Fifteen Million Years in Antarctica

by Rebecca Priestley

Rebecca Priestley longs to be in Antarctica. But it is also the last place on Earth she wants to go.In 2011 Priestley visits the wide white continent for the first time, on a trip that coincides with the centenary of Robert Falcon Scott's fateful trek to the South Pole. For Priestley, 2011 is the fulfilment of a dream that took root in a childhood full of books, art and science and grew stronger during her time as a geology student in the 1980s. She is to travel south twice more, spending time with Antarctic scientists – including paleo-climatologists, biologists, geologists, glaciologists – exploring the landscape, marvelling at wildlife from orca to tardigrades, and occasionally getting very cold.

Fifteen Million Years in Antarctica offers a deeply personal tour of a place in which a person can feel like an outsider in more ways than one. With generosity and candour, Priestley reflects on what Antarctica can tell us about Earth's future and asks: do people even belong in this fragile, otherworldly place?

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays, Environment, Nature, Travel

357 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2019

About the author

Rebecca Priestley is a non-fiction writer based in Wellington, New Zealand. Her books include creative non-fiction (Fifteen Million Years in Antarctica is an Antarctic memoir) and non-fiction works with a focus on the history of science.

Reviews

[Keen Reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Big. White. Cold. Awesome.”

Although I'm a big fan of travel writing, Antarctica has always been somewhere that I’ve struggled to get excited about. For me Antarctica, like the Himalayas has traditionally, been very much the playground for bored, rich people, who rarely experiencing meaningful hardship in their comfortable lives then go and try to find it in these extreme parts of the world, where their wealth cannot always protect them.

Yes in the 21st Century Antarctica is primarily about the science and the scientists, and Priestley is very much a science gal. I’m a fan of Priestley and she is likeable and relatable, but I think this was maybe let down a tad by the structure and length. It’s just a bit too long, and too often nothing really happens at all, and although clearly a profound experience for the author, that doesn’t maintain a charge throughout more than 350 pages.

But still there's quality in here, Priestley can write and she shows humour, sensitivity and insight, skills and traits which would bear full fruit in her excellent "End Times". I enjoyed this collection, but it could have and should have been shorter and structured a little more tightly to have given it maximum impact.

[Ailema]

I met Rebecca through a family friend when the two of them visited Argentina in 2019 and they were kind enough to send a copy of her book from New Zealand. I have to confess I delayed starting it because the title made me feel sure that it would somehow be full of worthy but dense information about geology - what a former editor of mine described as "eat your vegetables" writing. But I decided I'd read it on the plane home from Argentina then leave it at my parents' house so they could read it too, and it proved very engaging.

The book blends travel writing, science writing, and personal essay very effectively. The descriptions of both Antarctica itself and the revealing minutiae of daily life for the scientists, drivers, pilots and other staff there at times lend it an almost science fiction-like appeal that brings the whole idea of Antarctic research a lot closer to home. Did you know there were bars there?

Against this background, you develop an almost personal investment in descriptions of research that could otherwise seem abstruse, from penguins, tardigrades and fish that make their own antifreeze to survive sub-zero temperatures to a vicious academic debate about whether or not Antarctic ice has periodically retreated. Most compellingly, she gives a really thorough account of the problem of the ice sheets melting as a result of global heating.

Whenever I read books about extreme environments like this, I realise that I'm subconsciously bracing myself for descriptions of some hideous accident or unenviable death, which is why even though I love the Andes, I tend to avoid films like 127 hours. I think a lot of people who make media about Antarctica write from a very macho perspective that portrays nature as "brutal" or "hostile" and those who go there, correspondingly, as "tough" and "hard". This book is a necessary antidote to that: at one point, she describes starting to watch a documentary with her family in the hope that it will bring her work home to them, but turning it off because it has them believing she's heading to some kind of hellhole. She also gives very lucid accounts of the risks of helicopter flying, the evolution of safety protocols, and one (non-fatal) accident in a way that dimensions, rather than romanticizing or glorifying, the dangers involved.

Priestly also writes from an unfailingly feminist perspective, starting with an early chapter about how growing up with her mother and another single-mum family taught her to push back against gender norms. She describes her worries about childcare when a flight home is unexpectedly cancelled, the US air force worker who asks for "six blow jobs" when she's tending the bar, everyday sexism towards women researchers in the field - necessary discussions that never make it into the documentaries.

As a news reporter, my own writing almost never discusses my own feelings - it's the journalistic equivalent of breaking the fourth wall. But I've often thought that this is a great shame and that writing is often greatly enriched when its authors do this. In that sense, I appreciated Rebecca's frankness about her own anxiety, her own sense of despondency and uselessness at times, mixed emotions and guilt at others. I think this is probably something many people who have to go on complicated or dangerous work trips feel, but we rarely discuss it because we know we're fortunate to be going at all.

At times the book fails to explain some fairly specialist terms - I'm not sure that it defines what a springtail is, for instance. I also thought it was a shame that while the various Antarctic explorers such as Scott, Shackleton, and the Indigenous people who reached the continent in canoes, get frequent mentions, she doesn't stop to give a clear explanation of who went on which expedition when and which crews lost their lives, which would have made parts of the text easier to appreciate - but this is nothing I can't Google.

Ultimately, this book is so down to earth (geology pun not intended) that it brings a much-needed human touch to a topic that often seems too otherworldly to understand.

[Jasmin Kaur · Rating 4 out of 5]

Highly recommend this book. I enjoyed reading about the magnificence and precariousness of Antarctica. Climate change and anxiety as themes were well peppered through the book... Not set out in a preachy way at all. Good read

[Linda Balfoort · Rating 5 out of 5]

This truly could’ve gone either way. A book that’s this close to me can either be received horribly or fantastical my and Priestly managed to do the latter. She was able to give words to some of my anxieties and feelings around climate change, Antarctic travel and field work, and men.

Rebecca, I think we have the same brain and thank you for writing this book that managed to transport me back to the ice once more.

[Claudia Small · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved the arts/science and really want to go to Antarctica now!

[Shanti · Rating 3 out of 5]

I learned lots from this book and I think Priestley has a valuable perspective. However, it didn't make me obssessed with Antarctica; I could understand why Priestley longed for the seventh continent, but not in a way that made me hungry to be there myself. This book was mostly science writing, but it was pretending to be travel writing. I think Priestley was really let down by her structure here; if she had chosen to weave her three trips to Antarctica together, instead of having them seperately, it would have been easier to draw out big themes. The sections where she does this, like the Deep Time section, are the best part of the book. She could have had a beginning bit where she was like "I went to Antarctica three times..." and explored the context of each trip, then had the big themes in chapters in the middle (sexism! history! identity as an academic! geology! leaving no trace! changing scientific protocols! science cultures as base camps vs field camps! anxiety and questions of belonging!), then ended on her beautiful final day, knowing that she did not need or want to come back. I also felt like the 'hippie childhood' bit and 'being a parent bit' could have been drawn on a bit more consistently throughout the book; reading this felt like constantly seeing loose threads it was possible to tie together, with stumps of stories or anecdotes or people beginning in one place and ending in another. Despite the fact that my uncle has been to Antarctica lots for his oceanographic work, I hadn't understood much of what it was really like to be there in this day and age--I really liked some of her questions of comfort--and loved the sense of camraderie she drew on.

[Vaughan Willis · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very bright young NZ woman who was raised by a hippie-artist mother and went on to take an undergraduate degree in geology, a PhD in the history of science, and an MA in creative writing is sent to Antartica to write about the continent for those of us who can’t go. She ends up going on three “education and outreach” trips and reveals something of her early life in the chapters in between her trips to the southern continent. Succeeds in making the experience real to us, particularly through her emotional reactions to things. (She sometimes cries, mostly as a result of being overcome by the experience of being part of this wondrous world.) Also, quite a bit of sciency stuff about the East and West Antarctic Ice Sheets, climate change, soil microbiology, seals, penguins, killer whales and other things. Describes her daily experience at Scott Base, McMurdo Base and its culture, the Friis Hills, and generally the atmosphere of the Antarctic bases and her experience of being part of this world. Notes some misogyny there too among the male scientists.

[Mark Field · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've a deep fascination with Antarctica, both it's natural history and the Heroic Age of exploration. The closest i've gotten to visiting is Isla Navarino in the Antartica Chilena Province. Priestley's memoir of her trips to Antarctica is both a siren call to action in respect to human activity and the effects of climate change on the continent, as well as a deeply personal meditation on the issues of family, distance, separation and anxiety ... induced by the separation and the existential threat of climate change. It's insightful in it's portrayal of every day life on the ice, the vast range of scientific activity conducted as well as evoking the harsh yet beautiful landscapes, the wildlife and the fragility of Antarctica.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

Took me a little while to get into this one, but I found the last third or so to be absolutely cracking. Rebecca's anxieties about being in remote locations were relatable and I appreciated her not holding back on the language to describe these feelings. Also loved the super detailed descriptions of life in Scott Base, McMurdo, Cape Royds, and other sites around Ross Island. I'll especially be recommending it to other friends who have also been to this part of Antarctica. Brought back a lot of cherished memories :-)

[Judy Sutherland · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this with my book group. I felt it lost it’s way a little, being part biography, part science writing, part travel book. I see others have really enjoyed that blend, but I found it too diffuse. I wasn’t sure what the overall plan was. I wasn’t sure why she was writing it. However I’m glad I read it, although I have no particular desire to go to Antarctica, (and still no real understanding of why Rebecca wanted to go, or what it represented to her. )
The parts of the book I most enjoyed were those describing her childhood in Wellington, so different to my own.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a wonderful book! A blend of travel, memoir and science (especially warning about climate change). I'm still giggling about NatGeo turning Antarctica into a much more dramatic place than the author's experience.

[Virginia Hogan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic read, great insight into the future challenges ahead for climate. Even better to hear it from a talented female kiwi academic.