Alexis Madrigal: Welcome to Forum. I\u2019m Alexis Madrigal. I cannot be alone in having always wanted to go to Antarctica. Something about the sheer strangeness of the landscape and the remoteness of the place\u2014something about the lack of human degradation, something about the sheer challenge of getting there and surviving.<\/p>\n
Our guest this morning, Ariel Waldman, not only spent two months in Antarctica with a research team, she also managed to film a full-fledged documentary by herself with her menagerie of cameras. The first episodes of that work, Life on Earth, debut tonight on PBS. Welcome to Forum, Ariel.<\/p>\n
Ariel Waldman: Thanks so much for having me. Really happy to be here.<\/p>\n
Alexis Madrigal: And of course, I should say PBS is KQED TV. Perfect. Okay, let\u2019s talk about going to Antarctica. I\u2019m just going to live vicariously through you. How did you get cleared to go? How did you get there?<\/p>\n
Ariel Waldman: Well, yeah. So getting cleared to go to Antarctica is a multi-month process. You have to get what we call \u201cPQ\u2019d,\u201d which is physically qualified. So you go through a whole bunch of tests\u2014seeing doctors, drawing blood, getting physical exams, everything. That\u2019s all the preliminary stuff.<\/p>\n
But actually getting to Antarctica is a multi-hour, multi-day journey. From my home in San Francisco, I fly all the way to New Zealand. And from New Zealand, we take a C-130 military aircraft for eight hours.<\/p>\n
Alexis Madrigal: Wait\u2014what\u2019s it like on the inside?<\/p>\n
Ariel Waldman: On a C-130, it\u2019s cramped. It was not meant for passengers. There are no seats\u2014only cargo netting. You travel like that for eight hours.<\/p>\n
Alexis Madrigal: So by \u201cno seats,\u201d you mean there are nets and you sit on the net?<\/p>\n
Ariel Waldman: You sit on the netting.<\/p>\n
Alexis Madrigal: Like a hammock?<\/p>\n
Ariel Waldman: You sit on the netting, and they pack it full. You\u2019re literally interweaving your knees with all of your fellow passengers because there\u2019s not enough room to even put your legs together. So you\u2019re crisscrossed with everyone on the plane for eight hours. And by the way, there\u2019s no bathroom.<\/p>\n
Alexis Madrigal: Wait\u2014so what do you use?<\/p>\n
Ariel Waldman: There\u2019s literally a bucket\u2014like a paint bucket\u2014and they put a curtain around it. For eight hours, that\u2019s the only place you have to go to the bathroom.<\/p>\n
It could even be longer than eight hours, because when you take this journey, you might encounter really bad weather, be unable to land in Antarctica, and then they\u2019ll just boomerang you back to New Zealand. Then you have to try again the next day.<\/p>\n
Alexis Madrigal: Oh my God. So there are no snacks, you\u2019re saying?<\/p>\n
Ariel Waldman: They give you a little lunch pack, but yeah\u2014it\u2019s pretty bare-bones.<\/p>\n
Alexis Madrigal: It\u2019s like Meals Ready to Eat\u2014very military in that way. Wow. That\u2019s so interesting. So who are you on there with? Other scientists, but also support staff, right?<\/p>\n
Ariel Waldman: Yes. A lot of staff, a lot of support personnel, a lot of scientists. Because the New Zealand and American bases are so close together, you get a lot of Kiwi researchers alongside Antarctic researchers, and we all fly down together.<\/p>\n
Alexis Madrigal: And what were you going down there to do? What kind of research were you involved with?<\/p>\n
Ariel Waldman: I was on the McMurdo Dry Valleys Long-Term Ecological Research team\u2014which is a mouthful. They\u2019ve been studying this Mars-like environment for over 30 years, looking at everything about the ecology there.<\/p>\n
I was embedded with the soils team, looking for microscopic animals that could tell us more about the ecosystem. Our team is known as the \u201cworm herders,\u201d because we\u2019re always looking for nematodes.<\/p>\n
Alexis Madrigal: When people think of Antarctica, they imagine snow-swept ice and cute penguins huddled together. That\u2019s not what these dry valleys are like.<\/p>\n
Ariel Waldman: No. Most of Antarctica is covered in ice\u2014up to three miles thick in some places. It\u2019s larger than the U.S. and Mexico combined, and 98 percent of it is covered in ice.<\/p>\n
But the largest ice-free area is the dry valleys, and it\u2019s very Mars-like. This isn\u2019t due to climate change\u2014it\u2019s because a mountain range blocks the ice sheet from entering the area. So you get this dry, arid environment where you can actually walk on the continent itself.<\/p>\n
Alexis Madrigal: When you say \u201cMars-like,\u201d do you mean just cold, or something more specific?<\/p>\n
Ariel Waldman: Multiple things. It\u2019s cold, but the dryness is key\u2014humidity below 10 percent, almost no precipitation. No rain at all, and only rare light snow.<\/p>\n
You also have six months of total darkness and six months of total daylight because it\u2019s near the South Pole.<\/p>\n
Alexis Madrigal: Wow. So the C-130 drops you at McMurdo Station. What are your accommodations like?<\/p>\n
Ariel Waldman: We stay at McMurdo for the first week because everyone has to go through training\u2014survival training, environmental protocols, learning how to camp, what to do if you\u2019re stuck in a storm.<\/p>\n
So that first week is constant preparation.<\/p>\n
Alexis Madrigal: Were you terrified?<\/p>\n
Ariel Waldman: No\u2014because of the training. You\u2019re never alone, and you always know what to do. The U.S. Antarctic Program is very thorough.<\/p>\n
When they drop you off by helicopter, they give you survival bags\u2014so if a storm prevents pickup, you can camp and survive on your own. Everything is meticulously planned.<\/p>\n
Alexis Madrigal: What\u2019s in the survival gear?<\/p>\n
Ariel Waldman: Rations, tents, cooking equipment\u2014basic survival camping gear to hunker down.<\/p>\n
Alexis Madrigal: There\u2019s this incredible shot in your docuseries where you\u2019re flying over ice in a helicopter. Can you see anything down there?<\/p>\n
Ariel Waldman: Over the sea ice, yes\u2014you can see little specks of penguins, seals, even orcas. It\u2019s thrilling.<\/p>\n
But once you enter the dry valleys, it\u2019s different. A hundred years ago, explorers called it the \u201cValley of the Dead,\u201d because nothing seems to live there. Occasionally you\u2019ll find mummified seals or penguins\u2014animals that wandered in and couldn\u2019t survive. The dry conditions preserve them for decades.<\/p>\n
Alexis Madrigal: Wow. So the helicopter drops you off in this place, and there\u2019s that drone shot\u2014it\u2019s just you and a handful of people, and nothing else for miles. Were you scared?<\/p>\n
Ariel Waldman: No. Again, you\u2019re well trained. It\u2019s not terrifying\u2014it\u2019s just\u2026 alien.<\/p>\n
The strangest feeling is thinking, \u201cNo one would believe this.\u201d Every footstep echoes, and it feels like another planet, but you\u2019re on Earth.<\/p>\n
I mostly wished I could bring more people there to experience it. That\u2019s why I made the series\u2014because words alone don\u2019t capture it.<\/p>\n
Alexis Madrigal: We\u2019re talking with documentary filmmaker and National Geographic Explorer Ariel Waldman about her new series Life on Earth, which looks at ecosystems in Antarctica and North American prairies. It premieres tonight on PBS.<\/p>\n