Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
all members of the same club. There was an exclusivity about Rothera. It was in part a function
of size, at least when compared with its larger American counterpart, which had gone as far as
institutionalising writers and artists. To a greater extent, however, it was a function of historical
continuity. BAS had been in the Antarctic longer than any other programme. The cultural differ-
ences between Britain and America in Antarctica had revealed themselves to me before I got fur-
ther south than Cambridge or Virginia. At the orientation conferences the gloom of Girton College
and cosy nights in the cellar bar were centuries away from the antiseptic vastness of the Xerox
Document University. While BAS tried hard to introduce modern methodology to the training pro-
gramme, with the result that at Girton we dutifully sat in small groups in front of flipcharts in ses-
sions called Lifestyle, it symbolised a nod in the direction of progress, and when we had to use the
flipchart to write a list of potential sources of conflict on base, Sexual Harassment was followed
by Not Enough Sexual Harassment, and Farting was noted.
To me, the notion of shutting people out betrayed everything Antarctica represented. The wo-
men who had breached the BAS defences had fought hard, and minor battles had been won. The
institutional subscription to
Mayfair
magazine was no longer provided by the benign employer and
left on Rothera's coffee tables. There were many wars still to be fought, however. Men had always
wanted to keep Antarctica for themselves, and since the Norwegian Caroline Mikkelsen became
the first woman to set foot on the continent on 20 February 1935, the cause had advanced with the
speed of a vegetable garden. Only the American programme has taken the matter seriously, and
yet, in 1995, still only 61 of the 244 winterers at McMurdo were female.
Sir Vivien Fuchs wrote in his book
Of Ice and Men
, published in 1982, 'Problems will arise
should it ever happen that women are admitted to base complement', and when I sat drinking tea
with him at his house in Cambridge on a muggy Monday afternoon before I left England he sug-
gested helpfully that the answer was to put women in all-female camps. In September 1966, an
article in the American
Antarctic
magazine ran a headline '
Women
t
Worries
', and Admiral Reedy
said breezily to a reporter from the same journal two years later that Antarctica would remain 'the
womanless white continent of peace'. Rear-Admiral George Dufek, an early commander of U.S.
operations on the ice, summed it up when he said, 'I think the presence of women would wreck
the illusion of the frontiersman - the illusion of being a hero.'
The Soviets brought the first female non-wife south in 1957, and two years later the Australian
programme followed suit. One of the first Australian women selected wrote later, 'We were in-
vaders in a man's realm and we were regarded with suspicion.' The Americans sent the first four
women south as programme participants in 1969, inciting the memorable headline, '
Powder Puff
Explorers Invade the South Pole
'. When the first two females finally wintered at McMurdo in 1974
the programme managers weren't taking any chances - one was a nun, and the other 'mature',
which meant (they hoped) past the age at which she could inflame the passions even of desperate
men.
The American Harry Darlington took his wife south in 1946 when he was chief pilot and third-
in-command of Finn Ronne's expedition to Stonington Island. He had met Jennie when she fed
his husky a bone, and the dog went on to be their only wedding guest. When it was suggested
that Ronne and Darlington should take their wives to Stonington, seven members of the expedition
