A Jamaican surviving a simulated Antarctic ice storm

On a trip to New Zealand a few weeks ago, I was blown away by the astounding beauty of this South Pacific retreat. This spotlessly clean destination is overloaded with dramatic alpine vistas, pop-up mountainside waterfalls and rippling crystal streams criss-crossing postcard perfect green meadows with grazing sheep. This mesmerizing package is gift-wrapped with a warm, welcoming people. And miraculously, no snakes. Despite the powerful New Zealand allure, there was something else that was calling my name, a mysterious force that wanted to pull me further south.

That magnet was my curiosity about Antarctica and the South Pole.

Christchurch in the South Island of New Zealand is one of the world’s major scientific research centres on Antarctica, and it is also the world’s leading springboard for research expeditions to Antartica, as opposed to the southern tip of Argentina which is the departure point for most of the tourist sailings to this icy wonderland.

As a continent, Antartica is twice the size of Australia. It is the coldest, driest and windiest place on earth, with over 98 per cent of its surface covered in ice.

This hostile land mass is so bitterly cold that polar beers, quite wisely, choose not to live there, and a chunk of land mass that broke off recently from the mainland was larger in size than the city of London. Antartica is owned not by a single nation but managed by a coalition of several countries based on a 1959 Antarctic Treaty. Much of the research there is focussed on a fascinating and diverse range of topics that include the all important climate science, plus magnetic field studies, microbiology, the mystery of ocean currents, astronomy, inter continental heat absorption, marine life and a lot more.

THRILLING RIDE

But back to the ice storm. When I learned that one of the hot attractions in Christchurch is a visit to the frigid International Antarctic Centre, I headed there immediately. The centre is located on the outskirts of Christchurch, and during the four-hour visit, one is smothered with an abundance of information on Antarctica– the unpredictable and extreme weather, the early explorers, information on the few researchers who live there, the wildlife including spending time with penguins and husky dogs, a 4 D theatre where visitors are jolted and sprayed with ice cubes, and viewing and touching fossils that are over 400 million years old. There is also a thrilling ride in an all terrain vehicle called a Hagglund. During the ride, one discovers what it is like to journey across the frozen continent on wheels. But for me, the high point of the visit was undoubtedly experiencing a simulated summer ice storm where the wind chill plummets to -18 C. It is important to note that in the southern hemisphere the seasons are reversed, so my January visit placed me in the middle of summer there.

Those who decided to participate in the snowstorm experience are first warned about the frigid conditions, the turbulence, the biting winds and the fact that one will get hit by ice. You are then outfitted in Antarctic gear and reassured that the experience will only last for five minutes. We were led to an airtight enclosed room. About fifteen of us were trapped inside and the action was about to unfold. I am the only Jamaican, and, according to the tour guide, the first one she had seen on this tour. The other folks are from Australia, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Japan.

BONE-CRUSHING COLD

“Why is a Jamaican heading into an ice storm?”, they all wondered privately. Smiling, Gabrielle, our guide looked in my direction and whispered that the experience will be more mind-blowing than anything I had ever seen in the movie ‘Cool Runnings’. It’s action time. As we settled in the room, the temperature quickly plunged, the lights slowly dimmed and the punishing hurricane force winds started to howl. Our bodies rocked in terror, left and right, back and forth, and just when we thought it was calming down, it started to rock again, each time with greater intensity with all the effects of the actual ice storm. Some people screamed. Lips shuddered. For 300 excruciating seconds that felt like a lifetime, we endured the bone-crushing cold. Chunks of ice flying in all directions escalated the ordeal. And the thick clouds of mist that enveloped the space limited our vision but brought home with great clarity the extreme horror of the ice storm. And as if to make sure we fully understood the impact of wind chill, more winds bellowed and barked, every new gust piercing like an elongated nail on a crucifixion cross.

Eventually the ordeal ended and we were led to a more civilized adjacent space where we viewed a web cam of the South Pole. Ironically the temperature at the pole on that summer day in January was -20 C, similar to what we had just experienced in the ice storm. Our guide told us we were spared the full impact of the Antarctica winds that reach up to 300 miles per hours in real storms. She also pointed out that the tour would not have happened under winter conditions as temperatures then plunge to below -70 F, well outside the range of human endurance.

As I re-entered the real world outside in Christchurch where it was 90 degrees F, my thoughts drifted to a conversation I had with my niece Dawn in Jamaica a few months earlier. It was last October, a few days after Hurricane Melissa. She was pinned down in her roofless house for several hours as the rains pelted. She described the experience as ‘traumatizing’. If five minutes in a simulated environment brought so much terror, I cannot begin to imagine the apocalyptic nightmare of six hours of a deadly and real hurricane with record-breaking force. Something else crossed my mind: will a simulated tropical hurricane someday in the future become the subject of a tourist experience?

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