Podcast Recommendations for Antarctica Day 2023
By: Samantha Hodder (she/her), founder Bingeworthy
Back in 2018, I had the incredible opportunity to go to Antarctica aboard a small ship, with a group of 80 women who work in STEMM. It was a trip that burned this frozen continent forever into my mind. It also means that I take a moment each year on December 1st to acknowledge Antarctica Day.
Most people will never go to Antarctica, but the more I learn about it, the more I’m convinced that we are all connected to it.
In 1959, twelve countries came together (including America and Russia at the height of the Cold War) to sign the Antarctic Treaty. The continent has a fascinating history — it might even be a model for world peace. The Antarctic Treaty cements the following provisions:
The country/continent is not ‘owned’ by any one country; it is shared
It’s run by consensus-bases collective (that is now 56 countries wide)
It has a strict nuclear non-proliferation treaty
It has no army, no nation state, and there is no private ownership of land
The whole continent is dedicated to peace and science
Aside from being the memorable place full of millions of penguins, and the breeding grounds that many whale species migrate the entire length of the Earth to get to, it’s also the highest, driest, windiest, and coldest place on Earth. It’s a phenomenon of climate and nature!
To celebrate this day, I’ve pulled together a list of some essential Antarctica listens. Each one will get you just a little bit closer to the bottom of the world.
Antarctica Day: A celebration of the only continent dedicated to peace and science
Click on the images to listen
The Outlaw Ocean
“The Dark Fleet”
Almost everyone who goes to Antarctica gets there aboard a tourist ship (there are only a few very expensive flights and no hotels to stay at once you are there, so it’s a glorified fly-over).
That means that if you ever thought you might want to go there, you should get comfortable with the idea of living on a ship. Except that these sorts of ships are challenging to get comfortable on. You must pass one of the deadliest bodies of water, the Southern Ocean, to get to Antarctica. This takes two to three days — and then the unpredictable weather can whip up a fierce storm at any time.
Former New York Times investigative journalist Ian Urbina is so comfortable on ships that instead of getting seasick, he gets land sick (that’s when your body is so good at being on a ship that you get sick when you’re on land). Urbina’s podcast, The Outlaw Ocean, chronicles his life at sea over many years. In this episode, Urbina arranges to board the Barb Barker, a vessel owned and operated by the ocean activist group Sea Shepherds. Their mission was to track down and follow one of the most notorious illegal fishing vessels and bring it to justice. It’s a good thing Urbina was comfortable on a ship, because this chase went all the way to Antarctica. Follow the longest nautical chase scenes in modern times.
Detour: Antarctica
“Three weeks in a leaky boat”
Getting to Antarctica is never easy, but what if you set out to go right as the pandemic began, and international borders closed?
Henry Worsley thought he had a great gig: to travel around the Chilean archipelago of southern Patagonia as a travel writer for the New Zealand publication the NZ Herald. Except that his gig was poorly timed, and his ship was forced to float in international waters, waiting for a port of call to accept it in March of 2020. Silver lining: this gave Worsley a unique window on the cast of characters who are headed to Antarctica aboard these tourist ships.
Today Explained
“An inconvenient glacier”
The continent of Antarctica currently holds about 90 percent of the world’s ice — and 70 percent of the world’s fresh water and 10 percent of the global land mass. All this to say that Antarctica is perhaps more important than you think. But there are also some *very* important glaciers on the continent and the Thwaites Glacier, often called the Doomsday Glacier, is one of them.
Rolling Stone journalist Jeff Goodell wanted to see what this giant and currently catastrophically melting glacier, at the heart of Antarctica, is really all about. Enjoy this engaging, rock n’ roll explanation of why this glacier, that’s so far away, is very important to all of us, no matter where we live.
This Is Our Time
“We’ve Got a Problem”
Aboard a small ship in the middle of an all-women’s leadership expedition, an issue came up. Between inspiring workshops, trips ashore to walk among the penguins, spotting a leopard seal on an ice floe, chasing a pod of orcas on a zodiac, and motivating group work, there was also the problem of the ice.
Winter was returning. And that meant that the safe inland water was starting to freeze again.
Take a walk on Paulet Island to smell those molting penguins... climb a mountain after a double hip replacement… and see snow for the first time. Antarctica hits everyone differently, but it doesn’t miss a shot. And just when you feel lulled into this magical world, be warned: there’s a problem on the horizon. What if this ship got stuck in the frozen water?
Outrage! + Optimism
“The Sounds of Antarctica: A Sonic Expedition!”
Former UN Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Christiana Figueres is widely recognized as part of one of the most successful negotiating teams for a Conference of the Parties event — and why the Paris Accord in 2015 was signed. Figueres joined the third Homeward Bound expedition in 2019 to bring her gravitas and expertise about being a woman on the world leader stage.
Click ahead in the episode to 08:30 to get a sonic tour of Antarctica. Figures is joined in this episode by one of the expedition members, Melania Guerra, who is a bioacoustic oceanographer. Together they listen back to the sounds of nature from Antarctica, and dig a bit deeper to learn some more about what is making these squawks, and what we need to know about them.
Against The Odds
“Endurance: Surviving Antarctica”
The history of Antarctica is the stuff of legends. It involves a small group of fearless and intrepid explorers who risked their lives, and the lives of everyone on their crew, to achieve some new feat. For hundreds of years, the only people who were reported to go to Antarctica were men. And then in its early founding years, it was predominantly men who went there. This was part of how it earned the moniker Man-Arctica… a name which still has resonance today, but for very different reasons.
In 1914, Sir Earnest Shakelton departed England aboard the ship The Endurance. He had already been to the frozen planet, but this time, he wanted to be the first to reach The South Pole. It doesn’t go exactly as planned. Exactly 100 years later, three descendants of the original expedition crew attempt to complete that ill-fated journey and once again, things don’t go according to schedule. Listen to the beginning to get a taste of this adventure, or stay for the whole season to get the entire history.
Thank you to Samantha Hodder for bringing us this list of podcast recommendations for Antarctica Day. For more from Samantha, grab her newsletter.
