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Empire Antarctica: Ice, Silence & Emperor Penguins
Gavin Francis fulfilled a lifetime's ambition when he spent fourteen months as the base-camp doctor at Halley, a profoundly isolated British research station on the Caird Coast of Antarctica. So remote, it is said to be easier to evacuate a casualty from the International Space Station than it is to bring someone out of Halley in winter.
Antarctica offered a year of unparalleled silence and solitude, with few distractions and very little human history, but also a rare oppurtunity to live among emperor penguins, the only species truly at home in the Antarctic. Following the penguins throughout the year -- from a summer of perpetual sunshine to months of winter darkness -- Gavin Francis explores a world of great beauty conjured from the simplest elements, the hardship of living at 50�C below zero and the unexpected comfort that the penguin community bring.
Empire Antarctica is the story of one man and his fascination with the world's loneliest continent, as well as the emperor penguins who weather the winter with him. Combining an evocative narrative with a sublime sensitivity to the natural world, this is travel writing at its very best.
Antarctica offered a year of unparalleled silence and solitude, with few distractions and very little human history, but also a rare oppurtunity to live among emperor penguins, the only species truly at home in the Antarctic. Following the penguins throughout the year -- from a summer of perpetual sunshine to months of winter darkness -- Gavin Francis explores a world of great beauty conjured from the simplest elements, the hardship of living at 50�C below zero and the unexpected comfort that the penguin community bring.
Empire Antarctica is the story of one man and his fascination with the world's loneliest continent, as well as the emperor penguins who weather the winter with him. Combining an evocative narrative with a sublime sensitivity to the natural world, this is travel writing at its very best.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published November 1, 2012
80 people are currently reading
1440 people want to read
About the author
Gavin Francis
21 books138 followersGavin Francis was born in Scotland in 1975, and has travelled widely on all seven continents. He has crossed Eurasia by motorcycle, and spent a year in Antarctica. He works as a medical doctor as well as a writer.
When travelling he is most interested in the way that places shapes the lives and stories of the people who live in them.
His first book, True North: Travels in Arctic Europe, explores the history of Europe's expansion northwards from the first Greek explorers to the Polar expeditions of the late 19th and 20th centuries. It was nominated for a William Mills Prize for Polar Books. Of it Robert Macfarlane wrote: 'a seriously accomplished first book, by a versatile and interesting writer... it is set apart by the elegance and grace of its prose, and by its abiding interest in landscapes of the mind. Francis explores not only the terrain of the far North, but also the ways in which the North has been imagined... a dense and unusual book.'
In 2011 he received a Creative Scotland Writer's Award towards the completion of a book about the year he spent living beside a colony of Emperor Penguins in Antarctica. Empire Antarctica will be published by Chatto & Windus in November 2012.
When travelling he is most interested in the way that places shapes the lives and stories of the people who live in them.
His first book, True North: Travels in Arctic Europe, explores the history of Europe's expansion northwards from the first Greek explorers to the Polar expeditions of the late 19th and 20th centuries. It was nominated for a William Mills Prize for Polar Books. Of it Robert Macfarlane wrote: 'a seriously accomplished first book, by a versatile and interesting writer... it is set apart by the elegance and grace of its prose, and by its abiding interest in landscapes of the mind. Francis explores not only the terrain of the far North, but also the ways in which the North has been imagined... a dense and unusual book.'
In 2011 he received a Creative Scotland Writer's Award towards the completion of a book about the year he spent living beside a colony of Emperor Penguins in Antarctica. Empire Antarctica will be published by Chatto & Windus in November 2012.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 92 reviews
December 1, 2024
Emperor penguins (Things I Did Not Learn in This Book): The fathers balance eggs on their scrunched up toes for months keeping them warm under their big tummies because if the egg touches the Antarctic ice - even once - the life inside dies. During that time the fathers don’t eat. Sometimes the Dads cluster together for warmth - like if there’s an Antarctic blizzard - and take turns being in the middle of the scrum.
If an Emperor penguin had asked me to co-parent way back when - you know, a Real Partner with a big warm belly willing to really care for our little one - while I go off and eat and swim - for months? Oh hell yes, I’m yours, baby.
But this author? He’s straight outta 1910. The Age of Men. Unfortunately for anyone trying to read this book, published in 2012, this newly minted physician on his way to a year in Antarctica is modern enough to know better. Couldn’t make myself finish this self-obsessed bore’s story of his Grand Adventure. I tried. I girded my loins, Shackleton-style, and convinced myself I was learning some things. But eventually I found myself fact-checking because There Are No Footnotes. and I found there were way too many falsehoods and mistakes, things he states as fact which were, instead, rumor or prejudice.
Lots of prejudice - don’t read this if you’re Argentinian, please. One example: Gavin accepts as fact an obviously false story told to him by one of the pilots (who allows him on a fuel run) about Argentinians heading off on a hike towards nowhere from their base at Esperanza. You know, because they’re like that? The pilot was clearly pulling this young rube’s leg never expecting it to be published as Truth in a book.
You have to be carefully taught.
Then there’s just his viciousness. He stops in my adopted country on his sail to Antarctica. In the beautiful port of Montevideo he only mentions brothels. Funny that. While our port is a hugely popular tourist area, brothels are not. Even close. He writes:
“I drank warm Argentinian lager in bars heaving with Korean sailors, and brushed off advances of undernourished girls from Paraguay.”
That’s it. That’s all he writes about Uruguay, about Montevideo. “Heaving”? Gavin must have done more than brush, like perhaps had a conversation, to know they were Paraguayan, right? Our working women don’t wear name-tags with “country of origin” on them. And not a thought to why they might be either “girls” or “undernourished”? This creep who makes himself out to be a thoughtful naturalist and physician?
I hope he returns to Scotland and specializes in pathology because he belongs nowhere near living matter in my considered, mature medical opinion.
In several nauseating scenes he lionizes the atavistic fossils that remain from the age of sharp divisions of class. In one, a Pleistocene scrap who started a British Antarctic Survey base >70 years ago (because we all know things like that only require One White Man, right?) is interviewed before this sycophantic author leaves for Antarctica - “for advice”.
I was reminded of The Ascent of Rum Doodle
While the fossil’s equally ancient wife “...hovered in the background…” and served them tea (no comment) the vestige of Victoriana suggested that a successful Antarctic venture required “choosing your own men”.
I think we can all decode that.
This same remnant of the Big Bang recommended Gavin, darling, simply must try an Emperor Egg Omelette whilst in the vicinity.
Seriously.
All of this Mr. Francis finds sparkly eyed and wondrous.
Just wish I had the magical power to shoot Gavin Francis backwards onto the fields of Verdun or Somme in 1916 so he could be the hero he truly wanted to be. At one point he imagines cutting through the ice as episodes in his magical boy-filled past:
“The effect was like Napoleon's cannons at Austerlitz…”
How, I wondered, does he know that?
Antarctica began to freeze 30-40 million years ago so many of the other species began to move away (to Florida?) The emperors held fast. Adapted.
He goes on to say:
“It would be bitter irony for the emperors, but nature has no favourites, if the very adaptations that allowed them to hold on are the same ones that might now lead to their extinction in a newer, rewarming Antarctic.”
I read another 10 pages - but this is where I gave up. Such shallow thinking.
This “rewarming”? It’s Not Natural.
There’s no time for any species, humans included, to “evolve” or “adapt” naturally to our soon to be boiling over world.
The emperors’ brilliant, loving, courageous and (damn it) friggin perfect evolutionary scheme wasn’t, it won’t be brought down by nature picking favorites.
The Emperor penguins will be killed by us, by homo sapiens, by people. Because we’ve toasted the only planet there is. It’s petrified minds like this author's - the kind that refuse to see what we’ve done and so continue doing it - that have brought all life on Earth to this precipice.
Time is too short to listen to shallow thinkers or finish bad books.
So if you've read this review - thanks for Your precious time. :>)
If an Emperor penguin had asked me to co-parent way back when - you know, a Real Partner with a big warm belly willing to really care for our little one - while I go off and eat and swim - for months? Oh hell yes, I’m yours, baby.
But this author? He’s straight outta 1910. The Age of Men. Unfortunately for anyone trying to read this book, published in 2012, this newly minted physician on his way to a year in Antarctica is modern enough to know better. Couldn’t make myself finish this self-obsessed bore’s story of his Grand Adventure. I tried. I girded my loins, Shackleton-style, and convinced myself I was learning some things. But eventually I found myself fact-checking because There Are No Footnotes. and I found there were way too many falsehoods and mistakes, things he states as fact which were, instead, rumor or prejudice.
Lots of prejudice - don’t read this if you’re Argentinian, please. One example: Gavin accepts as fact an obviously false story told to him by one of the pilots (who allows him on a fuel run) about Argentinians heading off on a hike towards nowhere from their base at Esperanza. You know, because they’re like that? The pilot was clearly pulling this young rube’s leg never expecting it to be published as Truth in a book.
You have to be carefully taught.
Then there’s just his viciousness. He stops in my adopted country on his sail to Antarctica. In the beautiful port of Montevideo he only mentions brothels. Funny that. While our port is a hugely popular tourist area, brothels are not. Even close. He writes:
“I drank warm Argentinian lager in bars heaving with Korean sailors, and brushed off advances of undernourished girls from Paraguay.”
That’s it. That’s all he writes about Uruguay, about Montevideo. “Heaving”? Gavin must have done more than brush, like perhaps had a conversation, to know they were Paraguayan, right? Our working women don’t wear name-tags with “country of origin” on them. And not a thought to why they might be either “girls” or “undernourished”? This creep who makes himself out to be a thoughtful naturalist and physician?
I hope he returns to Scotland and specializes in pathology because he belongs nowhere near living matter in my considered, mature medical opinion.
In several nauseating scenes he lionizes the atavistic fossils that remain from the age of sharp divisions of class. In one, a Pleistocene scrap who started a British Antarctic Survey base >70 years ago (because we all know things like that only require One White Man, right?) is interviewed before this sycophantic author leaves for Antarctica - “for advice”.
I was reminded of The Ascent of Rum Doodle
While the fossil’s equally ancient wife “...hovered in the background…” and served them tea (no comment) the vestige of Victoriana suggested that a successful Antarctic venture required “choosing your own men”.
I think we can all decode that.
This same remnant of the Big Bang recommended Gavin, darling, simply must try an Emperor Egg Omelette whilst in the vicinity.
Seriously.
All of this Mr. Francis finds sparkly eyed and wondrous.
Just wish I had the magical power to shoot Gavin Francis backwards onto the fields of Verdun or Somme in 1916 so he could be the hero he truly wanted to be. At one point he imagines cutting through the ice as episodes in his magical boy-filled past:
“The effect was like Napoleon's cannons at Austerlitz…”
How, I wondered, does he know that?
Antarctica began to freeze 30-40 million years ago so many of the other species began to move away (to Florida?) The emperors held fast. Adapted.
He goes on to say:
“It would be bitter irony for the emperors, but nature has no favourites, if the very adaptations that allowed them to hold on are the same ones that might now lead to their extinction in a newer, rewarming Antarctic.”
I read another 10 pages - but this is where I gave up. Such shallow thinking.
This “rewarming”? It’s Not Natural.
There’s no time for any species, humans included, to “evolve” or “adapt” naturally to our soon to be boiling over world.
The emperors’ brilliant, loving, courageous and (damn it) friggin perfect evolutionary scheme wasn’t, it won’t be brought down by nature picking favorites.
The Emperor penguins will be killed by us, by homo sapiens, by people. Because we’ve toasted the only planet there is. It’s petrified minds like this author's - the kind that refuse to see what we’ve done and so continue doing it - that have brought all life on Earth to this precipice.
Time is too short to listen to shallow thinkers or finish bad books.
So if you've read this review - thanks for Your precious time. :>)
May 31, 2021
“It is said to be one of our oldest stories, embedded in humanity’s DNA, when a young man goes to a far-off land in search of a terrible or wondrous beast. The Epic of Gilgamesh, Jason and the Golden Fleece, Beowulf – they all fit the template. Bruce Chatwin added his Patagonian journey to the list. For years the idea of Antarctica had murmured in my ambition; a desire to go to the remotest land on our planet, to see one of the most wondrous beasts alive.”
Memoir of the author’s year-long stay in Antarctica as part of the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) research station at Halley, serving as the resident doctor. He had a strong desire to experience the type of solitude available in one of the most remote regions of the globe. He takes the opportunity to observe a nearby rookery for Emperor Penguins. The book is organized around the seasons. It is filled with reflections on his stay at Halley, along with observations about early expeditions, such as those of Scott and Shackleton.
Dr. Francis had time on his hands to observe the penguins, ski around the base, do plenty of chores and lots of reading. He gives us a good idea of what life was like on the base. The author’s lively and vivid style helps bring the stark beauty of this remote continent to life in the mind’s eye. I enjoy reading about adventures in places I will never personally experience. I very much enjoyed this combination of science, history, memoir, and meditation on solitude.
“It is April, soon after the autumnal equinox, and the refreezing of the sea is already well advanced. Emperor penguins are returning from a summer fishing, fat and gleaming, to mate on the new sea ice close to the edges of the continent. They are the only species evolved to survive these coasts through the winter. That they breed through it, carrying eggs on their feet as they shuffle through the darkness, is one of the wonders of the natural world.”
Memoir of the author’s year-long stay in Antarctica as part of the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) research station at Halley, serving as the resident doctor. He had a strong desire to experience the type of solitude available in one of the most remote regions of the globe. He takes the opportunity to observe a nearby rookery for Emperor Penguins. The book is organized around the seasons. It is filled with reflections on his stay at Halley, along with observations about early expeditions, such as those of Scott and Shackleton.
Dr. Francis had time on his hands to observe the penguins, ski around the base, do plenty of chores and lots of reading. He gives us a good idea of what life was like on the base. The author’s lively and vivid style helps bring the stark beauty of this remote continent to life in the mind’s eye. I enjoy reading about adventures in places I will never personally experience. I very much enjoyed this combination of science, history, memoir, and meditation on solitude.
“It is April, soon after the autumnal equinox, and the refreezing of the sea is already well advanced. Emperor penguins are returning from a summer fishing, fat and gleaming, to mate on the new sea ice close to the edges of the continent. They are the only species evolved to survive these coasts through the winter. That they breed through it, carrying eggs on their feet as they shuffle through the darkness, is one of the wonders of the natural world.”
February 12, 2022
„Es tut gut, die Größenordnungen des Universums zu ahnen und sich daneben winzig und unbedeutend zu fühlen. Jede Nacht schöpfte ich daraus meine Kraft.“
Gavin Francis lebte ein Jahr lang auf der britischen Forschungsstation Halley in der Antarktis. Überwinterte mit wenigen anderen Mitarbeitenden (14 insgesamt) dort und schrieb darüber ein sehr umfassendes Buch. Ich kann schwer einschätzen, ob es eine Leseempfehlung für jeden Interessierten ist, denn man sollte schon sehr viel Interesse für diesen einsamen Ort haben. Wobei… ganz so einsam ist es doch nicht, denn da wären ja noch die Kaiserpinguine :)
Das Buch ist gespickt mit zahlreichen Informationen über die Geschichte der Antarktis und das Leben in dieser unwirtlichen Natur. Für mich war es einfach spannend zu erfahren wie der - gar nicht so langweilige - Alltag auf einer Station aussieht, besonders im Winter, wenn es monatelang kein Tageslicht gibt. Mit sehr viel Begeisterung habe ich die Passagen über die Pinguine gelesen, welche den Autoren sehr fasziniert haben und ihn durch die gesamte Zeit immer wieder begegneten.
Die immer wiederkehrenden Vergleiche zu früheren und vor allem den ersten Polarexpeditionen waren spannend, zumal ich viele der Geschichten bereits während meiner eigenen Antarktis Reise erfahren habe. So konnte ich mich wieder daran erinnern und mehr und mehr fügen sich die Informationen zusammen.
Gefahren werden nicht verharmlost, aber auch nicht überdramatisiert. Dass die vom Seeleoparden getötete Meeresforscherin zum gleichen Zeitpunkt verstorben ist, wie der Autor des Buches ebenfalls in der Antarktis (auf einer anderen Station) wusste ich vorher nicht, aber auch hier erinnerte ich mich daran zurück.
Sehr spannende empfand ich auch die Passagen in denen es um die mentale Gesundheit der Überwinterer geht und wie Francis sich selbst immer wieder hinterfragt.
Der Schreibstil ist nicht locker und leicht, sondern schon sehr inhaltsschwanger. Keine Lektüre, welche man schnell und leicht weg liegst, aber dafür umso intensiver.
Für alle, die sich sehr für das Leben auf einer Antarktisstation interessieren und die raue Schönheit dieser Gegend eine Leseempfehlung!
Gavin Francis lebte ein Jahr lang auf der britischen Forschungsstation Halley in der Antarktis. Überwinterte mit wenigen anderen Mitarbeitenden (14 insgesamt) dort und schrieb darüber ein sehr umfassendes Buch. Ich kann schwer einschätzen, ob es eine Leseempfehlung für jeden Interessierten ist, denn man sollte schon sehr viel Interesse für diesen einsamen Ort haben. Wobei… ganz so einsam ist es doch nicht, denn da wären ja noch die Kaiserpinguine :)
Das Buch ist gespickt mit zahlreichen Informationen über die Geschichte der Antarktis und das Leben in dieser unwirtlichen Natur. Für mich war es einfach spannend zu erfahren wie der - gar nicht so langweilige - Alltag auf einer Station aussieht, besonders im Winter, wenn es monatelang kein Tageslicht gibt. Mit sehr viel Begeisterung habe ich die Passagen über die Pinguine gelesen, welche den Autoren sehr fasziniert haben und ihn durch die gesamte Zeit immer wieder begegneten.
Die immer wiederkehrenden Vergleiche zu früheren und vor allem den ersten Polarexpeditionen waren spannend, zumal ich viele der Geschichten bereits während meiner eigenen Antarktis Reise erfahren habe. So konnte ich mich wieder daran erinnern und mehr und mehr fügen sich die Informationen zusammen.
Gefahren werden nicht verharmlost, aber auch nicht überdramatisiert. Dass die vom Seeleoparden getötete Meeresforscherin zum gleichen Zeitpunkt verstorben ist, wie der Autor des Buches ebenfalls in der Antarktis (auf einer anderen Station) wusste ich vorher nicht, aber auch hier erinnerte ich mich daran zurück.
Sehr spannende empfand ich auch die Passagen in denen es um die mentale Gesundheit der Überwinterer geht und wie Francis sich selbst immer wieder hinterfragt.
Der Schreibstil ist nicht locker und leicht, sondern schon sehr inhaltsschwanger. Keine Lektüre, welche man schnell und leicht weg liegst, aber dafür umso intensiver.
Für alle, die sich sehr für das Leben auf einer Antarktisstation interessieren und die raue Schönheit dieser Gegend eine Leseempfehlung!
January 12, 2015
"Gavin Francis fulfilled a lifetime's ambition when he spent fourteen months as the basecamp doctor at Halley, a profoundly isolated British research station on the Caird Coast of Antarctica. So remote, it is said to be easier to evacuate a casualty from the International Space Station than it is to bring someone out of Halley in winter."
I have visited the southern continent twice as a tourist, nibbling around the edges. I adored my first cruise, the point of which was to cross the Antarctic Circle west of the peninsula that juts northwards towards South America. I loved the snowy landscape, the lack of people, the remoteness, and the wildlife. Plus I adored penguins. When we disembarked in Ushuaia, Argentina, I was reluctant to leave. If the tour company had said, “We have room for one female passenger, leaving this afternoon,” I would have turned around, got back on the ship, and figured out how to pay for it and how to explain it to my employer later.
That cruise in 2002 started my love affair with the black and white birds that continues to this day. Since then, I have seen 11 out of the 18-20 species of penguin (depending on who is counting) and the quest continues. The Emperor Penguin is going to be a hard one to see, so there is a third trip to the Antarctic somewhere in my future to accomplish this.
I have also always haboured a secret dream of living in Northern Canada and experiencing a winter of darkness. Being able to explore a landscape that isn’t crowded by people and seeing wildlife that most Canadians don’t get to see.
So it was fascinating to read an account of a doctor’s overwintering on a remote Antarctic station, dealing with the weather, the darkness, and the limits of an Antarctic winter. Francis seems to be an adventurous person, skiing, mountain climbing and visiting remote places before he ever got to the Antarctic, and this quality stood him in good stead. I have no skills that would ever get me to an Antarctic base as an employee, so I was quite envious.
However, as his account progressed, I came to realize that I would have great difficulty surviving the limited society of such a base over the winter and probably have extreme difficulty combining it with 24 hour darkness. I still may try Northern Canada eventually, but if I do it will be in a northern city with a variety of people to socialize with.
What I absolutely loved about this memoir was the literary knowledge of the author, the quotes from great literature and from the accounts of Arctic and Antarctic explorations from the heroic age. He balances the personal memoir, the factual information about over wintering, the accounts of the penguins, and historical and literary history with great skill. There is not too much of any one ingredient, it is just right.
Cross-posted at my blog, The Next Fifty, at:
http://wanda-thenextfifty.blogspot.ca...
I have visited the southern continent twice as a tourist, nibbling around the edges. I adored my first cruise, the point of which was to cross the Antarctic Circle west of the peninsula that juts northwards towards South America. I loved the snowy landscape, the lack of people, the remoteness, and the wildlife. Plus I adored penguins. When we disembarked in Ushuaia, Argentina, I was reluctant to leave. If the tour company had said, “We have room for one female passenger, leaving this afternoon,” I would have turned around, got back on the ship, and figured out how to pay for it and how to explain it to my employer later.
That cruise in 2002 started my love affair with the black and white birds that continues to this day. Since then, I have seen 11 out of the 18-20 species of penguin (depending on who is counting) and the quest continues. The Emperor Penguin is going to be a hard one to see, so there is a third trip to the Antarctic somewhere in my future to accomplish this.
I have also always haboured a secret dream of living in Northern Canada and experiencing a winter of darkness. Being able to explore a landscape that isn’t crowded by people and seeing wildlife that most Canadians don’t get to see.
So it was fascinating to read an account of a doctor’s overwintering on a remote Antarctic station, dealing with the weather, the darkness, and the limits of an Antarctic winter. Francis seems to be an adventurous person, skiing, mountain climbing and visiting remote places before he ever got to the Antarctic, and this quality stood him in good stead. I have no skills that would ever get me to an Antarctic base as an employee, so I was quite envious.
However, as his account progressed, I came to realize that I would have great difficulty surviving the limited society of such a base over the winter and probably have extreme difficulty combining it with 24 hour darkness. I still may try Northern Canada eventually, but if I do it will be in a northern city with a variety of people to socialize with.
What I absolutely loved about this memoir was the literary knowledge of the author, the quotes from great literature and from the accounts of Arctic and Antarctic explorations from the heroic age. He balances the personal memoir, the factual information about over wintering, the accounts of the penguins, and historical and literary history with great skill. There is not too much of any one ingredient, it is just right.
Cross-posted at my blog, The Next Fifty, at:
http://wanda-thenextfifty.blogspot.ca...
August 31, 2015
I'm a huge fan of travel narrative ... except for polar regions - frankly, the idea bores the stuffing out of me. However, one of my GR friends really liked this one, so I thought "Okay ... I'll go 'outside my comfort zone' to try it." Glad I did.
Truth to tell, I wasn't wild about the descriptions of natural beauty, and started skimming whenever references were made to historical details of Scott, etc. What kept me going were the scenes of day-to-life, as well as (I guiltily admit) the instances were Dr. Oxbridge was called out by the other crew members: "No, you are not allowed to dissect penguins in here!" and "I don't tell you about running the medical stuff, but as the chief mechanic I'm taking away your skidoo privileges for tinkering with the engine!"
A very well written story of his year away from civilization - those who love nature and/or polar regions ought to put this one at the top of their TBR queues. The rest ought to at least consider the book, if it sounds interesting.
Truth to tell, I wasn't wild about the descriptions of natural beauty, and started skimming whenever references were made to historical details of Scott, etc. What kept me going were the scenes of day-to-life, as well as (I guiltily admit) the instances were Dr. Oxbridge was called out by the other crew members: "No, you are not allowed to dissect penguins in here!" and "I don't tell you about running the medical stuff, but as the chief mechanic I'm taking away your skidoo privileges for tinkering with the engine!"
A very well written story of his year away from civilization - those who love nature and/or polar regions ought to put this one at the top of their TBR queues. The rest ought to at least consider the book, if it sounds interesting.
July 9, 2018
A superb read of one man and his fascination with the Emperor Penguins in Antarctica. Literary travel writing at its best!
December 18, 2013
I will never walk amid emperor penguins in Antarctica, will never witness my exhalations “refracting the sunlight into evanescent blooms of colour,” would not even know that the far south climate could be so transformative that I might “breathe in air and breathe out rainbows.”
I’m grateful for the poetry which infuses Gavin Francis’ Empire Antarctica: Ice, Silence, & Emperor Penguins. Prior to winning this book via First Reads giveaway, my only glimpse of fatherly brooding over grey-fluff chicks had been accompanied by Morgan Freeman’s voiceover.
Although I had experienced Luc Jacquet’s March of the Penguins during its theatrical release, I somehow managed to missed Werner Herzog’s Encounters at the End of the World, although I’ve loved that director’s visions in Heart of Glass, Where the Green Ants Dream, not to mention his better-known Nosferatu, The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, and Aguirre, the Wrath of God.
What really surprised me in Francis’ Antarctic encounter is its intense intertextuality. In addition to introducing me to the Herzog documentary, the author also managed to intersperse a number of poets among his mention of various other travel-writers.
Coincidentally, I’m taking an online workshop in ekphrastic poetry—and just as I was contemplating the week’s prompt to join the poetic conversation inspired by Pieter Bruegel’s Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, I come across Francis’ discussion of William Carlos Williams’ and W.H. Auden’s verse meditations of that painting. I should not be surprised by such synchronicity as Francis’ memoir is as much an exploration into inner (intellectual and imaginal) space as it is into cathedrals of ice on "spindle-thin rope."
And, yet, how unexpected to find this lyrical prose-writer (a doctor like Williams) studying the fluff of chick bellies, comparing it to “half-blown dandelion clocks,” then, reflecting that if these semi-piebald creatures had not managed to fledge further by the time “the floe broke up they would be unable to swim and, like Icarus, [they, too] would drown.”
How marvelous! Francis’ is the type of book that is sure to be read by future winterers at the coastal research station at Halley, though I must say that I was quite comfortable to be reading it under my bundle of sleepy cat bodies. (I got the impression--from other reading--that domestic animals are no longer kept at these research stations due to environmental concerns.)
I simply could not survive away from purrs--and, while I do find some degree of cold to be energizing, I could only cringe when I read a quote from Apsley Cherry-Garrard on the impact of “minus 77.5°F, about minus 60°C” on dentistry: “I don’t know why our tongues never got frozen. . . . but all my teeth, the nerves of which had been killed, split to pieces.”
No. I will never travel to Antarctica, but I am delighted to have been exposed to Francis’ (and other adventurers’) experiences in that dark whiteness if only on the vividly descriptive page. And, now, I am also inspired to watch that Herzog movie—and, possibly, to add some novels set in cold climates to my Goodread’s shelves. I’m thinking of something along the lines of Smilla’s Sense of Snow by Peter Høeg or the Edie Kiglatuk's Inuit mysteries by M.J. McGrath. But, I’ll have to conduct some research in order to find the equivalent set in the polar south.
I’m grateful for the poetry which infuses Gavin Francis’ Empire Antarctica: Ice, Silence, & Emperor Penguins. Prior to winning this book via First Reads giveaway, my only glimpse of fatherly brooding over grey-fluff chicks had been accompanied by Morgan Freeman’s voiceover.
Although I had experienced Luc Jacquet’s March of the Penguins during its theatrical release, I somehow managed to missed Werner Herzog’s Encounters at the End of the World, although I’ve loved that director’s visions in Heart of Glass, Where the Green Ants Dream, not to mention his better-known Nosferatu, The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, and Aguirre, the Wrath of God.
What really surprised me in Francis’ Antarctic encounter is its intense intertextuality. In addition to introducing me to the Herzog documentary, the author also managed to intersperse a number of poets among his mention of various other travel-writers.
Coincidentally, I’m taking an online workshop in ekphrastic poetry—and just as I was contemplating the week’s prompt to join the poetic conversation inspired by Pieter Bruegel’s Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, I come across Francis’ discussion of William Carlos Williams’ and W.H. Auden’s verse meditations of that painting. I should not be surprised by such synchronicity as Francis’ memoir is as much an exploration into inner (intellectual and imaginal) space as it is into cathedrals of ice on "spindle-thin rope."
And, yet, how unexpected to find this lyrical prose-writer (a doctor like Williams) studying the fluff of chick bellies, comparing it to “half-blown dandelion clocks,” then, reflecting that if these semi-piebald creatures had not managed to fledge further by the time “the floe broke up they would be unable to swim and, like Icarus, [they, too] would drown.”
How marvelous! Francis’ is the type of book that is sure to be read by future winterers at the coastal research station at Halley, though I must say that I was quite comfortable to be reading it under my bundle of sleepy cat bodies. (I got the impression--from other reading--that domestic animals are no longer kept at these research stations due to environmental concerns.)
I simply could not survive away from purrs--and, while I do find some degree of cold to be energizing, I could only cringe when I read a quote from Apsley Cherry-Garrard on the impact of “minus 77.5°F, about minus 60°C” on dentistry: “I don’t know why our tongues never got frozen. . . . but all my teeth, the nerves of which had been killed, split to pieces.”
No. I will never travel to Antarctica, but I am delighted to have been exposed to Francis’ (and other adventurers’) experiences in that dark whiteness if only on the vividly descriptive page. And, now, I am also inspired to watch that Herzog movie—and, possibly, to add some novels set in cold climates to my Goodread’s shelves. I’m thinking of something along the lines of Smilla’s Sense of Snow by Peter Høeg or the Edie Kiglatuk's Inuit mysteries by M.J. McGrath. But, I’ll have to conduct some research in order to find the equivalent set in the polar south.
October 7, 2016
Written by a doctor who graduated from Edinburgh five years after I did, this is an account of a year spent as the medic on a British base in Antarctica. I've been rather obsessed with Antarctica since first coming to NZ in 1998 and visiting the Antarctic centres here, and had I not met my husband I would have applied to go and work there after my year in NZ. We did eventually get there on a tourist cruise on our delayed honeymoon in 2008, loved it, and the longing to go back and do it properly, not just for a few days, is the main reason behind my current retraining. We can't do it yet - we have cats, jobs and other responsibilities, but one day... Imagine my disappointment therefore, to discover that this book features essentially no doctoring at all. He is open about the fact that his main motivation for taking the job was to do as much navel-gazing as possible, and he does, but it's not very interesting.
The writing is beautiful, with lyrical descriptions of the icy environment, and certain moments described in poetic detail, but I wanted to know what it was like to actually practice medicine there, and am none the wiser, apart from brief mention of some dentistry. There is a graphic account of the dissection of a dead emperor penguin chick, and deep analysis of his own feelings about everything, but this is not what I wanted to read about.
By the end of the book he witters on about various historical, literary, geographical or even artistic anecdotes, which just feels like showing off about how well-read he is. There is a little about the psychological effects of the prolonged isolation, and the group dynamics of 15 people stuck together for a year, but every time he gets close to any insights about this, he's off talking about penguins again.
I don't regret reading this, and it has not put me off wanting to do it, but I would want to do a summer season first before committing to a whole year, and I don't feel that this book would help prepare me for it, apart from some reminders about the historical characters of the Antarctic age.
The writing is beautiful, with lyrical descriptions of the icy environment, and certain moments described in poetic detail, but I wanted to know what it was like to actually practice medicine there, and am none the wiser, apart from brief mention of some dentistry. There is a graphic account of the dissection of a dead emperor penguin chick, and deep analysis of his own feelings about everything, but this is not what I wanted to read about.
By the end of the book he witters on about various historical, literary, geographical or even artistic anecdotes, which just feels like showing off about how well-read he is. There is a little about the psychological effects of the prolonged isolation, and the group dynamics of 15 people stuck together for a year, but every time he gets close to any insights about this, he's off talking about penguins again.
I don't regret reading this, and it has not put me off wanting to do it, but I would want to do a summer season first before committing to a whole year, and I don't feel that this book would help prepare me for it, apart from some reminders about the historical characters of the Antarctic age.
January 15, 2015
Why I enjoy reading about the experiences of people who challenge unusual places or situations I would never even consider trying (such as climbing Everest or exploring nearly inaccessible corners of the would) I don't know, but I surely find pleasure in accounts that are informative and well written. And Frances has delivered a delightful descriptive story that vividly displays his awe and excitement, as well as knowledge, of living a season as doctor at the British Halley post in Antarctica. He mixes in a healthy dose of travel, ornithology, history, memoir, and science. Some may tire when he waxes poetic or philosophical, but overall his prose sparkles and challenges. I would recommend this book to anyone. And there are penguins (and oddly, it is hard to get Robin William's voice out of my head).
January 18, 2015
A wonderful story, wonderfully written by a man full of wonder for his surroundings. This is the second of Gavin Francis's books I have read and I can only hope for many more. This story of a year spent in Antarctica is fascinating. He intersperses his own story with that of famous explorers of the past, his fascination with Emperor penguins and his time spent among them, descriptions of the auroras and other natural phenomena he sees and experiences, and his reflections on the experience of living in a confined space with others while at the same time being completely cut off from the rest of the world. I welled up when the book drew to a close with him recounting how it felt to leave this other world and re-enter his own world. Quite simply a wonderful read.
July 21, 2016
Beautifully written memoir of a doctor's year spent working at the most remote of Antarctic stations. I loved the way his descriptions are worded--there's a sort of poetry in the way Gavin Francis writes about his time there and about coming home afterward, and he does a wonderful job of bringing the history of the early expeditions, the biology and behavior of penguins, and the workings of the Halley Research Station into his narrative in a natural way and without ever sounding as though he's just regurgitating facts. Of the modern accounts of time spent in Antarctica that I've read so far, this is definitely among my favorites.
March 1, 2023
The author is a Scottish doctor. After graduation, he worked as a doctor in Africa, India, and the Arctic. In the beginning of this book, he gets a position as the station doctor at Halley Research Station and spends a whole year there with 13 others. There is a special name for the people: the winterners. The effect of the silence, isolation, lack of light during the winter on any human being is hard to imagine or describe. The only way to understand it is to have that experience.
During my trip, two of our expedition staff gave us a talk about being a winterner at an Antarctic station and an Arctic station. They both mentioned that, at the end of their stay, they developed a different view of the world, different understanding of themselves, even a "polar stare".
In this book, the Emperor penguins were his only neighbors. Watching the hardship the penguins went through and yet so contented, a human being has to wonder about the way we should live.
The author wrote a lot about science such as biology and psychology. He also wrote a lot about heroic polar exploration history. Interestingly though, he mentioned Shackleton, Scott and their team members, but he never mentioned anything about de Gerlache's exploration.
This book also confirmed my wondering about the colors in Antarctica. Black, White, and Grey are the only colors I saw. I was wondering if it was about the weather. This book also confirmed these colors to be the dominant ones. No wonder in the Ha-Er-Bing area of northern China, people say "white mountain black water". I am glad I read this book right after I came back from Antarctica as I can still relate to it.
During my trip, two of our expedition staff gave us a talk about being a winterner at an Antarctic station and an Arctic station. They both mentioned that, at the end of their stay, they developed a different view of the world, different understanding of themselves, even a "polar stare".
In this book, the Emperor penguins were his only neighbors. Watching the hardship the penguins went through and yet so contented, a human being has to wonder about the way we should live.
The author wrote a lot about science such as biology and psychology. He also wrote a lot about heroic polar exploration history. Interestingly though, he mentioned Shackleton, Scott and their team members, but he never mentioned anything about de Gerlache's exploration.
This book also confirmed my wondering about the colors in Antarctica. Black, White, and Grey are the only colors I saw. I was wondering if it was about the weather. This book also confirmed these colors to be the dominant ones. No wonder in the Ha-Er-Bing area of northern China, people say "white mountain black water". I am glad I read this book right after I came back from Antarctica as I can still relate to it.
March 13, 2021
Finally finished.
This took a while only because I have zero interest in Antarctica, penguins and winter in general. That said, the fact that I loved this book and enjoyed every page of it completely blows my mind.
Definitely 5/5 penguins from me!
This took a while only because I have zero interest in Antarctica, penguins and winter in general. That said, the fact that I loved this book and enjoyed every page of it completely blows my mind.
Definitely 5/5 penguins from me!
April 13, 2019
Second read, almost a year apart.
Something about this book that makes me yearn for it bang in the middle of unforgiving summers, which I have learned to dislike now.
Something about this book that makes me yearn for it bang in the middle of unforgiving summers, which I have learned to dislike now.
April 17, 2017
A fascinating account of the Antarctica Winter from the zDoc Gavin. The book is written beautifully by someone who seemed to be in love with the beauty and solitude of the continent. Provides some amazing insights into the emperor penguin species. Makes one yearn for their own Antarctica travel.
February 18, 2014
At one time, a Brit could claim the sun never set on their country's flag. Although those days are gone, what remains true is the sense of adventure that possesses many British hearts. Gavin Francis, a Scotsman doctor, exhibits that just kind of heart in this wonderful book. His craving for adventure and learned introspection - not always a compatible pair - is evident throughout this wonderful book.
Francis, exhausted from med school, is desperately in need of a big time-out from life. He volunteers for a year's duty at the British Halley encampment in Antarctica. I began reading, not knowing what kind of adventure upon which the author intended to take me, the reader, but I was immediately caught up by his charming and accessible writing style. Bruce Chatwin pioneered the elegant travel narrative with his book, "In Patagonia," (1977) and it is evident that he and Gavin Francis are cut from the same literary cloth. Although I've read many of Paul Theroux's travelogues, Francis is clearly a cut above, steering away from acerbic commentary and personal gripes and complaints to focus on the grander aspects of his year at minus 50 degrees Centigrade (that's -58 F.).
To do so, Francis evokes the spirits, not just of the extraordinary natural phenomena of this strange chunk of ice (which was, he points out, not always so), nor that of the hardy Emperor penguins which congregate nearby for their annual mating ritual, but of those who have traveled here before him as well as those who have never been. He writes of Amundsen and Scott and Shackleton; he quotes poets, writers, philosophers, and from other interesting and relevant books he's reading on his frigid vacation away from civilization. Rarely does he mention those with whom he's inhabiting the Halley station, and that's to his credit: there are many more interesting things to think and write about, and that is what he does. Interestingly, even though he admits to a fervent wish to see the penguins, they do not overwhelm the narrative arc of the book.
Francis kept me writing notes to remember quotes and save thoughts from the book. In reading a passage about cosmic energy, I jotted this: "There is no good energy or bad energy, only energy in many different forms." I wished the life we humans lead could be so straightforward and simple. He quotes from a travel book by English novelist Graham Greene, "You can grow intimate with almost any living thing, transfer to it your own emotion of tenderness." How very much is encapsulated in those few words!
This is a travel book to savor: there are no extraordinary adventures – no getting lost, frozen, encountering ice monsters - just the entire excursion. I don't think I would care to spend that length of time where it is so cold [even as I write from my home in Massachusetts, February 2014, we've experienced week upon week of sub-freezing temperatures, and while I go out snowshoeing in it, I'm usually glad to make it a short trek and get home where it's warm.] I cannot imagine the travails some of the intrepid explorers of a hundred or so years ago, such as a man named Courtauld who spent five months entrapped in a canvas tent under ice and snow.
That said, neither would I wish to trek for months through the Amazon jungles in search of the Lost City of Z, as did David Grann and who lived to write a book about it. To my mind, there are some adventures best experienced within a book, comfortably ensconced in an armchair.
Francis, exhausted from med school, is desperately in need of a big time-out from life. He volunteers for a year's duty at the British Halley encampment in Antarctica. I began reading, not knowing what kind of adventure upon which the author intended to take me, the reader, but I was immediately caught up by his charming and accessible writing style. Bruce Chatwin pioneered the elegant travel narrative with his book, "In Patagonia," (1977) and it is evident that he and Gavin Francis are cut from the same literary cloth. Although I've read many of Paul Theroux's travelogues, Francis is clearly a cut above, steering away from acerbic commentary and personal gripes and complaints to focus on the grander aspects of his year at minus 50 degrees Centigrade (that's -58 F.).
To do so, Francis evokes the spirits, not just of the extraordinary natural phenomena of this strange chunk of ice (which was, he points out, not always so), nor that of the hardy Emperor penguins which congregate nearby for their annual mating ritual, but of those who have traveled here before him as well as those who have never been. He writes of Amundsen and Scott and Shackleton; he quotes poets, writers, philosophers, and from other interesting and relevant books he's reading on his frigid vacation away from civilization. Rarely does he mention those with whom he's inhabiting the Halley station, and that's to his credit: there are many more interesting things to think and write about, and that is what he does. Interestingly, even though he admits to a fervent wish to see the penguins, they do not overwhelm the narrative arc of the book.
Francis kept me writing notes to remember quotes and save thoughts from the book. In reading a passage about cosmic energy, I jotted this: "There is no good energy or bad energy, only energy in many different forms." I wished the life we humans lead could be so straightforward and simple. He quotes from a travel book by English novelist Graham Greene, "You can grow intimate with almost any living thing, transfer to it your own emotion of tenderness." How very much is encapsulated in those few words!
This is a travel book to savor: there are no extraordinary adventures – no getting lost, frozen, encountering ice monsters - just the entire excursion. I don't think I would care to spend that length of time where it is so cold [even as I write from my home in Massachusetts, February 2014, we've experienced week upon week of sub-freezing temperatures, and while I go out snowshoeing in it, I'm usually glad to make it a short trek and get home where it's warm.] I cannot imagine the travails some of the intrepid explorers of a hundred or so years ago, such as a man named Courtauld who spent five months entrapped in a canvas tent under ice and snow.
That said, neither would I wish to trek for months through the Amazon jungles in search of the Lost City of Z, as did David Grann and who lived to write a book about it. To my mind, there are some adventures best experienced within a book, comfortably ensconced in an armchair.
January 8, 2014
Travel writers fall into two camps: those you'd want to go to the pub with and those who you suspect would struggle to get their ego through the door (no matter how readable their work). Luckily Gavin Francis comes across firmly in the first category. Spending a year as the base doctor in the remote Halley Antarctic base - and cut off from the outside world for ten months - he gives an enjoyable and well written account.
He acknowledges he was lucky enough not to have any serious incidents (no medical emergencies or group breakdowns) but describes the day to day existence of the 14 strong team well, as well as the (expected) background history of exploration with concentration on Shackleton and Scott, often providing the jarring contrast between the experiences just 90 years apart. The pacing is good, with the history well written, and a welcome avoidance of the sin of late chapter preachiness.
I thoroughly ejoyed this book, a good one to read in a dismal British weather to remind us that winter can be well worth experiencing. The penguins provide some additional material, but are kept as a welcome diversion - much as I suspect they were for Francis.
There are some lovely evocative descriptions both of the landscape and weather, as well as the experience. I'd buy him a pint.
He acknowledges he was lucky enough not to have any serious incidents (no medical emergencies or group breakdowns) but describes the day to day existence of the 14 strong team well, as well as the (expected) background history of exploration with concentration on Shackleton and Scott, often providing the jarring contrast between the experiences just 90 years apart. The pacing is good, with the history well written, and a welcome avoidance of the sin of late chapter preachiness.
I thoroughly ejoyed this book, a good one to read in a dismal British weather to remind us that winter can be well worth experiencing. The penguins provide some additional material, but are kept as a welcome diversion - much as I suspect they were for Francis.
There are some lovely evocative descriptions both of the landscape and weather, as well as the experience. I'd buy him a pint.
July 10, 2016
This is just a beautifully written book. Francis' writing gives us a poetic appreciation of a year at a remote British Antarctic station when he's accepted to be the medical doctor with a crew of 13 others through the inaccessible winter. He shares his experiences of light, the silence and solitude, the comforting presence of other living beings--the emporer penguins at a nearby colony--and his very literate range of quotes and stories from poets and explorers. He does not dwell on the gossip and personalities of his co-workers but does give us an understanding of the mental and physical changes he undergoes in his adaptation to confined living, extreme cold, total darkness and total sunshine. The book gave me a glimpse of a transcendent, spiritual and unifying experience. The most satisfying book I've read in a long time.
November 22, 2013
I'm not usually a big fan of memoirs, but this one was different. Its scope encompasses a lot more than just ice and penguins.
March 17, 2016
Hauntingly engrossing...
October 6, 2020
If you go to Antarctica, does it mean you are going to write a book about it? This book is a strange one. That doesn't mean it's a bad one by any means, but this book is an odd one, in that it is part memoir and part attempt to understand the history of a region that is far outside of the scope of world history and one with a very limited tradition of human involvement. The fact that the author has such an English perspective makes the author's human interest in Antarctica rather focused on the English, although at least a few other nations and their involvement in Antarctica are discussed as well, such as the cabin fever experienced by Russians and the American approach to bases, for example, as well as the various national claims as well as some Falklands Islands drama, which is at least Antarctica-adjacent in nature. But if this book was missing penguins, it would not be nearly as good a book as it is. The author realizes this, and just about anyone else reading this book also realizes this and feels glad, one would hope, that there are so many penguins around to cheer on and to read about.
This book is about 250 pages and contains a variety of chapters that are connected to the author's experience of being at Halley Research Station in Australia for a period of about a year or so. The book contains a mix of materials that include a large degree of personal memoir about the author's experience in qualifying to go to Antarctica with a research assignment as a base doctor and his travels there as well as his experiences in coping with the traditions of the base and the stringent demands of life in Antarctica. This is perhaps the most obvious case for the book's worth in my own eyes, as it relates personal experience and observation that is worthy of interest. It is the remainder of the book that is more puzzling, including a lot of whining about the British experience in Antarctica, which includes a lot of discussion of people like Shackleton and Scott and their experiences and ultimate deaths in and near Antarctica and the failures of the British Antarctic experience. This part is perhaps necessary for the author to relate to his reading audience, but it was less of interest to me personally since I would have preferred a bit more discussion of the Antarctic claims and experience of a more diverse lot of people including Americans, Chileans, and Russians, to name a few. The third element in the book's contents is discussion about the fauna of Antarctica, especially penguins, and the author's desire to see them in their native home, and that too is easy enough to understand and appreciate.
Among the most baffling aspects of this book is the fact that it was published in the first place. Although I enjoyed the book a great deal, I have to say that I do not know who I would recommend this book to. Do you like stories about loneliness and isolation and do you wonder if you have what it takes to spend more than a year isolated in Antarctica where dangers range from hypothermia to cabin fever to leopard seals? I know my taste for solitude is the sort that makes this book easy to appreciate, but I don't know how many other people find the thought of solitude and an icy fortress being around scientists and penguins to be appealing. Apparently the publisher thought that this would be appealing to a large enough audience and I have to concede that they may be right, at least if my own appreciation of this book is any question. In reading this book I have to wonder if the author came to Antarctica with the idea to write a book about it, or if other people have the same idea in mind of traveling to a remote and inhospitable place with a publisher waiting to polish up and publish an account of it for fun and profit. If it is the case, we should expect to see more books like this one.
This book is about 250 pages and contains a variety of chapters that are connected to the author's experience of being at Halley Research Station in Australia for a period of about a year or so. The book contains a mix of materials that include a large degree of personal memoir about the author's experience in qualifying to go to Antarctica with a research assignment as a base doctor and his travels there as well as his experiences in coping with the traditions of the base and the stringent demands of life in Antarctica. This is perhaps the most obvious case for the book's worth in my own eyes, as it relates personal experience and observation that is worthy of interest. It is the remainder of the book that is more puzzling, including a lot of whining about the British experience in Antarctica, which includes a lot of discussion of people like Shackleton and Scott and their experiences and ultimate deaths in and near Antarctica and the failures of the British Antarctic experience. This part is perhaps necessary for the author to relate to his reading audience, but it was less of interest to me personally since I would have preferred a bit more discussion of the Antarctic claims and experience of a more diverse lot of people including Americans, Chileans, and Russians, to name a few. The third element in the book's contents is discussion about the fauna of Antarctica, especially penguins, and the author's desire to see them in their native home, and that too is easy enough to understand and appreciate.
Among the most baffling aspects of this book is the fact that it was published in the first place. Although I enjoyed the book a great deal, I have to say that I do not know who I would recommend this book to. Do you like stories about loneliness and isolation and do you wonder if you have what it takes to spend more than a year isolated in Antarctica where dangers range from hypothermia to cabin fever to leopard seals? I know my taste for solitude is the sort that makes this book easy to appreciate, but I don't know how many other people find the thought of solitude and an icy fortress being around scientists and penguins to be appealing. Apparently the publisher thought that this would be appealing to a large enough audience and I have to concede that they may be right, at least if my own appreciation of this book is any question. In reading this book I have to wonder if the author came to Antarctica with the idea to write a book about it, or if other people have the same idea in mind of traveling to a remote and inhospitable place with a publisher waiting to polish up and publish an account of it for fun and profit. If it is the case, we should expect to see more books like this one.
April 5, 2019
Emperor penguins are extraordinary animals, the only species to hatch their eggs on the sea ice of Antarctica. Images of male penguins huddled together, incubating their eggs in the harsh winter—protecting them in their brood pouches, balancing them on their feet as they shuffle about in their huddle, rotating to the warmer spots in the middle—are unforgettable.
It was a fascination with these birds and a desire to live alongside them that led Gavin Francis to apply for a position as doctor at Halley, which is the least accessible of the British research stations in Antarctica and just twenty kilometers from a rookery where some 60,000 emperor penguins breed every autumn.
But there were other reasons as well. He wanted to experience the solitude and silence the region would offer, a relief from his frenetic life in Edinburgh. He was drawn to the stories of such legendary polar explorers as Scott, Shackleton, and Byrd. And he hoped the time and space at Halley would help clarify his own future path: “whether to aim for a life of travel and expeditions, or commit to a profession and put down roots.”
A chronicle of Francis’s 14 months at Halley, Empire Antarctica is also the story of this personal quest. He reflects upon the amazing landscape he inhabits, the remarkable light and, in winter, the lack of light. He meditates on solitude and the experience of living in such close quarters with his small group of colleagues. He contrasts the dangerous conditions of previous explorers with his own relative safety. And he contemplates the lives of the penguins, whom he visits as often as he can and whose “warmth and energy…were a welcome and unexpected comfort through the months of darkness and isolation.”
In Antarctica, the landscape and climate are more than background: they take center stage. “How to describe it?” the author asks. “An empire of ice and of isolation, a limitless plain of brilliant white, a binary world of ice and sky.” Although I seldom find description effective and think too much of it slowed the book down, I did find Francis’s imagery often arresting. “When the fog rolled back…it did so quickly, like an eyelid opening from sleep,” he writes. And, “As I exhaled my breath hung in the air as it froze, a gelid mist, refracting the sunlight into evanescent blooms of colour. It was a novel experience to breathe in air and breathe out rainbows.”
The best parts of the book, I thought, were the sections on the penguins and the profiles of past explorers, whose stories add both historical depth and an element of drama. I enjoyed learning about Richard Byrd, with whom I wasn’t familiar, and reading again about Apsley Cherry-Garrard, whose wonderful book, The Worst Journey in the World, recounts the hair-raising expedition to the emperor penguin rookery near Cape Crozier that he undertook with Edward Wilson and Henry “Birdie” Bowers, both of whom later died with Scott.
“These days are with one for all time—they are never to be forgotten—and they are to be found nowhere else in the world but at the poles,” wrote Wilson in a 1911 diary entry that is quoted by Francis. “One only wishes one could bring a glimpse of it away with one with all its unimaginable beauty.”
Empire Antarctica is Gavin Francis’s “glimpse,” captured for him to savor and share.
It was a fascination with these birds and a desire to live alongside them that led Gavin Francis to apply for a position as doctor at Halley, which is the least accessible of the British research stations in Antarctica and just twenty kilometers from a rookery where some 60,000 emperor penguins breed every autumn.
But there were other reasons as well. He wanted to experience the solitude and silence the region would offer, a relief from his frenetic life in Edinburgh. He was drawn to the stories of such legendary polar explorers as Scott, Shackleton, and Byrd. And he hoped the time and space at Halley would help clarify his own future path: “whether to aim for a life of travel and expeditions, or commit to a profession and put down roots.”
A chronicle of Francis’s 14 months at Halley, Empire Antarctica is also the story of this personal quest. He reflects upon the amazing landscape he inhabits, the remarkable light and, in winter, the lack of light. He meditates on solitude and the experience of living in such close quarters with his small group of colleagues. He contrasts the dangerous conditions of previous explorers with his own relative safety. And he contemplates the lives of the penguins, whom he visits as often as he can and whose “warmth and energy…were a welcome and unexpected comfort through the months of darkness and isolation.”
In Antarctica, the landscape and climate are more than background: they take center stage. “How to describe it?” the author asks. “An empire of ice and of isolation, a limitless plain of brilliant white, a binary world of ice and sky.” Although I seldom find description effective and think too much of it slowed the book down, I did find Francis’s imagery often arresting. “When the fog rolled back…it did so quickly, like an eyelid opening from sleep,” he writes. And, “As I exhaled my breath hung in the air as it froze, a gelid mist, refracting the sunlight into evanescent blooms of colour. It was a novel experience to breathe in air and breathe out rainbows.”
The best parts of the book, I thought, were the sections on the penguins and the profiles of past explorers, whose stories add both historical depth and an element of drama. I enjoyed learning about Richard Byrd, with whom I wasn’t familiar, and reading again about Apsley Cherry-Garrard, whose wonderful book, The Worst Journey in the World, recounts the hair-raising expedition to the emperor penguin rookery near Cape Crozier that he undertook with Edward Wilson and Henry “Birdie” Bowers, both of whom later died with Scott.
“These days are with one for all time—they are never to be forgotten—and they are to be found nowhere else in the world but at the poles,” wrote Wilson in a 1911 diary entry that is quoted by Francis. “One only wishes one could bring a glimpse of it away with one with all its unimaginable beauty.”
Empire Antarctica is Gavin Francis’s “glimpse,” captured for him to savor and share.
November 1, 2022
I loved this book, mainly because it reminded me of my 3 months crossing the Northern Atlantic Ocean down into the Southern Atlantic Ocean, following the trade winds as Gavin did.
His stop in Montevideo reminded me of my 2-day trip inland to a remote luxury hotel to recharge and shower before setting off for the final leg of my trip via Islas las Malvinas - or as the Brits call them The Falklands Islands.
Seeing the penguins on my travels was wonderful: Gentoos with their red love heart markings, Rockhoppers and Chinstrap with their yellow punk rocker styling, the majestic King and Emperor penguins, with the Megellanic and Macaronis which made me question the names (especially after having read 1421 by Gavin Menzies!)...
Reading about them was equally wonderful, especially as I was able to relive my memories and be able to share the joy of someone else who also loves penguins.
Learning how Gavin handled the solitude and occupied his time was also a reflection of the way in which I spend a lot of my life - alone but happy in being so. In fact, after being around people for a certain amount of time I cannot wait to get away.
Learning about the icebergs and glaciers, the icescapes, the long winters, a new perspective on the history of Shackleton and Robert Falcon Scott and their teams, the politics of some of the discoveries made,
And the dismissive attitudes from many of those who are in the bureaucratic positions 'at home' towards the explorers/soldiers/scientist on the 'frontline',
Was thoroughly enjoyable (apart from the dismissive attitudes which made me really quite cross!)
What hit home was the way in which I pushed down my desire to go to Antarctica when I was in Punta Arenas because I didn't want to become part of the problem which is now negatively impacting Antarctica and the marine life - the god awful cruise ships and tourist tall ships now making a quick buck by offering 'something different'.
If I ever do go to Antarctica, then it will be for research purposes. What that research would be, I don't know, but it certainly won't be because I will then be able to say I've been, because that is not a good enough reason with the amount of damage being done down there.
Even when I was sailing around Islas las Malvinas aka The Falklands, I saw the pollution the British Military base have created (Shame on them all as that island was the worst for pollution and plastic in the ocean!) something which Gavin touches on briefly in this book.
I also loved the way in which Gavin made the parallels and differences in equipment and human strength and stamina between Scott's time, Shackleton's time and our time. We think we are evolving quickly, but as Matt Ridley writes in The Red Queen Theory 'the more we evolve, the more we stay the same' - when actually in many cases, the more we evolve technology, the more we regress in our humanity and human capabilities.
A really great read. Highly recommend it.
His stop in Montevideo reminded me of my 2-day trip inland to a remote luxury hotel to recharge and shower before setting off for the final leg of my trip via Islas las Malvinas - or as the Brits call them The Falklands Islands.
Seeing the penguins on my travels was wonderful: Gentoos with their red love heart markings, Rockhoppers and Chinstrap with their yellow punk rocker styling, the majestic King and Emperor penguins, with the Megellanic and Macaronis which made me question the names (especially after having read 1421 by Gavin Menzies!)...
Reading about them was equally wonderful, especially as I was able to relive my memories and be able to share the joy of someone else who also loves penguins.
Learning how Gavin handled the solitude and occupied his time was also a reflection of the way in which I spend a lot of my life - alone but happy in being so. In fact, after being around people for a certain amount of time I cannot wait to get away.
Learning about the icebergs and glaciers, the icescapes, the long winters, a new perspective on the history of Shackleton and Robert Falcon Scott and their teams, the politics of some of the discoveries made,
And the dismissive attitudes from many of those who are in the bureaucratic positions 'at home' towards the explorers/soldiers/scientist on the 'frontline',
Was thoroughly enjoyable (apart from the dismissive attitudes which made me really quite cross!)
What hit home was the way in which I pushed down my desire to go to Antarctica when I was in Punta Arenas because I didn't want to become part of the problem which is now negatively impacting Antarctica and the marine life - the god awful cruise ships and tourist tall ships now making a quick buck by offering 'something different'.
If I ever do go to Antarctica, then it will be for research purposes. What that research would be, I don't know, but it certainly won't be because I will then be able to say I've been, because that is not a good enough reason with the amount of damage being done down there.
Even when I was sailing around Islas las Malvinas aka The Falklands, I saw the pollution the British Military base have created (Shame on them all as that island was the worst for pollution and plastic in the ocean!) something which Gavin touches on briefly in this book.
I also loved the way in which Gavin made the parallels and differences in equipment and human strength and stamina between Scott's time, Shackleton's time and our time. We think we are evolving quickly, but as Matt Ridley writes in The Red Queen Theory 'the more we evolve, the more we stay the same' - when actually in many cases, the more we evolve technology, the more we regress in our humanity and human capabilities.
A really great read. Highly recommend it.
April 1, 2022
In late 2002, Francis arrived in Antarctica to take on a job like no other: physician at Halley Research Station. In these remote wilds—with only fourteen winter-over residents and, fortunately for everyone, very little doctoring to do—he sank into the isolation with something like relief.
Lindsay and I picked up medical supplies as they arrived on the depot line and prepared field medical boxes for the staff who would spend the six-week summer out on the ice, ‘deep field’, doing research. She showed me the emergency supplies secreted around base, contingencies in case the main platform burned down. We pulled out and assembled every type of stretcher, splint and machine hidden in the medical-room cupboards. There was a guide to penguin taxidermy and a neurosurgical drill pack. (72)
Like Jerri Nielsen, Francis had to be prepared for just about any medical emergency; unlike Nielsen, he had very little official doctoring work to do (see: fourteen winter-over residents), and so he spent much of his time reading, helping out around the base wherever an extra set of hands was useful, and studying penguins.
Almost nothing is known about the rise and fall of different emperor colonies. Only fifty years ago just four emperor rookeries were known. That number has edged up slowly as ever more comprehensive surveys, mostly by air, have cross-hatched the continent. For rookeries to be visible they must be counted in late winter or spring, a time when most of the continental fringe is inaccessible. Groups of penguins are invisible from sea level more than a few kilometers away. By 1993 it was thought that there were perhaps thirty-two emperor colonies worldwide, but this estimate was said to have a significant ‘location bias’ – biased towards locations that could actually be reached. (214)
It's with some ambivalence that Francis describes leaving Antarctica at the end of his tenure there; it seems to have been just about all he ever wanted but also a profoundly isolating (there's that word again) experience.
At times I felt keenly the lack of human history in the Antarctic. There were days when the absence seemed Antarctica’s greatest gift, and days when it rendered the continent wasted and sterile. (219)
I expect Nielsen's book is more widely appealing—certainly it's livelier—but in the right mood, this deep meditation may last with you longer.
Lindsay and I picked up medical supplies as they arrived on the depot line and prepared field medical boxes for the staff who would spend the six-week summer out on the ice, ‘deep field’, doing research. She showed me the emergency supplies secreted around base, contingencies in case the main platform burned down. We pulled out and assembled every type of stretcher, splint and machine hidden in the medical-room cupboards. There was a guide to penguin taxidermy and a neurosurgical drill pack. (72)
Like Jerri Nielsen, Francis had to be prepared for just about any medical emergency; unlike Nielsen, he had very little official doctoring work to do (see: fourteen winter-over residents), and so he spent much of his time reading, helping out around the base wherever an extra set of hands was useful, and studying penguins.
Almost nothing is known about the rise and fall of different emperor colonies. Only fifty years ago just four emperor rookeries were known. That number has edged up slowly as ever more comprehensive surveys, mostly by air, have cross-hatched the continent. For rookeries to be visible they must be counted in late winter or spring, a time when most of the continental fringe is inaccessible. Groups of penguins are invisible from sea level more than a few kilometers away. By 1993 it was thought that there were perhaps thirty-two emperor colonies worldwide, but this estimate was said to have a significant ‘location bias’ – biased towards locations that could actually be reached. (214)
It's with some ambivalence that Francis describes leaving Antarctica at the end of his tenure there; it seems to have been just about all he ever wanted but also a profoundly isolating (there's that word again) experience.
At times I felt keenly the lack of human history in the Antarctic. There were days when the absence seemed Antarctica’s greatest gift, and days when it rendered the continent wasted and sterile. (219)
I expect Nielsen's book is more widely appealing—certainly it's livelier—but in the right mood, this deep meditation may last with you longer.
July 25, 2024
I’ve long been fascinated by the polar regions. Gavin Francis, in an attempt to quiet his brain and really give some serious thought to what he truly wants to do in his life, applies to spend a year as the resident doctor at a British base in Antartica, near a rookery for emperor penguins. This book is his memoir of his year at the bottom of the earth.
I have to say that Francis really can write. I would read a sentence of his, marvel at his choice of words, and read it again. Sometimes I would even read it aloud to my family members, just so they could also enjoy his writing. I quite appreciated all the research Francis did, not only in regards to the emperor penguins he was so fascinated by, but he also learned all he could about other Antarctic expeditions, from Scott’s fatal march to the Pole, to Gino Watkins and Augustine Courtauld, to Shackleton and the rescue of the men on Elephant Island. Francis remembered the Lost Men of the Trans-Antarctic Expedition, for which he scores bonus points from me. It was wonderful to be reminded of these expeditions during the Heroic Age, and a great way for more casual readers to be introduced to them.
If anything, this book makes me wonder if I could hack a winter at Halley. I know cooking for 14 is definitely within my wheelhouse, and I’m pretty sure I’d be fine with the solitude, as long as I had my books. If there is anything I wish there were a little more of, it would be his reintegration to life in the northern hemisphere. But as is, this is a delightful look at one man’s experience in the harshest climate on the planet.
I have to say that Francis really can write. I would read a sentence of his, marvel at his choice of words, and read it again. Sometimes I would even read it aloud to my family members, just so they could also enjoy his writing. I quite appreciated all the research Francis did, not only in regards to the emperor penguins he was so fascinated by, but he also learned all he could about other Antarctic expeditions, from Scott’s fatal march to the Pole, to Gino Watkins and Augustine Courtauld, to Shackleton and the rescue of the men on Elephant Island. Francis remembered the Lost Men of the Trans-Antarctic Expedition, for which he scores bonus points from me. It was wonderful to be reminded of these expeditions during the Heroic Age, and a great way for more casual readers to be introduced to them.
If anything, this book makes me wonder if I could hack a winter at Halley. I know cooking for 14 is definitely within my wheelhouse, and I’m pretty sure I’d be fine with the solitude, as long as I had my books. If there is anything I wish there were a little more of, it would be his reintegration to life in the northern hemisphere. But as is, this is a delightful look at one man’s experience in the harshest climate on the planet.
February 23, 2018
Dieses Buch hatte von allem etwas. Es ist kein klassischer Reisebericht wo eine Person durch ein Land reist, dabei Leute kennenlernt und Kulturdenkmäler besucht oder die Lebensart der Leute vor Ort kennenlernt.
Hier geht es um einen Arzt, der ein Jahr lang auf einer Forschungsstation in Antarktika verbringt und dabei 10 Monate von der Außenwelt abgeschnitten ist. Wie der Untertitel schon sagt gibt es dort nicht als -Eis, Totenstille und die Pinguine. Trotzdem ist das Buch 350 Seiten dick.
Diese Seiten hat der Autor mit drei Kategorien gefüllt: Das Leben auf der Basis mit der Mannschaft und die Ausflüge, Wissenswertes über Pinguine und historische Antarktisexpeditionen. Die Geschichten die auf der Basis gespielt haben waren unterhaltsam und teilweise musste ich sogar lachen. Was über die Pinguine geschrieben wurde fand ich sehr interessant bis zu einem gewissen Grad an dem es dann immer zu wissenschaftlich wurde und somit langweilig. Bei den historischen Expeditionen war es genauso: zum einen interessant aber die Aufmerksamkeit konnte er damit nie fesseln.
Die Natur und alles andere wird SEHR detailreich beschrieben, manchmal so sehr das ich abgedriftet bin. Und auf einmal zwei Seiten weiter war ohne zu merken das ich nicht mehr lese. Trotzdem bin ich froh das Buch gelesen zu haben, weil ich wirklich einen Eindruck von der Antarktis bekommen habe den ich nicht vermissen wollen würde.
Ein paar Bilder sind auch drin was ich sehr gut fand.
Hier geht es um einen Arzt, der ein Jahr lang auf einer Forschungsstation in Antarktika verbringt und dabei 10 Monate von der Außenwelt abgeschnitten ist. Wie der Untertitel schon sagt gibt es dort nicht als -Eis, Totenstille und die Pinguine. Trotzdem ist das Buch 350 Seiten dick.
Diese Seiten hat der Autor mit drei Kategorien gefüllt: Das Leben auf der Basis mit der Mannschaft und die Ausflüge, Wissenswertes über Pinguine und historische Antarktisexpeditionen. Die Geschichten die auf der Basis gespielt haben waren unterhaltsam und teilweise musste ich sogar lachen. Was über die Pinguine geschrieben wurde fand ich sehr interessant bis zu einem gewissen Grad an dem es dann immer zu wissenschaftlich wurde und somit langweilig. Bei den historischen Expeditionen war es genauso: zum einen interessant aber die Aufmerksamkeit konnte er damit nie fesseln.
Die Natur und alles andere wird SEHR detailreich beschrieben, manchmal so sehr das ich abgedriftet bin. Und auf einmal zwei Seiten weiter war ohne zu merken das ich nicht mehr lese. Trotzdem bin ich froh das Buch gelesen zu haben, weil ich wirklich einen Eindruck von der Antarktis bekommen habe den ich nicht vermissen wollen würde.
Ein paar Bilder sind auch drin was ich sehr gut fand.
September 13, 2018
This is a smart book. It's well written, informative, evocative...and cunning.
An account of a year in Antarctic isolation, it starts off a somewhat swashbuckling tale, and it ends with some fascinating observations on nature and humanity.
In between? Well, in between, it stretches out like the very landscape and timescale it seeks to portray. Early on, this pace can seem too slow, to drag on, wallowing in minutiae, but as the book progresses the reader becomes accustomed to this gentle unravelling of non-dramatic incident, just as the author had to, cut off in his remote, snow-bound base.
As a result, the book leaves the reader with a similar sense of calmness and perspective to the one Gavin Francis himself experienced, albeit on a far smaller scale and without all the cold and discomfort he had to suffer in order to experience it!
If one is looking for a rip-roaring adventure yarn, this is not the book to go for, but if one wants to get deeper inside the concept of isolation, without being actually isolated, it's well worth persevering with.
An account of a year in Antarctic isolation, it starts off a somewhat swashbuckling tale, and it ends with some fascinating observations on nature and humanity.
In between? Well, in between, it stretches out like the very landscape and timescale it seeks to portray. Early on, this pace can seem too slow, to drag on, wallowing in minutiae, but as the book progresses the reader becomes accustomed to this gentle unravelling of non-dramatic incident, just as the author had to, cut off in his remote, snow-bound base.
As a result, the book leaves the reader with a similar sense of calmness and perspective to the one Gavin Francis himself experienced, albeit on a far smaller scale and without all the cold and discomfort he had to suffer in order to experience it!
If one is looking for a rip-roaring adventure yarn, this is not the book to go for, but if one wants to get deeper inside the concept of isolation, without being actually isolated, it's well worth persevering with.
March 29, 2021
I really enjoyed reading this book but I think that's mostly due to loving Antarctica and not due to any particular skill of the author.
There's a part (p120.) where Francis lists some northern mythologies about the sun and its disappearance over winter (Inuit, Celtic, Norse) and then exclaims "it was extraordinary to witness this and know that it had no mythology here, that the landscape had been invested with no significance. No indigenous human society had tried to explain it or integrate it into their cosmology."
With the amount of reading that Francis has done, it's extraordinary that it was too difficult for him to look into these indigenous mythologies before claiming that they don't exist or explain the sun's movements over the seasons. The Māori, for example, live at about the same latitude as the Celts did, and the sun (and explanations for the different lengths of days) are certainly a part of their mythology.
Overall impression is that the book was offensively Euro-centric, which is pretty impressive for a book about the southern continent.
There's a part (p120.) where Francis lists some northern mythologies about the sun and its disappearance over winter (Inuit, Celtic, Norse) and then exclaims "it was extraordinary to witness this and know that it had no mythology here, that the landscape had been invested with no significance. No indigenous human society had tried to explain it or integrate it into their cosmology."
With the amount of reading that Francis has done, it's extraordinary that it was too difficult for him to look into these indigenous mythologies before claiming that they don't exist or explain the sun's movements over the seasons. The Māori, for example, live at about the same latitude as the Celts did, and the sun (and explanations for the different lengths of days) are certainly a part of their mythology.
Overall impression is that the book was offensively Euro-centric, which is pretty impressive for a book about the southern continent.
January 3, 2024
Mr Francis is a doctor. He gained a place on an Antarctic project for a year. The thought of being stuck in an enlarged hut with 14 other people in the freezing cold beggars belief for most couch-bound readers, made far worse by the fact that half the time it is totally dark, but Mr Francis retains his sanity and gives us a warm, sympathetic story of human interaction, bonding, teamwork and survival. He has a fascination with the penguins, and when he explains their extraordinary physiognomy, it's not hard to understand why. He paints a picture of the Antarctic that places it amongst the great wonders of nature and as he lies on his back looking up at the myriad stars and constellations in the southern sky, he is at peace with himself and his snow-girt environment. His doctoring duties light, he helps around the camp in any way he can, and is always the first to volunteer to go outside and on the various expeditions the group arranges. He remains friends with all his colleagues and says he succeeds in this by finding time every day to be alone. It's a lecture in psychology and sociology as well as a travelogue and a long, deep look at the life of the clumsy, noisy, smelly but endearing penguins. He must be an extraordinary chap, this Dr Francis.
January 24, 2020
I had read this once before but enjoyed it as much on a second shot. Gavin Francis can write - good, original, evocative descriptions, especially of the terrain and the wildlife - not least because he has read widely, and a year in the Antarctic gave him plenty of time for reflection on solitude, emptiness, the difficulties of living in community under pressure and climate change. He's always at his best with a mixture of observations and a distinctly humane philosophy. The book is almost haunted by the expeditions that had gone before - Scott, Cherry Garrard (whose book did so much to fascinate many of us), Shackleton etc; but it is also enlivened by the penguins who survive, mostly. in unimaginable conditions. At the centre it is about endurance, not necessarily heroic but dogged and creative.
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