meteorological balloons. But with me, I had a lot of explaining to do.”
As an active member of the team, McNeil expanded her scientific knowledge, developing a particular interest in glaciology. She also learned about her own limits while battling an intense sense of entrapment and paranoia, brought on not just from being geographically isolated, but from living and working in close quarters with a tight-knit group of people.
“I felt very claustrophobic and confined,” she says. “When you have those powerful emotional swings in one’s normal life there are ways you can mitigate that. You can go for a walk in the park or see your friends or family, or go have a coffee at a Starbucks or wherever. Symbolically here, there’s no escape from your emotions. I think a lot of people make a mistake in thinking that when you go to place like that, it’s all about the landscape and the natural wildlife, but what it really is about is other people.”
McNeil, who says she wrote the book partly on behalf of the Antarctic, knew she would have to dispel the romance of the place and be honest about the challenges she faced.