The Barrier Ice is a term derived from James Ross’s 19th-century expedition to the eponymous Ross Sea, and originally it referred to the (also eponymous) ice shelf — that vast floating delta of glacial ice, as vast as Texas or France — that fronts the sea like the White Cliffs of Dover…
Beyond the Barrier, even intellectuals struggled to find sustenance; they relied instead on the elaborate cultural baggage they brought with them to create comparison, contrast, and context, without which their minds would find nothing to grasp. Antarctica became known less for what it was than for what it was not.
Stephen J. Pyne (a specialist on the subject of fire!) writes for Aeon about the Antarctic, echoing some of the themes that occupied Gavin Francis in Empire Antarctica. If I think too hard about the prospect of spending time on the ice, it begins to seem terrifying. As Pyne says, “There are no other creatures, no other environs, no other emblems of a world beyond. There is no basis for meaning. There is only ice.”
Read the article here.
