Antarctica: A Year On Ice

➡ This summary is about a 2013 documentary called “A Year on Ice” by Anthony Powell, which provides a unique perspective on life in Antarctica. The film, which took over 10 years to make, follows Powell’s experiences living in Antarctica for a full year, including the harsh winters and isolation. The documentary reveals that while 5000 people work in Antarctica during the summer, less than 700 stay over the winter, enduring months without sunlight and extreme cold. The film offers a human look at life in Antarctica, highlighting the challenges and unique experiences of those who choose to live there.
➡ The text discusses the unique experiences of living in Antarctica, highlighting how one’s perspective can adapt to extreme conditions. It also reveals the less glamorous side of the wildlife, particularly penguins, which are often romanticized in media but can create unpleasant environments. The text also touches on the harsh reality of nature’s course, such as witnessing animals suffer without being able to intervene. Lastly, it emphasizes the unique cooperation among nations in Antarctica, which could be threatened if oil extraction becomes profitable there.
➡ The speaker shares their thoughts on an Antarctica documentary, stating it’s good but slow and there might be better ones out there. They also mention watching several films for Black History Month, including “Hebrews to Negroes” and “Accidental Courtesy” by Daryl Davis. They end by promoting their website, Paranoid American, and encouraging listeners to buy their products.

Penguins are just winter chickens. Welcome back to another episode of Under the Docs with Sean Chris and paranoid American American. We’re going to go past the Arctic Walls today and see if there’s any extra land. Well, I don’t know if we’re going to go that far, but we are going to the frigid place. The only way in or out is through the US Air Force once every six months. So now that you’re here with us, there’s, there’s no turning back. We’re watching Antarctica, a year on ice, which is a documentary in 2013 by the New Zealand film commission and basically shot and directed and written by a guy named Anthony Powell, who is the guy that we see throughout this entire documentary.

So it’s interesting because it gives us a new perspective on Antarctica. It’s not made by National Geographic or the Nature Channel or any of these others. It’s a guy that had a couple of cameras. It was actually working in Antarctica for a full year. And as we come to find out, not a lot of people stay during the winter because a lot of people there during the summertime. But as soon as that one plane from the air force comes once every six months, if you’re not on it, then you’re one of the, the winter folk, the winter stairs or the overwinters, they got a bunch of different little nicknames, but they kind of sound like, you know, cold walkers or something from game of thrones a little bit.

And he’s one of these guys and he decides, let me document this. And I think that is interesting. Yeah. The, the white walkers for sure. Right. They even have a couple of scenes where they’re afraid of the new people and hiding behind the boxes of the people of every six months of all those regular folk. And they actually talk about people kind of, it’s an interesting point of view of the isolation that they’re exposed to. And you know, they go through like the species and stuff that happens within that plane. And I think we’ll get into a little bit of like, you see a little, I have some articles maybe that could connect what’s happening from 2013 to now.

But yeah, it was an interesting look at Antarctica. And I guess just a quick spoiler before we get too deep into this. This is one of our, our normie January documentaries. So they do not talk about the Arctic wall. They don’t find any underground Nazi tunnels or anything like that. There’s no infinite land brought up, although it’s probably out there. All right, plotting the course on this one, fairly straightforward. There’s not really a specific theme aside from here’s this guy in Antarctica, you kind of get to experience what it’s like staying there for a full year through his eyes.

And it comes across as not very scripted and in a good way though, like in an interesting way where you’re constantly, for me, I was like learning new things because I’ve seen a million documentaries on Antarctica at this point. And this one gave new perspectives that I hadn’t really seen before. And it almost has this found footage, kind of like amateur flair to it for it’s better, right? Like it actually it lacks some of the extra polish, but it gives you more of like a human look on all this. So the main points, I’ll just kind of go through some of the things that come up before we get into the highlights and the low points that this particular documentary took over 10 years for this guy to film by himself.

He brought some extra cameras. He gets some other interviews and stuff on, but it’s basically like a solo project that he just makes his life’s work. The he mentions that Antarctica is larger than the U.S. If you need some kind of a scale since we’re Americans and we can’t use metric for anything, so it’s like it’s the size of 80 million sprite bottles or something that 5000 people work in Antarctica during the summer and then less than 700 stay over the winter. And that this guy in particular, since he was from New Zealand, he doesn’t stay at the huge McMurdo station, which is the U.S.’s base on Antarctica.

He stays at this place called Scott Base, which is about three miles away. And it’s unique because not a lot of the other bases on Antarctica are that close to McMurdo. So he’s kind of like basically at McMurdo station. So he gets a lot of the action. All the other bases are spread all around Antarctica, kind of around the rim. So he gets a unique perspective at the U.S.’s presence in Antarctica more so than anyone else. But at his particular base, there’s only 80 people there during the summer and only 10 stay at winter.

So when winter rolls around, he’s basically alone. Him and like nine other people and some of those people are sleeping or on different schedules. So it’s basically complete isolation for a good six months out of the year. And those six months, the sun goes away. You don’t see the sun, I think, for like four months straight. One of the ladies that gets interviewed, she mentions that the sky gets kind of bright, but again, you never really see it. And that kind of breaks a lot of people’s brains. They even mention something called T3 brain and they mention all sorts of different like hallucinations and weird personality quirks that you’ll go through just from being in Antarctica for a certain amount of time.

I don’t know about you, but it kind of gave me a shining feel right of like every time it worked. No play makes Jack something something kind of like that repetitiveness of like it was interesting to see that living over there in the isolation of where it builds up anxieties. And like you said, the T3 syndrome of where people are actually they even labeled it because there’s so lack of sun. And we do know that you don’t the lack of vitamin D deficiency. Even me out here in Michigan, they they call it, you know, the winter blues.

It’s really over there. And the cold is like minus 40 like you’re talking about on a regular basis. They even like show a couple of like, you know, throwing the hot water out the window and how easily it freezes. So the winters are isolation, especially for this guy, because there’s only nine other people in the isolations like. Really, almost eerie, eerily similar to like prison and being in the hole. Well, yeah, when you say it’s like being in prison, the documentary makes a really strong point as it’s starting up that, hey, once you show up, people first, the novelty of like, oh my God, I’m in Antarctica, I’m going to see a penguin.

There’s so few people have ever stepped foot on this continent, let alone got to work here. So they’ve got all this like magical like illusions kind of built up and then they’re shown to their room and it’s basically a jail cell. It’s a tiny little room with like a metal desk and a bunk bed and pretty much no other accommodations. And quickly they realized like, oh, this is going to suck. And I’m here for how long? And they see the plane flying off into the distance. And it’s like there is zero way for you to get off of this continent for the next six months until that plane comes back.

So a lot of people, it seems, aren’t cut out for it. They think about how cool it’s going to be. And then the second the novelty wears off, they’re kind of just dreading the rest of their time. They’re waiting to go home. And the few people that consistently come back, they all kind of joke about being crazy and sort of being like these weirdos that don’t work in just like normal life out on the mainland, out in the continental states, which I think it makes all the characters a little bit more interesting, too, because they even meant like one of the guys there is kind of like a drunk Russian that that you’re like, oh, this guy was meant to work in Antarctica, right? Like, it’s like he can’t do any other job.

It’s like like Eddie Griffin trying to work like a drive through or something like you got to be the whole time, right? Yeah, I was old time that this almost made me feel like this should be like a prison work release program, right? Scared straight like, hey, you want to screw up again? We’re going to send you to Antarctica because that it you have to be a special kind of person. It’s like night shift, right? Not everybody could work midnights, not everybody could work in Antarctica. It’s very unique because even towards the end, when the one dude goes back to the States and he’s driving around and he’s just like, I’m looking at everybody and I’m like, you’re slaves.

You know what I mean? You’re just like, I’m free. I’m in Antarctica. That’s a rich coming from someone that got their entire salary from a government, but whatever nothing here, you’re you’re all slaves. Let me go cash my government check real quick. The other thing too, was that they make a few good points that I’ll bring up in our hidden treasure segment. But there was this one really interesting perspective where a guy is talking about he’s coming in from outside and this is during the winter months when there’s no sun out and he’s coming inside and someone’s like, hey, is it cold out? And his response is like, no, it’s not too bad.

And then he realizes after he says that, he’s like, wait a minute. Like, what a weird scenario because we’re in Antarctica. So whether it’s cold outside right now, it was negative 40 degrees and there was no sun for months, right? But it wasn’t that bad because like the wind was down. And so he was talking about how quickly the mentality adapts to like, well, my new range of good and bad is now, is it a category five in the middle of the night where like snow is blowing into my room or can I go and walk around a little bit and see where I’m going? Well, I guess it’s a nice day out.

And that sort of weird mentality shift, that would be a crazy shock to your system to now you’re going on a Caribbean vacation and you’re like, you’re going back to Florida and you’re going to like see your family. You’re going to a big populated city, which you haven’t been around more than a few hundred people at the most in, you know, over a year. And the interesting fact is it, to me, it gave me the whole thought of perspective, right? Cause the same thing kind of happened to me when I moved from California to Michigan, obviously drastically different weather.

And then people will call me and they’ll be like, Hey, uh, how is it bad, man? You know, it’s like 20, 15, 20 degrees. And they’re like, what, what man? I’m like, yeah, no, the wind’s not whipping. You know, it’s a sun’s actually out like it’s perspective. And when you’re somewhere so long, like that’s what like I enjoyed about that part is where he’s just like, yeah, no, it’s pretty good outside. It’s pretty good. It’s a nice day. Hidden treasures and overboard moments. What do you got? I thought it was cool.

I liked the, the whole aspect, the hidden treasure for me is like with the whole penguins, they went into detail of like, I’ve never seen that. I’ve watched a lot of different documentaries on penguins and stuff. And I’ve liked to see where it’s like, not all ice and snow. It like really gave me the lifespan of where the penguins really live. Not this, like every other documentary it’s always where it’s super frigid, big fluffy snow. And they’re jumping in and I was like, Oh God, like these poor penguins, man. Like it sucks out there in the summer.

Like that when it’s warmer, right? I would say that with like a grain of salt, right? It’s not necessarily as warm as we thought, but I thought that was cool. But they kind of get detailed on the species and how impactful they are to the whole area there. The penguins was one of the more shocking parts of this because it wasn’t making them seem like these mythical creatures that you only see in Al Gore films or at SeaWorld or something, right? And he was mentioning that when you see penguins on TV and movies, you get like TV penguins and movie penguins, but the actual penguins when you’re there for a full year.

And one of the other examples is that there’s only two people that go to Antarctica. People that spend $10,000 or more on a cruise and they go and chill with penguins for like two days and then go home and think about it for the rest of their lives. And then the people that are actually working there for six months or more. And some of the things that when you’re working there for six months and you see penguins all the time, some things that don’t make it all the way to TV or movies are that thousands of frozen penguin carcasses just littering the landscape all over the place because they just die for any number of reasons and they don’t necessarily have the same types of vultures and crows coming and picking it like all the carrions.

And they also don’t have this hot blistering sun that’s like helping decompose and decay these bodies. So you go like, oh, let’s go and look at the cute penguins and it’s like, oh my God, there’s thousands of dead carcasses all over. And that during the summer, there’s hundreds of thousands of penguins that all congregate in these areas and they just turn it into an open sewer where they’re just pooping and peeing and it just sits there for months and months and months to the point where miles away you can smell the penguins before you even get to them.

So it was interesting hearing these like non-keel, like you’re not selling any stuffed penguin animals talking about the thousands of dead corpses and the large like outdoor sewers. But it was like, oh yeah, I guess I never considered that. Yeah, penguins suck. They’re just like winter chickens a little bit. Winter chickens, I like that. You are right because they were more of a plague than like, you know, like you said, that when you go see them for two days, you’re like, oh, I love these beautiful, fun little creatures. Man, look at them.

They look funny. And when you deal with them day to day, it’s not the same. But the hardest scene of this whole movie too, I was not expecting that if you really like animals, maybe even skip this movie. But man, they were talking about how when you go to work there, you’re not allowed to interfere with nature taking its course. So if you see something sat like a penguin getting lost or in this example, they’re talking about baby seals that every once in a while, a seal will get turned around and lose its sense of direction and end up going inland.

And once it’s headed inland, it’s just it’s never going to find any food or any sustenance of any kind. And it’s headed for certain death. And they’re mentioning like, man, you come out here and you’re like, oh my God, I get to see penguins and get to see seals. You also see them suffer and die in front of your eyes and you’re not allowed to do anything about it. And it actually shows this baby seal, like trucking through the snow in the middle of the base, clearly far away from the water where it needs to be at.

And it’s crying and it like zooms in and you can see it’s horrible. It’s an absolutely horrible scene. And there’s just people walking by like not even make an eye contact with it because everyone has become so desensitized to the fact that you’re not allowed to override nature when you’re here. And then they start talking about how that’s the one thing that makes Antarctica special is that no one’s interfering with nature or at the very least, you’re not gonna see the same amount of microplastics and chemtrails as any other continent on the entire planet.

And that the only reason for that is because humans have not yet found out a way to make it profitable to extract oil from Antarctica. Like the distance you have to travel and the work you have to go through and the people that you have to keep warm there, all of that combined is just not a profitable enterprise. But everyone working there pretty much knows that the second someone figures out how to drill for oil, like it’s all over. Like all, not only is the nice wilderness part of Antarctica gonna be over, but they also frame this as the only continent on the planet where other nations can get together and they’re actually working with each other.

And it’s mostly scientists, right? But because of that, they’re gonna watch the news and they’re like, oh, these two countries are at war. These two factions are against each other. But you don’t really get that in Antarctica because everyone is collaborating in a way that just doesn’t exist elsewhere on the planet. And I just thought that was a really interesting perspective that, yeah, that’s kind of true. It’s nice because no people are there, but the second more people get there to see how nice it is, it’s this paradox.

It’s like a catch-22. All right, sink or swim, man. Where are you at on this one? I’m gonna give it a swim. I mean, it was a little bit slow at first for me, because it’s especially all the documentaries we’re usually watching, it was definitely a slower speed, but it was a genuine look at Antarctica that I don’t think I’ve ever seen before. It’s not like you said, it’s not an NGO, it’s not Discovery, it’s not these big Hollywood machines that are like, oh, look at this part of Antarctica.

And it was a day-to-day life of regular people that go there. And that was interesting to me and learning little fun facts about, like you said, penguins and how people treat nature over there and how things went and how it feels to work there, man. I couldn’t do it, but I give it a swim. I gave this one a sink, man. Not because I didn’t like it, but I think if I had to summarize it, I feel that there is a way better Antarctica documentary out there that we just haven’t found yet.

This one, I would say if you have a substitute teacher and they’re like, we’re putting on a documentary and they pick this one out, you’re in for a treat. It’s a dope one if you’re falling asleep and you’re cruising around for documentaries to finish off the night, it’s perfect. But like you said, it’s kind of slow. And even though I learned a bunch from it, I don’t know how much of it I’m going to carry through and they’re going to come up later in life. The biggest takeaway was just that penguins are just crappier versions of chickens and that they have to watch baby seals die constantly when you’re out of Antarctica.

Those might not leave me, but yeah, I feel like there’s probably something better out there. So I gave it a sink for that reason alone. On the horizon. Hey, it’s Black History Month again. It seems like this happens every single year. The first one we’re going to end up watching is Hebrews to Negroes, who I think got someone in trouble What’s the background on that? Yeah, I got Kyrie Irving. He plays basketball. I got him in trouble for sharing the link. So he just shared it on Twitter. Didn’t say anything, shared it.

So we may get nukes. If you don’t see us after this episode, you know what happened. Okay. I wasn’t expecting it to be extra spicy or anything, but yeah, he rose to Negroes. We’re going to be watching accidental courtesy by Daryl Davis race in America. And then one that’s just fun to say called I am not your Negro. And then we’re also going to do the accidental courtesy. Daryl Davis. That that one’s going to ruffle some feathers, but it’s also, it’s really has a good story underneath, man. You know, we’re here for all the months, man.

Another episode of under the dogs. Don’t forget to check out paranoid American.com kill the mockingbirds.com. There’s stickers and comic books. We need you to get on that, man. You know, by now we might have a like history month, uh, uh, coming. We’re coming out soon. Probably not. But, uh, see you guys later. Peace. Three or four. Think this thought. I want more. Buy a sticker from the store. Think this thought. I want more. Just buy something. Just buy something. From paranoid American. Just buy something. Just buy something. From paranoid American. I scribble my life away.

Driven the right to pay. Will it enlighten your brain? Give you the flavor plain. Paper the highs ablaze. Somewhat of an amazing feel. When it’s real to real, you will engage it. Your favorite of course, the lord of an arrangement. I gave you the proper results. To hit the pavement if they get emotional. Hey, maybe your language or game. How they playing it well without lay. Cause of a them. Whatever the cause. Say all the shape shift. Snakes get decapitated. Met is the apex. Execution of flame. You out nuclear bomb. Distributed at war. Rather gruesome for eyes to see.

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