As other pleasures in life are restricted or eliminated, food gains significance beyond mere nutrition. Polar explorers learned to pay particular attention to the culinary side of their enterprise. Having experienced industrial-scale American catering in California, I had moderate expectations of the quality of food at McMurdo, but it was surprisingly good. Especially the pizza!

Antarctica is connected to the Internet via a geostationary satellite. This far south, the satellite is only a few degrees above the horizon, and unfortunately for McMurdo, it's behind Mt Erebus. So the signal is bounced off a receiver on Black Island, upgraded in 2010 to provide 20Mbps download. That’s a base of nearly 1,000 people running on the bandwidth of an average smartphone.

A certain breed of musical always starts with a 'Happy Village Song.' The real world rarely reflects the tropes of musical theatre, but I found myself reaching for exactly this convention when trying to describe the atmosphere of McMurdo. Why is such a stressful and exhausting place full of such happy people? I suspect it’s for a very small reason, whose ramifications multiply far beyond its tiny self: the McMurdo Wave.

"You go the first time for the adventure.  You go the second time to relive the first time.  You go the third time because you don't belong anywhere else."  Many Antarcticans live in remote places, or travel, or do itinerant work when not on the Ice.  There is a bit of a running gag in Where'd You Go, Bernadette? that everyone doing a mundane job in Antarctica is a high achiever in something amazing, who left it all behind – and that's not exactly untrue.  Perhaps what unites Antarcticans is an awareness of what really matters, when you get right down to it: they've played the game enough to see through it, and are done with it.

Once, I wanted to be a meteorologist.  Before the Weather Channel had any programming more mainstream than the local forecast, I would watch it for fun.  The only downside was the regular disappointment, in the winter, that we didn't get the forecast amount of snowfall. I had no idea, then, how radically all my dreams would come true.

The Chapel of the Snows stands out amongst the rough-and-ready prefab huts of McMurdo.  It's drawn along the lines of a Midwestern village church, all whitewashed matchboard with discreet Gothic windows and a modest steeple. On Sunday mornings the Chapel hosts Christian church services, but other faith groups use it too, and it's also a concert venue, meeting space, and a place of quiet retreat. Ironically for a building dedicated to the Cosmic Divine, t’s also the place that feels most a part of The World.

There is a terrible secret in Antarctica, lurking in every corridor, which consumes all who cross its path. It’s nothing to do with conspiracy theories, cosmic abominations, or shadowy government operations. It’s … THE CRUD.

My graphic adaptation of The Worst Journey in the World has its own website now at worstjourney.com, and I’ve been asked to put together a pop-up exhibit about my graphic novel at the Polar Museum in Cambridge! The show is on now and runs through mid-October, Weds-Sat 10:00-16:00.

I know Scott intimately, as you know.  I have known him now for ten years, and I believe in him so firmly that I am often sorry when he lays himself open to misunderstanding.  I am sure that you will come to know him and believe in him as I do, and none the less because he is sometimes difficult.  However you will soon see for yourself.

— E.A. Wilson, in a letter to Apsley Cherry-Garrard, April 1910

Since getting seriously into polar history, I kept hearing the same two things from polar veterans. One was that I could not possibly understand the story properly, or be able to depict it truthfully, unless I visited Antarctica myself. The other was that Antarctica changes people. Two weeks into my visit, I had learned a lot and had some meaningful experiences, but I couldn't say I had changed at all. Then I went to Cape Crozier.

When the Crozier party turned their frostbitten faces back to Cape Evans on 25 July 1911, they had endured some of the worst conditions man has ever had to face. Record cold, hurricane-force winds, a three-day blizzard with no greater shelter than their sopping wet reindeer sleeping bags; all in the dark of midwinter. The one mercy was that they had not lost their tent. They knew that once they left the moderating influence of the sea at Cape Crozier, they would be plunging again into the brutal cold of Windless Bight, but that was the way home, and home they had to go.