THE POWER OF PLACE


Emperor penguins at Snow Hill Island, Antarctica


POLAR REGIONS


THIS MUCH I KNOW FELICITY ASTON


OF ALL MY POLAR EXPEDITIONS, THE ONE THAT HAD THE MOST PROFOUND EFFECT ON MY WORLD VIEW WAS MY 2018 TRIP TO THE ARCTIC. There isn’t a ‘hypothetical impact’ of climate change — this is something that’s happening now. It’s our history. Skiing to the North Pole won’t be possible in about five years’ time. The first time someone crossed the surface ocean to stand on the pole, having got there on two feet, was in 1969. In the space of a little over 50 years, we’ll have gone from the first to the last.


MY REASON FOR WANTING TO KEEP RETURNING TO THE POLES IS TO COLLECT DATA. I’ll go back to the Arctic with another team of women in 2022; we’ll be among the last humans to get out on high-latitude ocean sea ice. The world relies heavily on computer models to predict future scenarios, and those are only as good as the data we can collect.


“ The vanishing of the world’s sea ice? It’s a story that still needs to be told.”


HUMANS ARE VULNERABLE TO THE FORCES OF NATURE. When you’re out there standing on the ice, it brings home how inconsequential we are. I don’t just mean the power of sea ice or ocean currents but, say, the magnetic fields that cause Aurora Borealis and Australis. When you witness that one sunrise a year in Antarctica, or when you’re in Siberia


and it’s -60C and you see materials like rubber become as pliable as clay, you realise most humans have a very limited vision of our existence.


WE’RE A TINY SPECK IN THE UNIVERSE, BUT WE PUNCH ABOVE OUR WEIGHT. Humans achieve incredible things and it gives me hope for our planet. I believe we’ll help ourselves through science and human spirit. We’re clever enough, and we should be smart enough.


SOMETIMES IT’S ALL ABOUT WONDER, NOT SCIENCE. I’m well versed in the science of the Northern Lights, but when you’re beneath them, it’s hard to believe they’re anything other than magic. All those folktales you hear about them being created by a celestial fox brushing the sky with its tail, or the souls of the dead playing football with the skull of a walrus — out there, under the endless sky, these make so much more sense than particles coming down a magnetic field.


Felicity Aston MBE is a polar explorer. She’ll be concluding her Royal Geographical Society speaking tour, Polar Exposure: The Women’s Euro-Arabian North Pole Expedition, in November and December 2020. felicityaston.co.uk


| R E AD MOR E ONL INE , FE AT U R ING E X T END ED INT E RVI EWS AND E X T R A CONT ENT #S TAY IN S PI RE D 80 nationalgeographic.co.uk/travel


IMAGE: GETTY


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116  |  Page 117  |  Page 118  |  Page 119  |  Page 120  |  Page 121  |  Page 122  |  Page 123  |  Page 124  |  Page 125  |  Page 126  |  Page 127  |  Page 128  |  Page 129  |  Page 130  |  Page 131  |  Page 132  |  Page 133  |  Page 134  |  Page 135  |  Page 136  |  Page 137  |  Page 138  |  Page 139  |  Page 140  |  Page 141  |  Page 142  |  Page 143  |  Page 144  |  Page 145  |  Page 146  |  Page 147  |  Page 148  |  Page 149