Author arrives to research 'Ice breed'

 

Published by the Communications and Development Department

 

17 September 2003

 

Leslie Roberts has travelled from the American mid-west to track down a rare breed of people - Antarcticans.

 

Leslie, a Fulbright Fellow, will spend a year at Canterbury University’s Gateway Antarctica writing a book examining New Zealand’s relationship with Antarctic exploration and how it has influenced life in Lyttelton and Christchurch. An essayist, with a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from the University of Iowa, Leslie hopes to piece together the stories, anecdotes and experiences of the many Kiwis who have made the journey south to the Ice.

 

“The book is unique in that it is attempting to define a culture most people don’t recognise as such - Antarcticans. It is also trying to trace a line through the long lineage of Antarctic history here in Canterbury. Where does the connection between these small islands and that great ice land begin? How is it changing?”

 

In attempting to define an Antarctican, Leslie said she was reminded of the comments of a US Supreme Court justice when asked to define pornography. “He couldn’t define it but he knew it when he saw it.

 

“We know who we are, we Antarcticans. We feel a compelling connection with a place very, very few people will ever visit.”

 

Leslie fell under the spell of the Antarctic 15 years ago when she spent four months at sea working as a news reporter on a Greenpeace ship.

 

“I was never able to forget the Antarctic and really wanted to get back to it. So I made a conscious decision about six years ago to radically change my life and I packed up my family and moved from San Francisco to the mid-west to pursue creative non-fiction writing.”

 

Leslie estimates that there are upwards of 10,000 Antarcticans worldwide with a couple of thousand living in New Zealand.

 

“I am interested in hearing their stories. I am interested in how the Antarctic inhabits people’s minds, whether they have actually been there or just find themselves reading about it or thinking about it beyond the hobbyist level. I am very curious to learn about their first point of contact with it because part of the book is an investigation as to how the Antarctic inhabits New Zealand culture and forms New Zealand culture.

 

“For too long Antarctic stories have been presented as essentially British stories. I believe New Zealanders’ role in how we understand the Ice has been, and continues to be, profound. “It is in New Zealand that we find the ‘little stories’, as carefully preserved as the pony snowshoes in the museum. It’s a great cultural gift, to keep track of the oral traditions of a place with no indigenous human population."

 

Leslie said the book could only be written in Canterbury. “There is no other place where the history is so deep and pronounced. Lyttelton is the Cape Canaveral of Antarctic exploration.” She said Christchurch was rich in Antarctic resources. “Gateway Antarctica offers a unique, dedicated Antarctic research centre and the city is home to two of the best Antarctic museum collections in the world - at the International Antarctic Centre out by the airport and in the Canterbury Museum. Even the new art gallery has a dedicated space devoted to the Antarctic.”

 

The book is to be titled Amundsen’s Knife.

 

“Amundsen’s knife is in the Canterbury Museum and it’s the knife that he used to cut the bamboo that they used to fly the first flag when they ‘discovered’ the South Pole. I chose it as the name for the book because it’s a simple seaman’s tool that represents an important moment in man’s quest for the unknown. It begins to speak to a lot of the ideas that I’m trying to get at in this book which is how we know ourselves by knowing place, and what the Antarctic represents for us as human beings."

 

Leslie would like to hear from anybody with an Antarctic story to share. She can be contacted via email at lro24@student.canterbury.ac.nz.