Tracking the world’s most extreme penguin
From the book jacket:
One of the largest known emperor penguin colonies is found on a narrow band of sea ice attached to the Antarctic continent. In Journeys with Emperors, Gerald L. Kooyman and Jim Mastro take us to this far-flung colony in the Ross Sea, showing us how scientists gained access to it, and what they learned while living among the penguins as they raise their chicks.
Featuring original color photographs and complemented with online videos, Journeys with Emperors is both an eye-opening overview of the emperor penguin’s life and a thrilling tale of scientific discovery in one of the most remote, harsh, and beautiful places on Earth.
Helping my friend Jerry Kooyman put together the story of his life with emperors was one of the best experiences of my life. It was not only a perfect collaboration, but a real honor to work with someone who is literally a legend in the field of diving physiology and Antarctic science.
Excerpt:
We slept miserably that night. Our lightweight sleeping bags were good only to about −10°C (14°F), and it must have been about −30°C (−22°F). We slept with our clothes, vests, gloves, and hats on, and we were still cold.
The morning dawned crisp and clear. I was up before the rest to make the radio check-in with McMurdo Station. McMurdo preferred morning reports, which was a real challenge for me, as my tendency in Antarctica was to work late and sleep in to allow for the tent to warm up a little, especially
since much of the radio communication procedure required bare hands. I hastily reported that operations were normal and signed off.
Once again, normal was a relative term. Cold and lack of sleep meant that no one was moving very lively. Under these conditions, it seemed like our plan for a two-month field operation would seem more like two years before we were finished. It took us over two hours to eat, pack the sleds, and get ready for the crossing.
Even in our hurry to get underway, I had to pause for a moment to take in the view. Looking down to the right from my vantage point on the glacier, I could almost see my 1979 campsite. The whole of ice-covered Terra Nova Bay stretched out to the east beyond that. To the north, the snow-covered,
symmetric cone of Mount Melbourne rose to a cloudless sky. To be standing there, where no human had ever stood (apart from perhaps members of Scott’s Northern Party), and on my way to a research project I had longed dreamed about, was no small wonder to me.
I couldn’t hesitate too long. Our goal was to be across the Campbell by the end of the day and camp on the glacier next to Shield Nunatak. The nunatak was not that far away, but we knew the route would not be direct. Armed with aerial photographs and the circuitous route Steve had drawn on them to avoid the worst areas, and with a certain amount of trepidation, we launched our two snowmobiles and three heavily laden sleds by mid-morning.
Steve and Don were in the lead, with Sheridan and me behind. We hit crevasses almost immediately. The lead snowmobile was breaking snow bridges as it crossed them, leaving Sheridan and me to dodge the broken section and hope the rest held. It was unnerving to keep looking down into these dark, seemingly bottomless chasms. At the first opportunity, I sped up to Steve and flagged him down.
“Hey!” I said. “These are crevasses we’re crossing!”
“I know!”
“Can’t we go around them?”
“There’s nothing we can do about it! We’re out in it!” Then he added, “Geez! I’ve never seen anything like this in Canada!”
Great, I thought. This guy’s my expert and I know more about this than he does! It wasn’t very reassuring.
Most of the crevasses were narrow enough that there was no slumping of the snow bridge, making them essentially invisible. So even though they seemed to have the spacing of railroad ties, their narrowness was such that the snowmobile runners could span them easily. I resolved to only worry
about the big ones, which I assumed we’d see because the snow bridge would slump. In any case, there was really no other way to go.
When we’d get off the snowmobiles for a break, we’d keep one hand on a snowmobile or a Nansen sled, even when walking around, so we’d have something to grab if we broke through a hidden crevasse. The song “Tiptoe through the Tulips” kept running through my mind.
Finally, after a stressful day and a very circuitous route, and after skirting some very big holes, we arrived at our Shield Nunatak campsite and relaxed, thinking we were clear of the glacier’s hazards. We walked around the campsite without worrying about crevasses, and it wasn’t until much later on an overflight that I saw our “safe haven” next to the nunatak was littered with them. It just took a little spring sunshine to melt the bridges so they were visible.
At the evening meal we toasted to our success and agreed unanimously that we would not be home for Christmas. Our plan A had involved traversing back to the Priestley Glacier for a pick-up by the LC-130. That was clearly not happening. Not only were the navy pilots disinclined to land on that glacier again, but there would be no way we could safely cross the Campbell once summer’s heat melted all the snow bridges. We only had to hope that the annual icebreaker crew would be able to pick us up in early January — our plan B. I did not relish the thought of wintering over like the Northern Party.
The next day, we located the snow chute down to the sea ice. It was something we could have walked down in thirty seconds, but it took us several hours to negotiate with our snowmobiles and two tons of gear. It was now October 24, and there were now no other obstacles on our way to the colony. We spent the rest of the day driving the 20 kilometers to Markham Island.
It was a relief to be on solid sea ice and unconcerned about crevasses. Unfortunately, the wind had kicked up and visibility was diminishing in blowing snow. In conditions such as this, there could be clear skies overhead and visibility to the horizon six meters above the ground, but near zero visibility below that. The deteriorating situation caused me some concern about finding my cargo; at the time, there was no such thing as GPS. We were in luck, though, and found the airdrop site with little difficulty. All the fuel drums, food, and equipment were scattered over a small area and, surprising to me, they were in good shape. Everything was still strapped onto wooden pallets, with the high-velocity parachutes still attached.
I had accompanied the drop and watched as the US Navy loadmaster shoved each pallet down the LC-130’s ramp and out of the aircraft at two hundred miles per hour, about three hundred meters off the ground. I was standing next to the loadmaster, watching as the first pallets hit the ice, and wasn’t reassured when he uttered an expletive. Some of the parachutes had not opened. I hoped it didn’t matter. Their main function was not to slow the packages down but rather to keep them oriented so they landed upright. To cushion the impact, there was a thick layer of cardboard cells — a shock absorber, essentially — sandwiched between the pallet and the cargo.
It seemed to have worked. A quick inventory revealed little damage to our cargo. Fighting the wind, we set up the tents and had a hot meal. Anticipation was high for the next day, when we would make it to the colony.
We were up by 5 a.m., and while Steve and Don worked on the airdrop cargo, Sheridan and I took a load of supplies across the last 20 kilometers of sea ice to the colony. The wind had died, the sky was a rich cerulean blue, and the world sparkled like a crystal desert, as the author David Campbell so aptly named it. I could hardly contain my excitement as we closed on Cape Washington, a prominent volcanic buttress that looked like a ship’s bow plowing into the Ross Sea.
Penguins began to appear near our track, and as we got closer to the cape the encounters increased. Soon we could see a long black line extending from the cape to the west. On a whim, I stopped and shut down the snowmobile’s engine. In the sudden silence, we could hear the low rumble of tens of thousands of birds vocalizing. Sheridan and I glanced at each other, the expression on our faces revealing what we were feeling. We were the first humans in history to hear this sound, the first to stand there on the sea ice within earshot of this vast colony of emperors.