Antarctica enters Tully Hart’s story as both a destination for consequential environmental reporting and a place of attempted escape. Invited to join a global-warming documentary, she welcomes the prospect of going as far from her troubled life as possible; after six weeks in the frozen south, however, she returns carrying the same old songs and grief that had haunted her there.

The Documentary Assignment

A colleague offers Tully a place on a documentary about global warming, arguing that her stature could help the important story find an audience. The trip is expected to last six weeks, or at most seven, and the colleague notes that flying back and forth would be an arduous journey. Tully calls the timing perfect: she wants to get away, and Antarctica seems to offer the greatest possible distance.

Life in the Frozen South

Tully spends Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s in Antarctica. The crew gathers around its heat source, sings songs, and drinks wine; to the cameras, the expedition appears to be a good time. The setting is at once a working environment for a climate documentary and an isolated refuge from ordinary life, though the appearance of conviviality does not match Tully’s private experience.

What the Journey Cannot Resolve

At night, bundled into a down sleeping bag with a hat and mittens, Tully tries to sleep but hears old songs recurring in her mind and cries. More than once, she wakes with ice on her cheeks. The cold and the songs make the distance from home tangible, while the recurring grief shows that travel has not separated her from what troubles her.

Return and Significance

On January 2, Tully comes home to a cold, empty apartment and describes the scene bitterly as the story of her life. She expects work to absorb her again in the daily routine of the empire she has created, but she recognizes that the images haunting her followed her even to the ends of the earth. Antarctica therefore marks a sharp contrast between public appearance and private reality: the documentary may look like a successful, companionable expedition, yet the journey offers no lasting escape from loneliness.