Planet E A R T H  By :

Arctic Gothic as inspired by Fortitude

It’s always snowing. It will never not be snowing. It snows and snows and snows, yet the drifts never gets any taller. 

The sun won’t rise for three months. It won’t ever rise again. Your life now exists in darkness.

You’re not allowed to die there because you’ll never decay. But people are already decaying. 

Respect the polar bears. They were here first. What do we do about the polar bear within us all?

The Northern Lights brighten the night sky in the dark winter, but they will never brighten your soul.

Everything is frozen, just like I am frozen by my thoughts.

The Permafrost never forgets. It won’t let you forget either. Soon it will make you remember. 

The cold bites at those exposed to it for too long. Bite back. Always bite back.

Everything is covered in white. Why is no one wearing sunglasses?

men don’t die in antarctica like they used to

Alaska/Far Northern Gothic

You had a neighbor yesterday. You’re sure of it, but when you walk the trail between your properties there’s no sign of their house. You recall their faces, but not their names. The distance between you and the next nearest living human continues to grow.

On the longest night of the year, you wake at midnight to a high noon sun. Its blinding light renders the snow a featureless, glimmering white. You cannot even see the trees.

You visit Barrow for Nalukataq and are invited to participate in the blanket toss. When you come back down, there is no one to catch you.

You open the windows.  Pile snow on your bed. Allow icicles to form on your ceiling. It is still too hot to sleep.

You spy a raven near the grocer’s with an eyeball in its beak. You tell yourself that it must be the scavenged remains of some animal. It couldn’t be human. It couldn’t be your own.

You come back from the outhouse to find the door to your cabin locked. You see movement through the window. You live alone.

When the snow finally melts, you find something that you lost years ago. In another state. Another life. It is something you hoped to never find again.

The river in Nenana has been frozen for years. The Ice Classic continues to pool their bets, leading more and more people to pay in with the hope that this year it won’t roll over. The year passes. There is still no sign of spring.

This year’s Iditarod winner harnessed wolves instead of dogs. They froth at the mouth and drip blood from long fangs. No one but you seems to notice.

Your roommate brushes her teeth and spits out blood. She looks thin, almost gaunt, even though she’s been eating constantly for the last week. It occurs to you that you haven’t seen her boyfriend around lately. She smiles. Her teeth are sharp and cold.

Late one night, you whistle at the aurora. The last thing you hear is the aurora whistling back.

On this day, 5th January 1922, Ernest Shackleton, died.

Sir Ernest Shackleton was an Antarctic explorer, best known for leading the ’Endurance’ expedition of 1914-16.

Ernest Henry Shackleton was born on 15 February 1874 in Ireland but his family moved to London where Shackleton was educated. He joined the merchant navy when he was 16 and qualified as a master mariner in 1898. 

In 1901, Shackleton was chosen to go on the Antarctic expedition led by British naval officer Robert Falcon Scott on the ship ‘Discovery’.  The team trekked towards the South Pole in extremely difficult conditions, getting closer to the Pole than anyone had come before. Shackleton became seriously ill and had to return home.

In 1908, he returned to the Antarctic as the leader of his own expedition, on the ship 'Nimrod’. During the expedition, his team climbed Mount Erebus, made many important scientific discoveries and set a record by coming even closer to the South Pole than before. Shackleton was knighted on his return to Britain.

In 1911, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen reached the South Pole, followed by Scott who died on the return journey. In 1914, Shackleton made his third trip to the Antarctic with the ship 'Endurance’, planning to cross Antarctica via the South Pole. Early in 1915, ’Endurance’ became trapped in the ice, and ten months later sank. Shackleton’s crew had already abandoned the ship to live on the floating ice. In April 1916, they set off in three small boats, eventually reaching Elephant Island. Taking five crew members, Shackleton went to find help. In a small boat, the six men spent 16 days crossing 1,300 km of ocean to reach South Georgia and then trekked across the island to a whaling station. The remaining men from the 'Endurance’ were rescued in August 1916. Not one member of the expedition died. Shackleton’s account of the 'Endurance’ expedition, South was published in 1919. The State Library of New South Wales holds a number of editions of this book, including first editions.

Shackleton’s fourth expedition aimed to circumnavigate the Antarctic continent but on 5 January 1922, Shackleton died of a heart attack off South Georgia and he was buried on the island.

The State Library of New South Wales holds collections of photographs depicting Shackleton’s expeditions, including these taken by photographer Frank Hurley. Photographs of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s trans-Antarctic expedition in the 'Endurance’, ca. 1914-1917  

It's time to rewatch The Terror

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Tuunbaq 🖤

You can't even go on an expedition to find a passage through dangerous ice fields and die alongside 100+ men for your hubris anymore. Because climate change 🙄

source

Sub surfaced in frozen waters