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acknowledgments

I WOULD NOT HAVE WRITTEN this book without the mountains of encouragement provided by my editor, John Michel. It was he who initiated the project and who saw its potential long before I did. If the book now appears as a coherent whole, this is largely owing to John’s steady and gentle guidance and editorial skill. I could not have asked for more.

Valerie Kuscenko at Harmony Books offered many valuable suggestions that materially improved the quality of the book. I am also grateful to her for seeing the manuscript through the many stages of production.

It is a pleasure, also, to acknowledge The Sciences, and especially Ed Dobb, for arranging and publishing the journal notes from which this book eventually took form.

Over the years, many friends and colleagues have urged me, through their kind comments, to continue with this avocation of writing: I mention especially Curt Ellison, Harvey Simsohn, Jane Goldflies, Bill Newell, Barbara Whitten, Karl Schilling, Elizabeth Duvert (I thank Elizabeth also for the wonderful quote, once posted on her office door, from Camus. Somehow, I think the book unconsciously took form around those words.), Chris Myers, Hays Cummins, Nancy Nicholson, Muriel Blaisdell, George Stein, and Gene Metcalf.

I am likewise indebted to all the fine people with whom I have had the good fortune to work in the Antarctic. From the early days, these include Roger Hatcher and Robert Benoit; and from more recent times, the members of my own research groups: Don Canfield, Anne Jones, Fred Lee, Mike Angle, Tom Gardner, Tim Ferdelman, Yu Shengsong, Glen Gawarkiewicz, Brian Stage, and Phil Nixon. Other scientists, both at McMurdo and in the Dry Valleys, were extremely generous with their advice and assistance, and, of course, with their companionship and good cheer. George Simmons, Anna Palmisano, Neal Sullivan, Bob Wharton, Berry Lyons, Warwick and Connie Vincent, Art Devries, Irme and Rosalie Friedmann, Diane McKnight, and the late Robie Vestal are among this group. The dedicated and courageous service of the pilots of VXE-6 is deeply appreciated. I want to acknowledge especially the enthusiastic help of the late Steve Duffey.

I am very pleased to thank the National Science Foundation for its support of my research and, indeed, for making travel to the Antarctic possible at all. Frank Williamson, Dick Williams, Guy Guthridge, Polly Penhale, Roger Hanson, Erick Chiang, and Dave Bresnahan have all been extraordinarily supportive.

The scientific encouragement of Gunter Faure, Colin Bull, and Ernest Angino during the early stages of our work on Vanda is deeply appreciated. Keith Chave and Lorenz Magaard arranged a one-year research appointment for me in Oceanography at the University of Hawaii. It was a wonderful year and I am grateful to them for their friendship and hospitality.

I am indebted to Larry Varner for sharing so many of his detailed memories and insights about the Antarctic experience and for carefully reading and commenting on the manuscript during its various incarnations. Jeremy Varner also provided many useful suggestions on the early drafts of the book, as did my friend and colleague Don Canfield. I am pleased to thank three of my former students, Cecile Mariano, William Kennedy, and Jon Reilley, for library research. And I thank Betty Marak for typing and correcting the manuscript.

My sister, Elizabeth Hart, has been a constant source of professional and emotional support, and I wish to acknowledge this here. Dana and Kate, my daughters, have been cheerfully accepting of my long absences and my sustained periods of high distraction. The glazed look of the writer became a familiar one around our house. But somehow they managed to turn all of this to their advantage by realizing that the best time to ask their father’s permission for anything (“May I have twenty of my closest friends in for a sleepover?” “May I eat that half-gallon of chocolate ice cream in the freezer?”) was when he was writing.

This book could not have been written without the boundless patience, understanding, and critical insight that my wife, Wanda Green, has provided over the years. Her willingness to discuss this project from the very beginning, to read countless rough drafts in all stages of scrawled disorder, and to somehow remain cheerfully optimistic when I, myself, had lost faith that I would ever finish, sustained me throughout this work. To her I am grateful beyond words.