Who's Carrying the Torch?

On March 3, 1990, the International Trans-Antarctica Expedition came to an end. After 3,741 miles and seven months, a team of six men skied into the Soviet Union's isolated base on the edge of the continent, unhitched their dog sleds and went inside to take a well-deserved shower. It was the first-ever un-mechanized crossing, the first and last dog-sled traverse, and the longest journey in the history of Antarctic exploration... the journey of a lifetime for those who endured the hardship and witnessed the splendor, and for those of us who worked tirelessly for three years behind the scenes to pull it off. 

Yet the physical and organizational feats - grand as they were - are not what's on my mind today as congratulatory anniversary messages go back and forth among the Trans-Antarctica family.  I'm wondering how many remember the true meaning of the expedition; I'm trying to guess who will pick up the purpose, the message and the mantle in years to come.

The 1989-1990 International Trans-Antarctica Expedition was organized to bring world attention to the continent of Antarctica as consensus on its thirty-year treaty showed signs of unraveling. Unique in the world, the Antarctic Treaty dedicates the entire continent to rule by consensus, shared scientific research and a ban on military activity. No one owns the continent as long as all agree. Every thirty years, the treaty is open for debate and alteration. In 1989 - even as the world's first ozone hole appeared over the continent - the treaty's signatory nations were debating the merits of allowing mining of Antarctica under certain conditions. Six men set out on an epic  journey to make sure that the world knew the stakes, should the treaty fall apart. The publicity and educational programs surrounding their efforts shone a bright spotlight on the negotiations as the signatory nations worked toward a successful compromise in 1991.

Antarctica is not only a symbol of peace and cooperation. It is a place where vital research is being conducted on the health and future of the planet; it is the epi-center of the visible changes to our melting polar ice, the canary in the cage. Already the first 400 miles of the Trans-Antarctica expedition - along the Larsen Ice Shelf - have completely disappeared.

The next opening for treaty changes is only five years away - in 2021 - and I wonder... Where do the treaty nations stand today? Who will make sure that the world understands the importance of keeping this continent a place of collaboration and peace? How will we know if there are threats to consensus? Who will educate the children so their love for the continent keeps the politicians on their toes?

I have no doubt that those of us who worked so hard the last time around will find time to advocate from the sidelines. But time is short, and the stakes are higher than ever.  Capturing the attention of the world at large requires the energy of the generation that will be here for the next thirty years, those who have the most to lose should the treaty be undone. Here's hoping they are out there, making their plans. 

Happy 25th anniversary, Trans-Antarctica!

More Photos

Happy Anniversary! The 1990 International Trans-Antarctica Expedition finish - Mirnyy, March 3, 1990. Photo © Will Steger - Per Breiehagen

Like Only Sisters Can Do

Over the jigsaw we leapfrog  topics and memories as hurdlers do, with grace and instinct, always looking forward to the comment just ahead. Onomatopoeia. Brains. Polanski. Our children's children. Wyeth. Bhutan. Husbands. Homer. Ratatouille. We wrap ourselves in blankets and hats to buffer the wind that blows through the leaky house. The fire blazes, the coffee's on.  The books we brought intending to read or recommend lie scattered on tables and chairs. It's the talking that warms us most. 

We had the same father, the same mother. We lived a common childhood from different angles and from varying points of view. Our details do not always match but together, we have learned how to  fashion something true. 

The reason for our reconnection is to share, to mourn, to celebrate. Our lives, like all others, are complicated, and aging takes its toll. We help each other finish words that tell the stories and express the fears. We laugh and remember. We admire each others' grit and grace. We sort through the letters and the stories of our parents' lives and, in so doing, we build a bond no longer centered on the ones no longer here.

Coming together requires a certain letting go, a release of the quotidian. It enlists a generosity of spirit, a celebration of our differences, a willingness to listen and to learn. It asks us to go deep quickly and come back up as nimbly and as fast.  It depends on synching moods and schedules in complicated lives, and, despite all good ingredients and intentions, the magic bond is never guaranteed.  None of us, I suspect, were exactly sure how it would work out or if it could be done. It would have been a lovely retreat, regardless, a stolen moment to curl up with a book.  But here we are by the fire, just "being," like only sisters can do.

Do you Remember?

I'm trying to track down a set of Russian teacups. Not the cups themselves, but the story of when and how they were given by a Russian  matriarch to an American one more than two decades ago. Everyone remembers it differently and the emails go back and forth.

I'm revisiting a lot of stories these days as I put the finishing touches on a book about events in 1989. My primary sources often do not match. They are books written on the same events by myself and my fellow participants, but the cultural and personal points of view made the versions very different even when they were fresh. Now, so many years later, our collective memory is even less reliable. There are holes and reinterpretations, coloring from decades of retelling and forgetting, dreaming and re-editing to fit the evolution of our lives. Archive material exists and fills in the missing gaps, but I am left with a respect and fascination for the power and weakness of memory itself. What we forget is as telling as what we remember; what we choose to write about reveals as much about us as the story itself.

For many years, my mother carried in her heart the story of my father's return from Europe after World War Two. She nursed the romance and the pain of it into one terrific story. How much of it was true and how much polish we will certainly never know. When she died, my father picked up the tale from exactly where she left off and made it his own. The story was unreliable, but that was not the point. It connected them to each other and us to them. Now, with my father gone, the story is ours to carry forward with additions and commentary of our own.

I love this process of unravelling. It  gives me an excuse to reconnect with people that I care for and to hear their stories once again - to learn which parts of our remarkable adventure have survived for others and to speculate on why. It's too easy, though, to get flustered  by the differences and pass over where and how the stories are the same. As I take respite from my historical plunge, I'm reading Michael Paterniti's The Telling Room, a book ostensibly about a kind of cheese. Really it's about a village, about story-telling and about unreliable and contradictory narrative. And I've been sharing a rich texting dialog with my wise friend Jacqui, one of the characters in and one of the sources for my book. Yesterday she forwarded a  new New Yorker piece about the scientific reasons memories are, at best, unreliable. She reminded me that I'm writing a memoir with the opportunity and license to tell what I remember, which is as true as any history can ever be. Maybe truer: a distillation from the heart. 

 It's good advice.  I'm going to forget about when and how the teacups traveled from the Soviet Union to America. It's the story of the gift that counts.