Research Blog Antarctica #3

Non-fiction: John C. Behrendt: Innocents on the Ice (University Press of Colorado, 1998)

Finally a proper Antarctica book! The last two have been a bit peripheral on the subject, but this one tackles it straight on. It is the story of the Finn Ronne expedition of 1957, seen through the eyes of one of the scientists present. It consists of his original diary and comments written in 1997. The format is very expressive, and the comments feel more like depth than excuses, which is always good.

The book is also interesting because it gives a good picture of the everyday work of the scientific personnell and because the expedition had a lot of interpersonal problems. Still, the story I would really like to read would have been that of one of the U.S. Navy construction workers.

Sometimes it seems that everyone who’s ever been to Antarctica has written a book like this about it.

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