- I still have a lot to do to prepare.
I have to read over all my biographies of polar explorers.
- This is your heroic age gear right here.
(upbeat music)
Hi there, my name's John Priscu
and I'm an Antarctic explorer.
Spent about seven years of my life on that continent.
I'm here to talk about "Atypical".
- As my crew, I will need you to help me train.
- Not it.
- So, I'm a polar biologist, but I'm beyond that.
I'm a polar ecologist and I'm gonna throw out
a really big buzzword, I'm a biogeophysicist, how's that?
I try and do everything and bring it together
to understand how these icy environments fit into the world.
- I'd like to go to Antarctica.
It's quiet there,
except in the rookeries where the penguins breed.
- There is one person every 10,000 square miles down there.
And yes, the penguins do make a racket and they stink.
- [Sam Voiceover] There's a type of Antarctic cod
that has a special protein in its blood
that stops it from freezing.
- These fish can swim at 28 degrees Fahrenheit,
the temperature of the ocean down there,
and they do not freeze and they are very good to eat.
They're called Chilean Sea Bass in the restaurants.
And these fish are five feet long
and weigh about 140 pounds.
So, they're really easy to think about
and when you see them, they look ancient.
- Of the three basic needs for survival:
food, water, and shelter,
in Antarctica, finding water is never a problem.
- Oh, wait a minute. You gotta find liquid water.
(chuckles) Not just water, not ice water.
We spend a lot of our time turning
solid water into liquid water, so that we can drink it.
- The emperor penguins in Antarctica are in danger of
extinction, due to climate change.
I will document this colony using my art
in order to capture their essence.
- Penguin populations are changing
drastically in Antarctica.
And it's related to the extent of the sea ice because
the sea ice is disappearing because of a warming climate.
- If it were really, really cold, like Antarctica cold,
the coldness would feel like a sound.
The cold would be so intense that you could hear it.
I would like to hear that sound.
- You can hear the cold because the air is so dense
at that temperature, minus 50, the sounds change.
So, and you not only hear the cold,
you feel it, you live it,
it just permeates your whole being.
- I don't like getting in water that people have touched.
- Oh, people do much worse than that.
Guarantee this babies been peed in hundreds of times.
- Well, (chuckles) that's,
- [Sam Voiceover] If one man can protect millions of Marine
animals just by swimming, one quick dip can certainly
help fix things with Paige.
- I'm totally into protecting Antarctica.
It is the last best place,
and I think it'll stay that way a long time
because it's so harsh.
- [Sam Voiceover] Antarctica is the most remote
continent on the planet.
It has 90% of the world's ice,
but it's considered a desert because the annual rainfall
is only about eight inches.
You wouldn't think it was a desert when you looked at it.
- It's a polar desert.
It's the coldest, driest, highest desert on Earth.
- [Sam Voiceover] That's why I like it.
It's not what it looks like.
- The life that you're showing there,
is really around the fringes of the continent.
Most of the continent, the real desert is when you get up
near the South Pole and it just blows you away
when you see it.
- [Sam Voiceover] You probably wouldn't expect this,
but Antarctica has 37 named volcanoes.
Many of them buried under thick layers of ice.
- The highest population in Antarctica is on Ross island.
And Ross island has the United States base, McMurdo Station,
which houses a thousand people.
And it's got the New Zealand base, Scott Base,
which has maybe 50 people in the summer.
But looming behind all those bases is Mount Erebus
and it is an active volcano.
And you just see that thing spewing smoke out
and streaming it all year round.
It's a real fire and ice situation down there.
- [Sam Voiceover] The lava creates heated caves.
So, even in this landscape of relentless cold,
you can find hidden pockets of warmth.
- And these hidden pockets of warm,
it provides a habitat for life.
Find it in a place that it shouldn't be,
but you get these little microhabitats
that are at the interface between fire and ice.
- And Mom, food availability is very limited in Antarctica.
So, I need to expand my palette.
Here are some recipes.
Please make them for family dinner this week.
- Sam, one thing you want to make sure,
I don't know what's on those recipes you had,
but you want to make sure it's freeze-dried
or frozen because that's what it's gonna be.
And then you're gonna need some heat to thaw it out
and melt ice to liquid water, to do your cooking.
So, it's a little more complicated,
but I think you'll figure it out.
- What is pemmican?
- It's a paste made from fish and other meats.
(girl gagging)
- And what is hoosh?
- It's an Antarctic stew made from meat and snow.
Traditionally, the meat would be penguin or seal,
but please don't do that.
- I don't think that's the right diet.
A lot of the early polar explorers had issues
because it wasn't balanced.
It's extraordinarily high in fats,
which definitely is a high-energy food for the cold.
But you have to have vitamins, too.
- Okay, does everyone know their jobs?
- You've gotta move from the heroic age,
you gotta put it in a modern context.
We have better food, we have better clothing now.
Sam, you gotta update your itinerary, dude.
I spend my whole life thinking every day about Antarctica.
I think the more we can talk about it,
make people aware of Antarctica.
The more we have a focal point for environmental concerns
on our, on Earth in general.
Thanks so much for watching
and make sure you do check out "Atypical" on Netflix.