"The ice reflects you back."

In February 2023, author Bri Lee travelled to Antarctica. She returned with the idea for a novel and lessons that will remain with her forever.

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I had just turned 31 when I stepped on board the Heritage Adventurer, my suitcase packed for a month at sea. It would take a week of sailing across the infamous Southern Ocean before we crossed into the Antarctic Circle. I had a book to write and I was ready for the adventure of a lifetime.

Some of that readiness had come from reading Madhouse at the End of the Earth by Julian Sancton. It tells the story of a rich Belgian seeking glory in 1897 who deliberately got his ship stuck in the ice, dooming his crew to months without sunlight in order to be the first humans to spend winter in Antarctica. Some of them died. Most of them lost their minds.

Two men became friends during that perilous journey: Dr Frederick Cook and Roald Amundsen, who would later go on to beat Scott to the South Pole. During that long, dark time, they busied themselves with experiments and inventions. Cook wrote in his diary that he and Amundsen hoped to come out of “the soul-withering Antarctic with mental magazines loaded with brain buckshot”.

I was hoping for something like that too. The goal of the adventure was to research my second novel, Seed. Four weeks without phone reception or internet would be exactly what I needed. The extraordinary natural environment would be the backdrop for my literary thriller. It seems absurd to me now that I thought I was “ready” for Antarctica. Can you ever be prepared for something that changes your life?