Dimensions
234 x 156 x 26mm
Antarctica calls to people. They often cannot articulate why. It's a place where you can experience temperatures ranging from -40 in winter to about 2 degrees in summer. It's windy, too, with prolonged periods of 50-knot winds. Yet people are drawn to it.
When Diana got the job as station leader at Mawson in 1988, aged 38, she was the first woman to have led this isolated community. This intimate account of her year as manager is full of adventure and the challenges of working with a mostly male team of glaciologists, physicists, biologists and tradies, as they unite to deal with life in the face of what they call the 'A Factor'. We read about what it's like to work and live in an isolated community for many long months; about the excitement of being in such an amazing place, observing the wildlife and gathering essential scientific data; and the incredible team of dogs that were so integral to their life. There are some pretty hairy life-threatening situations to boot. It was a tough but amazingly rewarding experience, which Diana brings to life in her wonderful, captivating story.
As Diana says, "What Antarctica means to me is a feeling of living for the moment, a feeling of incredible contentment and inner peace. A feeling, once experienced, you want to live it again and again."
