Masc Mandate 3

Last winter, I spent eleven weeks in Antarctica. I was doing field work there, studying partially metamorphosed snow, or firn. I spent four of those weeks camping on the Antarctic Ice Sheet at a remote field site called Taylor Dome, where I helped deploy four firn monitoring stations.

Antarctica was, as one might expect, a bit brutal. Small tasks took an incredible amount of effort and time to complete and the 24-hour sunlight really messed with my circadian rhythm.

Despite the challenge of being in this environment, I found immense peace in Antarctica. On calm days, if I turned off my snowmobile and stood still, the world was completely silent. If I looked up, I’d see tiny rainbows floating in the sky above me as the sun reflected off the suspended ice crystals. In these moments, there was nowhere else I would have rather been.

In a sense, there was nowhere else I could go. I was stuck in Antarctica and forced to sit with myself for weeks on end – something I had never done before. This was incredibly humbling. I had endless time to think about the person I was before Antarctica and who I wanted to be when I stepped back on U.S. soil.

Every day, I wrote, reflected, listened to the silence, and squinted at the sun. In a place where I was entirely out of my comfort zone, I think I became a little bit more myself. Being self-made in a world that wants to put you in a box is a formidable challenge, and the interviewees in this zine can attest to that. 

Please remove your mask and enjoy.

Love,

Claire Jensen