I hope you enjoy the varying locations in “A Tree for Antarctica.” The action settings were inspired and informed by a lot of in person traveling, and in one case by flying low over an area as many as six times. I have enjoyed putting this list together for you! Doing so meant shuffling through a lot of photos, diaries, files and discs, which brought to mind fond memories of people, places and events.
So, please join me now as ‘off we go!” On a visit to many of the places and experiences that inspired “A Tree for Antarctica.”
1. Camped for over two weeks in a single person tent in the interior of Antarctica at Patriot Hills, while pursuing a visit to the South Pole and other scientific stations. Skied about 60 miles total in Antarctica while looking for fossils, a wrecked plane, and visiting a Chilean camp of scientists and climbing nearby hills. Camped with 4 others many miles away from Patriot Hills for 2 nights and skied around there. Skied around Amundson Scott South Pole station during a visit there, and talked with scientists. All this added up to what I think was 60 miles. Especially, I enjoyed taking a GPS and radio (in case of sudden weather, crevasse, etc) and skiing off by myself until I could see no one else or the camp. Just the predominant white and few colors of Antarctica. Amazing feeling!
2. Skied the last degree to the North Pole with two others while pulling a sled of supplies across broken ice and around a lot of open water. The land and air transit through northern Siberia was also fascinating. Our idea was to experience how climate was affecting Arctic Ice.
3. Talked with indigenous Dolgan tribesmen near Khatanga in northern Siberia about how they were experiencing climate change.
4. Traveled to the Arctic, to Svalbard, to be there for the first seed deliveries to the World Seed Bank, before its official opening. Met and talked with founder Cary Fowler. I was with Scott Pelley, who was filming a segment for “CBS’s 60 Minutes.” Also briefly met Archbishop Desmond Tutu while in Oslo.
5. Accompanied Scott Pelley and his “CBS 60 Minutes” crew to Patagonia and Antarctica for Scott’s interviews of scientists and the filming of a special segment on global warming, called “The Age of Warming.” It is available online, now, too.
6. Visited Bahia Lapataia, which is a park just north of Ushuaia, Argentina. You might remember these location names from A Tree for Antarctica.
7. On a midwinter visit to St. Petersburg with polar explorer Rosie Stancer and our husbands, met the much-decorated polar explorer and head of the Russian State Museum of the Arctic and the Antarctic, Victor Boyarski. He gave us a detailed tour of this incredible museum and discussed his concerns about how climate change is affecting the frozen parts of the world.
8. While on a trip to Bhutan, I met with the Minister in charge of Climate Policy, to discuss how climate change was affecting and was projected to affect his country.
9. Hiked coast to coast across England, Wales, and on every continent.
10. Went in two separate years to study with Al Gore in his Nashville classes for the original Climate Project speakers’ cadre. We learned more climate science and were taught how to speak effectively about climate to audiences. This later became what is now called the Climate Reality Project.
11. Attended a “Planet Earth” symposium in Stockholm organized by Molecular Frontiers Journal, primarily about issues in climate change and also new findings regarding the origins of life on earth.
12. Traveled to Churchill, Canada to find polar bears in the wild. Hiked the tundra and iced-over river beds with heli pilot.
13. Hiked and skied in Yellowstone in mid-winter in search of wolves, with lectures by wolf experts.
14. Hiked in coastal Greenland. I was especially interested to see the Jacobshann Glacier calving and groaning and filling up Disko Bay with ice. It is the fastest moving glacier in the world, and Greenland’s largest.
15. Lived in the Low Country of South Carolina for nine years.
