If you have ever wondered what it would be like to spend a year in Antarctica, then read this book. But it concerns a good deal more than just the 365 days of one year.
As station leader at Davis, one of Australia’s three Antarctic research stations, Knoff landed in the Antarctic in early November, 2019, aboard icebreaker RSV Aurora Australis. It was one of the final voyages of the famous ‘Orange Roughy’ which had served the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD) well for many years.
Knoff’s group included a large number of summer expeditioners who returned to Australia as winter approached, leaving just 24 people to maintain the station until they too could return on Australia’s new icebreaker, the RSV Nuyina, being built in Romania and due to arrive in Hobart by late 2020. At least, that was the plan.
But then COVID-19 struck. The pandemic changed not only the world, but also AAD’s schedules.
As borders closed, and the new icebreaker’s construction was delayed, it became clear by mid-winter that the team at Davis could not be relieved until after another summer season, so all of Knoff’s experience as an Australian Army officer and diplomat was required.
Knoff has used his personal notes and diaries to tell the story of the wintering group’s enforced stay, well past late 2020 when they should have been on their way home. He details measures to maintain morale, but also records the dissent by some members. As in all memoirs, this is just one man’s view of that strange time.
A medical emergency requiring cooperation from Chinese and US Antarctic resources just added pressure to his leadership; and even on the 2021 voyage home on a charter vessel, a fire on board meant the group was taken to Fremantle instead of Hobart.
It’s a great tale of life and logistics at an Antarctic station, complete with maps, and including the totally Aussie naming of a landing area well inland as Whoop Whoop.
Reviewed by Jennifer Somerville
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born and raised in Melbourne, Australia, David’s career has taken him across the globe. Graduating from Monash University with a Bachelor of Arts (History, Politics) while completing officer training in the Australian Army, David then served in the Solomon Islands as an infantry platoon commander in 2007.
Following this, he joined Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), serving at the Australian High Commission in Islamabad, Pakistan, from 2012 to 2015, and the Australian Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, in 2016, embedded with Australian and coalition troops.
In 2019, David joined the Australian Antarctic Program as station leader at the Davis research station, East Antarctica, and led the team at Davis through the longest continuous Australian expedition in modern history. After returning to Melbourne in 2021, just 9 months later David returned to Antarctica as the Voyage Leader to resupply Australia’s Mawson and Davis station.
David is an avid traveller – from the mountains of Kashmir to the Antarctic Peninsula – and enjoys mountaineering, skydiving, trekking, snowboarding and back country split‐boarding.
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