{"id":39757,"date":"2025-06-22T11:15:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-22T11:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=39757"},"modified":"2025-06-23T06:45:04","modified_gmt":"2025-06-23T06:45:04","slug":"at-antarcticas-midwinter-a-look-back-at-the-frozen-continents-long-history-of-dark-behavior","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/at-antarcticas-midwinter-a-look-back-at-the-frozen-continents-long-history-of-dark-behavior\/","title":{"rendered":"At Antarctica\u2019s midwinter, a look back at the frozen continent\u2019s long history of dark behavior"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Daniella McCahey<\/a>, Texas Tech University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Midwinter Day approaches in Antarctica \u2013 the longest and darkest day of the year \u2013 those spending the winter on the frozen continent will follow a tradition dating back more than a century<\/a> to the earliest days of Antarctic exploration: They will celebrate having made it through the growing darkness and into a time when they know the Sun is on its way back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The experience of spending a winter in Antarctica can be harrowing<\/a>, even when living with modern conveniences such as hot running water and heated buildings. At the beginning of the current winter season, in March 2025, global news outlets reported that workers at the South African research station, SANAE IV<\/a>, were \u201crocked<\/a>\u201d when one worker allegedly threatened and assaulted other members of the station\u2019s nine-person winter crew<\/a>. Psychologists intervened<\/a> \u2013 remotely \u2013 and order was apparently restored.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The desolate and isolated environment of Antarctica can be hard on its inhabitants. As a historian of Antarctica<\/a>, the events at SANAE IV represent a continuation of perceptions \u2013 and realities \u2013 that Antarctic environments can trigger deeply disturbing behavior and even drive people to madness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Long hours of constant near-darkness take their toll in the Antarctic winter. Andrew Smith, via Antarctic Sun<\/a>, CC BY-ND<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Early views<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The very earliest examples of Antarctic literature depict the continent affecting both mind and body<\/a>. In 1797, for instance, more than two decades before the continent was first sighted by Europeans<\/a>, the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote \u201cThe Rime of the Ancient Mariner<\/a>.\u201d 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\u2019s torment for doing so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1838, Edgar Allan Poe published the story of \u201cArthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket<\/a>,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

H.P. Lovecraft\u2019s 1936 story \u201cAt the Mountains of Madness<\/a>\u201d was almost certainly based on<\/a> real stories of polar exploration. In it, the men of a fictitious Antarctic expedition encounter circumstances that \u201cmade us wish only to escape from this austral world<\/a> of desolation and brooding madness as swiftly as we could.\u201d One man even experiences an unnamed \u201cfinal horror<\/a>\u201d that causes a severe mental breakdown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 1982 John Carpenter film \u201cThe Thing<\/a>\u201d also involves these themes<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether to gird themselves for what may come or just as a fun tradition, the winter-over crew at the United States\u2019 South Pole Station<\/a> watches this film every year<\/a> after the last flight leaves before winter sets in. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Real tales<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

These stories of Antarctic \u201cmadness\u201d have some basis in history. A long-told anecdote in modern Antarctic circles is of a man who stabbed, perhaps fatally, a colleague over a game of chess at Russia\u2019s Vostok station in 1959<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More certain were reports in 2018, when Sergey Savitsky stabbed Oleg Beloguzov<\/a> at the Russian Bellingshausen research station over multiple grievances, including the one most seized upon by the media: Beloguzov\u2019s tendency<\/a> to reveal the endings<\/a> of books that Savitsky was reading<\/a>. A criminal charge against him<\/a> was dropped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2017, staff at South Africa\u2019s sub-Antarctic Marion Island station reported that a team member smashed up a colleague\u2019s room with an ax<\/a> over a romantic relationship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mental health<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Concerns over mental health in Antarctica go much further back. In the so-called \u201cHeroic Age\u201d of Antarctic exploration, from about 1897 to about 1922, expedition leaders prioritized the mental health of the men on their expeditions. They knew their crews would be trapped inside with the same small group for months on end, in darkness and extreme cold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

American physician Frederick Cook, who accompanied the 1898-1899 Belgica expedition, the first group known to spend the winter within the Antarctic Circle, wrote in helpless terms of being \u201cdoomed\u201d to the \u201cmercy\u201d of natural forces, and of his worries about the \u201cunknowable cold and its soul-depressing effects<\/a>\u201d in the winter darkness. In his 2021 book about that expedition, writer Julian Sancton called the ship the \u201cMadhouse at the End of the Earth<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cook\u2019s fears became real. Most men complained of \u201cgeneral enfeeblement of strength, of insufficient heart action, of a mental lethargy, and of a universal feeling of discomfort<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen at all seriously afflicted,\u201d Cook wrote, \u201cthe men felt that they would surely die\u201d and exhibited a \u201cspirit of abject hopelessness.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And in the words of Australian physicist Louis Bernacchi, a member of the 1898-1900 Southern Cross expedition, \u201cThere is something particularly mystical and uncanny<\/a> in the effect of the grey atmosphere of an Antarctic night, through whose uncertain medium the cold white landscape looms as impalpable as the frontiers of a demon world.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A traumatic trip<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A few years later, the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, which ran from 1911 to 1914, experienced several major tragedies, including two deaths during an exploring trip that left expedition leader Douglas Mawson starving and alone amid deeply crevassed terrain<\/a>. The 100-mile walk to relative safety took him a month<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A lesser-known set of events on that same expedition involved wireless-telegraph operator Sidney Jeffryes, who arrived in Antarctica in 1913 on a resupply ship. Cape Denison, the expedition\u2019s base, had some of the most severe environmental conditions<\/a> anyone had encountered on the continent, including winds estimated at over 160 miles an hour<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jeffryes, the only man in the crew who could operate the radio telegraph, began exhibiting signs of paranoia<\/a>. He transmitted messages back to Australia saying that he was the only sane man in the group and claiming the others were plotting to kill him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Mawson\u2019s account of the expedition, he blamed the conditions, writing:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c(T)here is no doubt that the continual and acute strain<\/a> of sending and receiving messages under unprecedented conditions was such that he eventually had a \u2018nervous breakdown.\u2019\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Mawson hoped that the coming of spring and the possibility of outdoor exercise would help, but it did not. Shortly after his return to Australia in February 1914, Jeffryes was found wandering in the Australian bush<\/a> and institutionalized. For many years, his role in Antarctic exploration was ignored, seeming a blot or embarrassment on the masculine ideal of Antarctic explorers<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
After five months of isolation in trying conditions on a remote Antarctic island, 22 men rejoice at their rescue in August 1916. Frank Hurley, Underwood & Underwood, via Library of Congress<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Wider problems<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, the general widespread focus on Antarctica as a place that causes disturbing behavior makes it easy to gloss over larger and more systemic problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2022, the United States Antarctic Program as well as the Australian Antarctic Division released reports that sexual assault and harassment are common<\/a> at Antarctic bases and in more remote field camps. Scholars have generally not linked those events to the specifics of the cold, darkness and isolation<\/a>, but rather to a continental culture<\/a> of heroic masculinity<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As humans look to live in other extreme environments, such as space, Antarctica represents not only a cooperative international scientific community<\/a> but also a place where, cut off from society as a whole, human behavior changes. The celebrations of Midwinter Day honor survival in a place of wonder that is also a place of horror, where the greatest threat is not what is outside, but what is inside your mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daniella McCahey<\/a>, Assistant Professor of History, Texas Tech University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Daniella McCahey, Texas Tech University As Midwinter Day approaches in Antarctica \u2013 the longest and darkest day of the year \u2013 those spending the winter on the frozen continent will follow a tradition dating back more than a century to the earliest days of Antarctic exploration: They will celebrate having made it through the growing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":39758,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,8025,292,276,42,827,10,118,36,3410,38],"tags":[16561,16554,16555,16558,16557,2143,16559,191,16556,885,891,886,860,2484,316,200,16560],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39757"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39757"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39759,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39757\/revisions\/39759"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}