Ice and the Sky Page #4

---

their lives for science...

...and the glory of France.

Arriving from Melbourne

on L'Arcadia...

...our explorers could at last

embrace loved ones...

...left behind 16 months ago.

Our heroes of science are home.

Look at their emotion!

I shall never forget Charcot.

I went there without a thought...

...and came home with

a unique view of the world...

...enriched by the time

I had there to think.

With hindsight the experience

has marked my entire life...

...my relationships,

my passion for science...

...and above all the empathy

I have for the planet I live on.

I saw it in all its

splendor and power...

...never imagining that

my every step towards knowledge...

...would reveal the vision

of a world...

...increasingly ravaged

by humanity.

Back in France...

...my reunion with friends

and family was a joy.

But I was consumed by the urge

to return to the polar regions.

I had heard about Swiss

and Danish glaciologists...

...obtaining remarkable results

in Greenland...

...using a new instrument:

the mass spectrometer.

I elected to write a thesis...

...adapting their protocols

to the Antarctic.

By October 1959,

I was back in the Great South.

Another stroke of luck!

The French government offered to

let me do my military service...

...as part of an exploratory

mission to Victoria Land.

This was an American

scientific expedition.

I was to work in glaciology

alongside eight explorers...

...of five different nationalities.

I was the most experienced.

The flight over

the trans-Arctic mountains...

...was magnificent.

I was now an explorer!

At Charcot, we were 300km inland.

Here, 2,500km of uncharted land

awaited us.

Our mission was to describe

and understand.

After only a few days

we realized...

...we had ventured into

a vast tract of crevasses.

It was impossible to turn back.

We had come too far.

Every step was a

potential death trap.

That same day we learned

that two New Zealanders...

...had just died on

a similar mission.

Despite the risks, the convoy

stopped every 50km to allow us...

...to carry out our

scientific work.

But it was hell!

I strove to control...

...my burning fingers

and chattering teeth...

...when precision was called for.

A hundred times a day

I contained the urge...

...to fling my notebook

into the raging wind.

Soon all that would remain

would be a list of points...

...on a table of figures,

a nugget in a pile of ore.

But a single flawed reading

would undermine...

...the whole set of results.

Regular, flawless data was needed.

I often felt ready to quit.

You never really get warm.

The cabins smelled of

wet socks...

...instant soup, and exhaust fumes,

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes