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At Antarctica's midwinter, a look back at the frozen continent's long history of dark behaviour
As Midwinter Day approached in Antarctica — the longest and darkest day of the year — those spending the winter on the frozen continent followed a tradition dating back more than a century to the earliest days of Antarctic exploration: they celebrated having made it through the growing darkness and into a time when they know the sun is on its way back.
The experience of spending a winter in Antarctica can be harrowing, even when living with modern conveniences such as hot running water and heated buildings. At the beginning of the current winter season, in March, global news outlets reported that workers at the South African research station, SANAE IV, were ' rocked ' when one worker allegedly threatened and assaulted other members of the station's nine-person winter crew. Psychologists intervened — remotely — and order was apparently restored.
The desolate and isolated environment of Antarctica can be hard on its inhabitants. As a historian of Antarctica, the events at SANAE IV represent a continuation of perceptions — and realities — that Antarctic environments can trigger deeply disturbing behaviour and even drive people to madness.
Early views
The very earliest examples of Antarctic literature depict the continent affecting both mind and body. In 1797, for instance, more than two decades before the continent was first sighted by Europeans, the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. It tells a tale of a ship blown by storms into an endless maze of Antarctic ice, which they escape by following an albatross. For unexplained reasons, one man killed the albatross and faced a lifetime's torment for doing so.
In 1838, Edgar Allan Poe published the story of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, who journeyed into the Southern Ocean. Even before arriving in Antarctica, the tale involves mutiny, cannibalism and a ship crewed by dead men. As the story ends, Pym and two others drift southward, encountering an enormous, apparently endless cataract of mist that parts before their boat, revealing a large ghostly figure.
HP Lovecraft's 1936 story At the Mountains of Madness was almost certainly based on real stories of polar exploration. In it, the men of a fictitious Antarctic expedition encounter circumstances that ' made us wish only to escape from this austral world of desolation and brooding madness as swiftly as we could'. One man even experiences an unnamed ' final horror ' that causes a severe mental breakdown.
The 1982 John Carpenter film The Thing also involves these themes, when men trapped at an Antarctic research station are being hunted by an alien that perfectly impersonates the base members it has killed. Paranoia and anxiety abound, with team members frantically radioing for help, and men imprisoned, left outside or even killed for the sake of the others.
Whether to gird themselves for what may come or just as a fun tradition, the winter-over crew at the US South Pole Station watches this film every year after the last flight leaves before winter sets in.
