Antarctica Was Nothing Like We Expected | NOVA | PBS

Added: 2026-05-14

[00:00:00]- So I think Caitlin and I are being hazed for some reason.

[00:00:04]They've got us cleaning the snowmobiles with a screwdriver.

[00:00:08]- I can't really feel my hands.

[00:00:13]- [Caitlin] We are in Antarctica, and this is not what we expected.

[00:00:20]- [Arlo] It's a strange place that's both familiar- - And completely alien.

[00:00:30]You can sleep, but it's never dark.

[00:00:35]- [Arlo] You can instant message if you know how to use a pager.

[00:00:40]- [Caitlin] You can't grow food, but you can call for a pizza.

[00:00:43]- So we'll do pineapple on half, anchovies on the other half.

[00:00:46]- [Arlo] That's right, 24/7 pizza, here in the world's most remote natural laboratory.

[00:01:00]- [Caitlin] Home to penguins and seals.

[00:01:04]- [Arlo] A weird glacier that seems to spew blood.

[00:01:08]- [Caitlin] And a fiery active volcano, all of which we plan to see, but right now, I'm stuck under a snowmobile wondering how I ended up here with this impossibly upbeat guy.

[00:01:24]- Whoo!

[00:01:32]- [Caitlin] Normally, I'm nowhere near here, I'm here, as a science documentary producer for NOVA.

[00:01:40]- What powerful forces drove the poles to such extremes?

[00:01:43]- [Caitlin] We're working on an epic special called "Polar Extremes" about the climate history of our planet's poles.

[00:01:50]- Find out the true power of ice.

[00:01:53]- This is amazing out here.

[00:01:55]- It got us wondering, - Extreme.

[00:01:56]- how do scientists work all this stuff out - On NOVA.

[00:02:00]- [Caitlin] What does it take to live and work in these crazy, remote regions?

[00:02:06]Well, there's only one way to find out.

[00:02:09]Arlo, we're going to Antarctica.

[00:02:12]- What?

[00:02:15]So let's go.

[00:02:18]I make web videos for NOVA, and this is my first field assignment, follow the trail of scientists to the most remote place on earth and stay there for a month.

[00:02:33]Sounds fun.

[00:02:36]First stop, New Zealand, where everyone heading as south as you can sail gears up for the cold.

[00:02:49]- [Caitlin] It has got to be the biggest winter closet in the world, stuffed with polar gear lent out to people like us, heading to Antarctica.

[00:03:03]- They're probably rated to about minus 40, minus 50.

[00:03:07]- 50 below?

[00:03:08]I am not built for that!

[00:03:10]Living 16 years in Mexico doesn't really give you an experience with snow.

[00:03:15]- [Caitlin] Getting this gear is a rite of passage for traveling to Antarctica.

[00:03:19]- [Arlo] Giant red parka?

[00:03:21]- Check. Okay.

[00:03:23]- [Arlo] Clown boots?

[00:03:25]- [Caitlin] Check.

[00:03:26]That's what this is for?

[00:03:27]- Snot wiper gloves.

[00:03:29]- Check and check - Bring on the white stuff.

[00:03:37]- [Arlo] There are no commercial flights where we're going so we get to fly in this, a US Air Force C-17.

[00:03:53]Operation Deep Freeze provides transport to the continent for the US Antarctic Program.

[00:04:03]It's much more than just a flight, it's a portal to another realm.

[00:04:08]- They just told us to turn off our electronic devices.

[00:04:11]- We're about to go back in time to the 1990s. - All right, guys, welcome aboard.

[00:04:15]Flight time to McMurdo station, approximately five hours.

[00:04:18]- [Caitlin] Everyone going to the ice bundles up in the cargo hold.

[00:04:23]There are no windows, so the only view is this curious-looking polar equipment, but when we head up to the cockpit, we catch our first glimpse of Antarctica.

[00:04:40]Patchy sea ice gives way to desolate, snow-covered mountains.

[00:04:54]- [Arlo] Soon, we land on what feels like another planet.

[00:04:59]As the C-17 doors open, polar air blasts in.

[00:05:03]You can actually see it.

[00:05:08]We step out onto the ice, and in the distance, there are these monstrous vehicles.

[00:05:16]- [Caitlin] To me, it's a scene straight out of "Star Wars," like I've just stepped onto Hoth.

[00:05:25]We've arrived, and it is truly awesome!

[00:05:34]- [Elaine] Okay, everybody has some seat belts on.

[00:05:37]- [Arlo] We are met by Elaine Hood.

[00:05:39]- [Elaine] Speed limit is 15 miles an hour.

[00:05:42]- [Arlo] She takes us to the top of a hill overlooking our new home, McMurdo Station, the US Antarctic Program's base of operations.

[00:05:52]- The station was built originally in 1955, '56, by the US Navy.

[00:05:57]It's the southernmost point on the face of the earth that you can sail a ship, but right now, this flat white that you're looking at is the annual sea ice.

[00:06:09]- [Arlo] Awesome!

[00:06:10]- [Caitlin] Elaine is more than just our tour guide.

[00:06:13]- Follow the umbrella.

[00:06:15]- She's basically our Antarctic mom.

[00:06:18]She makes sure that we wear our gloves and hats, and- - And we know where our pencils and our panties are.

[00:06:25]Elaine shows us the ropes.

[00:06:26]- Use your pen.

[00:06:28]- [Arlo] And helps us start to understand our new world.

[00:06:31]- That's what I do.

[00:06:34]- [Arlo] She tells us McMurdo is kind of a hopping-off point for expeditions into the deep field.

[00:06:40]- [Caitlin] We are so excited to get out there- So just taking a helicopter- And explore some of the wildest parts of Antarctica with scientists, but we can't.

[00:06:52]For now, we're stuck in this bizarre outpost.

[00:06:56]- It's got like this post-apocalyptic vibe going on for it.

[00:07:01]It feels like you're in another world.

[00:07:04]- [Caitlin] McMurdo has 105 buildings, with about 900 people in the summer.

[00:07:13]Just like the scientists, - [Caitlin] we're given a lab space to set up shop, and like everyone who arrives here for the first time, before we can do what we came here to do, we've got to learn how to live down here.

[00:07:28]♪ You're as cold as ice ♪ - [Arlo] And it is a strange place to live.

[00:07:33]♪ Sacrifice our love ♪ - It's kinda like college.

[00:07:38]We have dorms, we have roommates, it kinda looks just like college.

[00:07:43]- [Arlo] But the kind of classes that we are taking are snowmobiles 101, - Who's never ridden snowmobile before?

[00:07:50]- [Arlo] and intro to not falling down an ice crack.

[00:07:53]- What's gonna happen when the crack starts moving underneath the snow?

[00:07:57]- [Caitlin] Even though a lot of this is pretty cool, the reality of just how extreme this environment is starts to sink in.

[00:08:05]Have you ever had to rescue anyone who's screwed up with their GPS?

[00:08:08]- Yeah, well, we've had to go get people that used the GPS inappropriately and got themselves in a situation where they got lost, and there's also been people that have been lost in whiteouts and basically died of exposure.

[00:08:18]It is a harsh continent.

[00:08:23]- It's a little windy today.

[00:08:25]It really hits us: there are a lot of ways we can die down here.

[00:08:34]- The weather can turn in a matter of minutes, be in full blizzard, windchill factor to, you know, negative 50 degrees, and you can get frostbite super easy.

[00:08:46]- [Caitlin] While in college, it felt like my life depended on doing well in class, now, it actually does.

[00:08:54]The lives of others do, too.

[00:08:56]- [Arlo] And it's easy to forget even the simple things.

[00:09:00]Mac Ops, we have four vehicles, and our ETA is 16:00 hours.

[00:09:10]- Over.

[00:09:10]- Over. - Copy that.

[00:09:14]- [Caitlin] When I first got down here, I felt like I was on top of the world, but now it starts to feel a bit more like the bottom of the world.

[00:09:26]- [Arlo] Nothing seems to be going for us.

[00:09:29]Training and bad weather have kept us stuck near the station and we can't even claim the continent for NOVA because the one time we want that biting wind to blow, it doesn't.

[00:09:42]That's the saddest NOVA flag possible.

[00:09:46]- [Caitlin] We've been in Antarctica for a week, the sun has never set, but the time we have here is slipping away.

[00:09:56]I'm exhausted, disoriented, and I feel like we're just stuck in a closet, checking camera gear.

[00:10:02]- Yeah, and then rotate.

[00:10:04]- [Caitlin] Home is a world away, and we're just a small team of three.

[00:10:11]We haven't filmed a single scientific sequence.

[00:10:16]I'm starting to think, "I'm not sure I can do this."

[00:10:24]But then I realize this feeling is totally normal.

[00:10:29]- When I got here, I thought it's miserable in the most inspiring way (chuckles).

[00:10:34]- [Group member] Sources used.

[00:10:35]- Being away from your family, working on really hard stuff that no one's ever tried to do before, it was the hardest thing I'd ever done in the most beautiful place I could imagine.

[00:10:46]- [Arlo] We are surrounded by some of the most remarkable people who have all gone through this.

[00:10:53]- It's really challenging to do stuff down here, and because of that, there's still a lot of unexplored things and unanswered questions, and that's really cool, so it is really a frontier down here.

[00:11:02]- [Caitlin] We came here to join them at this frontier- Finding everything- as they conduct groundbreaking research.

[00:11:08]- Sky temp can see hundreds of meters into the ground.

[00:11:11]- [Arlo] We will soar through majestic valleys that scientists use as an analog for other planets.

[00:11:17]- [Guest speaker] Perhaps it's like a deep groundwater system that might exist on Mars.

[00:11:21][Caitlin] We'll plunge to the depths of the icy ocean with a robot that aims to help figure out how fast the sea level will rise.

[00:11:28]- [Guest speaker] It's incredibly unstable.

[00:11:29]The grounding line is rapidly retreating.

[00:11:32]- [Arlo] We'll meet baby seals and learn how they survive in this harsh environment.

[00:11:37]- [Guest speaker] They're under the ice that we're standing on right now.

[00:11:40]- [Arlo] and investigate a mysterious glacier in a part of Antarctica that isn't covered in ice.

[00:11:46]- [Guest speaker] Blood falls is a bit of an obsession for a lot of people.

[00:11:51]- [Caitlin] We'll fly to the top of an active volcano to get a glimpse of what our planet was like hundreds of millions of years ago.

[00:12:00]My snot is freezing.

[00:12:01]- And so is your hair.

[00:12:03]- [Arlo] We brought a 360 camera along, so when we meet the penguins, you will, too.

[00:12:13]- [Caitlin] We will plant that NOVA flag.

[00:12:18]- [Arlo] And we'll meet the people who make the science possible.

[00:12:21]- There's this really tight-knit community.

[00:12:24]It's kinda like a weird, cold, icy family.

[00:12:29]I still get excited every time coming down, and I get excited bringing new people, and exposing them to that experience, and watching through their eyes what it's like, 'cause it really is an amazing experience.

[00:12:40]- [Caitlin] We aren't simply following the trail of scientists, we're in their shoes, literally, which means we have got to get these snowmobiles out.

[00:12:55]I brought some extra batteries, and spoons.

[00:13:00]Like a spoon?

[00:13:02]- [Arlo] I'll take a spoon.

[00:13:13]Antarctica, here we come!