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Module 5 – Lecture 6
Perspective: Te Radar, Opinionist
Rhian Salmon: Hey Radar -Te Radar: Hello.
Rhian Salmon: -- great to see you.
Te Radar: Hello, good yes.
Rhian Salmon: So we're at a massive international science conference,
and you're not a scientist, and you're about to do a show -Te Radar: Yeah.
Rhian Salmon: -- about Antarctica.
And you know what, actually some people here might have no
idea who are you, so who are you?
What are you doing?
Te Radar: I'm an enthusiastic amateur, a lover of science, a lover of
Antarctica, but primarily I'm a teller of stories. I do a lot of work, sort
of on an amateur historical level.
And I went to Antarctica -- was it with you -- it was a couple of
years ago, by ship, and part of that was I was supposed to do
something. So we made a documentary and then the Ice Festival in
Christchurch went "do you want to do a comedy show about Antarctic
history?" Or it may have actually been, to be fair, I may have said
"Shall I do a comedy show about Antarctic history?" And they went
"That will be great". And then all of a sudden I looked at the history
of Antarctica and went whoa -Rhian Salmon: Not very funny.
Te Radar: Not very funny.
But then a lot of it is actually really funny.
And even within the stories that are really grim, the black
humour is actually quite funny as well.
Rhian Salmon: Can you give us an example, come on?
Te Radar: Oh look the story of Mawson, Douglas Mawson, that incredible
saga.
And Mawson, you know, part of the big four, Shackleton,
Amundsen, Scott, Mawson. Probably in some ways the unluckiest of
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any of them. Everything goes wrong for Mawson all the time. But,
the only one to die in his own bed of old age.
So you know -Rhian Salmon: There you go glimmer of hope.
Te Radar: -- a little glimmer of hope.
And it is such a terrible, but yet beautiful story. If you wrote it
just compiling one tragedy and terrible sort of thing onto the other, it
would just be too grim.
Rhian Salmon: So it's a black humour Antarcticana?
Te Radar: Yeah.
And I've done a lot of work with history in the past because, to
me, what it's all about is people, it's making that connection with
these names that you might read in history books and going "who
actually were they?"
And in this particular version of the show I sort of bookend it
with the story of Lawrence Oates. Most people know his name. Most
people know the famous phrase. But no-one really knows who he is.
No-one knows all of the little things that led to this terrible situation
that he found himself in.
Rhian Salmon: Wow! So you just said a whole bunch of -- so this
conference, we're not getting much humour, we're also not getting
much history or people that's going on here, so you're seeing a whole
different side of Antarctica.
Te Radar: A whole different side.
But yet all of these people that went down -- and this was the
beauty of those early expeditions, they were lovers of science, you
know, they went down to discover stuff. Scott's journey, so much of
it was based on science. They were hauling that bloody sled of rocks
back knowing that they hadn't been the first to the pole; they had to
make the science count.
Rhian Salmon: And they still did it.
Te Radar: And they still hauled that sled. And people went "why?" But
then taking those rocks and they made those breakthroughs. You
know, Edward Wilson who died next to Scott, that incredible journey,
scientific journey to get the penguin's egg.
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Rhian Salmon: It's heart breaking, isn't it?
Te Radar: Heart breaking. But then Apsley Cherry-Garrard turned it into
one of the great Antarctic books.
And to me, to get anyone interested in science, to get little kids
interested, it's hooking them into the stories of the people. Who were
they? Why did they do it? What did they want to know? You know,
they weren't all -- you know, didn't have degrees or anything like
that, they just had this hunger for knowledge and a curiosity.
Rhian Salmon: So who comes to your shows on Antarctica?
Te Radar: Well this one's a little bit terrifying, this is people who know
stuff. So it is really hard to figure out who to pitch the show to.
Because there are a lot of people who know a lot of stuff about
Antarctica, but then when I do it there's a lot of people who don't
really know anything. You know, they know of sort of some of the
names, they might have heard of the endurance. So the show itself is
sort of pitched to people who don't really know anything, all the way
through to people who do know a lot. And I had been a little bit sort
of worried about it, but I did a presentation at the Victoria University,
sort of, Antarctic section to some of the lecturers and people who'd
been down there and a lot of them came out going I didn't -- "I'd
never seen any of that before, I didn't know about that".
Rhian Salmon: No these guys won't, this is an amazing audience, we've
been to a few sessions at this conference and at the beginning people
go "who's been to Antarctica?" And everyone puts their hand up, but
none of them will know the history and none of them will think it's
funny, originally, I mean, you know, like they just don't know the
humour, "Antarctica why would you?"
Te Radar: Exactly why would you? What's funny about Scott's death in a
tent? Well actually, not a lot, but everything that leads up to it.
And again, even within that story, I mean the show it is a sort of
a comedic take on it, but there are serious points as well. And even
that story of all of those things that lead up to that moment, just to
put personalities to otherwise they're just names, you know? And
suddenly these stories mean something.
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Rhian Salmon: So what's the take-home message you'd like someone to
come away from this with?
Te Radar: The take-home message is that here is this magical place that
people went to investigate all kinds of things and it's a triumph of the
human spirit, and you know, it was considered exploration's last gre at
prize. But it's not, you know? Because there are other prices out
there. And at the end of the show we have an image, sort of it looks
like this monochromatic Antarctic image and I talk about the sort of
sense of exploration in it, and I talk about the fact that when I was
putting the show together this image arrived into people's
consciousness that came from the Mars rover. And you fade the
image through into colour and suddenly that what you think is that
monochromatic Antarctic landscape is the surface of Mars. That's the
new frontier.
And Edmond Hillary has this quote about how people will
continue to explore.
So the kind of people that went to Antarctica, the kind of
knowledge they were seeking, the courage that they had to have, that
continues, you know? We just have a goal that's a little bit further
away.
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Excerpt from Our Far South (2012)
Te Radar: "Polar exploration is at once the cleanest and most isolated
way of having a bad time which has been devised."
So wrote Apsley Cherry-Garrard, who as a young man
accompanied Captain Robert Scott to the Antarctic.
And so, here we are, 50 interested folk from the fields of science,
the media, business, education, diplomacy, construction, farming,
environmentalists and a policeman. All encouraged by financier,
philanthropist, and football fan, Gareth Morgan, to accompany him to
Antarctica.
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Gareth Morgan: So our far south is divided into three parts. First thing
was the sub Antarctic islands: Snares, the Aucklands, Macquarie and
Antipodes.
And so what's happening down there in terms of the wildlife,
there is the Southern Ocean itself which is vital to the determination
of the world's climate, and then finally of course the big kahuna itself
really, the Antarctica continent. And we were heading into the
Ross Sea and then down to Scott Base if we could get in.
Anton von Helden: I really wanted to see just your normal Kiwis coming
on board this boat who were going to be struck by perhaps, literally,
by wildlife and to really connecting with this wild natural environment.
Gareth Morgan: I wanted people to have a good time, because I thought
well if people have a good time they'll be very productive and, you
know, we'll get a lot out of the trip in terms of the mission we set
ourselves, which was to identify the issues and then communicate
those issues to the rest of New Zealand.
Nick Tansley: I didn't know anything about Antarctica and once you start
thinking about the place you realise that it's there, but most
New Zealanders had not the faintest idea of what is there. I mean, I
didn't even know what the sub Antarctic islands really were and yet I
was on my way to see them.
Te Radar: Ahead lay 30 days on the ship and a journey of nearly two
weeks before we reached Scott Base. As the Spirit of Enderby set sail
everyone was anticipating a delightful and educational cruise that
would highlight the issues facing the area and the planet.
The Ross Ice Shelf, the fabled mystic barrier, it's the size of
France and in places several hundred metres thick. One final stunning
spectacle awaits.
With summer waning we could see the ocean beginning to
re-freeze. It's hard to imagine that what we were witnessing here
was a natural phenomena that would directly affect most of the
oceans on the planet.
Few people understood this better than one of New Zealand's
leading oceanographers, Lionel Carter.
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Looking at it now, so calm it's difficult to comprehend that this is
one of the great power houses of the earth, this water.
Lionel Carter: I always have to get my head around it, but what we're
looking at is a large continent, a large continent covered primarily
with ice up to 4 kilometres thick. It's surrounded by this giant
current, and this giant current is driven by the westerly winds. And
it's the only current that connects all the ocean basins. There's
nothing like it on earth, it connects the Pacific, the Indian and the
Atlantic oceans. And by connecting it, it provides a pathway for all
these other currents and it helps to force the circulation of great
ocean currents around these basins. We really are in one of the
earth's major drivers of climate and of ocean. And it helps drive this
distribution of gases, salt, heat, around the planet. We have this
great interconnection between all the oceans and it meets here in the
Southern Ocean.
Te Radar: What I find almost impossible to consider is that within a very
short time this is going to be impenetrable for hundreds of miles, it's
phenomenal.
Lionel Carter: It is. I'm going to say I've read about it, but here we are,
and in many ways we're witnessing the start of the winter freeze,
Antarctica effectively doubles its size during this event.
Te Radar: Childhood dream to come here do you think?
Lionel Carter: Yep, realised. And I'd come back at the earliest
opportunity. But right at the moment I'm just soaking it in.
Te Radar: You love the ocean eh?
Lionel Carter: Most of the time yes, I'm not a fabulous sailor, I get sea
sick, but that's life.
Te Radar: So you're a sea sick oceanographer?
Lionel Carter: Exactly.
Te Radar: That is funny.
Before turning the bow north, tradition dictates that one should
experience the effects of the Antarctic waters in a slightly more
personal manner.
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There was one last ritual to take place before we leave the
rapidly freezing Antarctic waters.
[End of lecture]