My name is Sarah Bouckoms, and I'm excited to tell you why I love Antarctica so much.
I stared out at the white abyss of the flat landscape as far as I could see. It was a bright blue day, the sun shining off into the horizon to show a few puffy white clouds hinting at a storm. But it was 3:00 am and I was done doing my business so I thought I’d better get off the toilet before my bum froze. Going to the bathroom in a field camp on Windless Bite of the Ross Ice Shelf has got to be the most beautiful toilets I have ever come across (or maybe it was the view that made it beautiful?). The toilet, which was a plastic bag inside a five gallon drum was decidedly subpar. Despite it being a beautiful view, I still wished I could pee standing up. It was not easy to be a girl in an Antarctic field camp.
I often ask myself how I even managed to be in Antarctica in the first place? It certainly wasn’t something I thought of as a kid. I was very quiet and shy. I liked running around with my friends outside, looking for frogs in the stream and turning over rocks to find salamanders. I was naturally curious about the world. Little did I know, I was an explorer in the making.
My family comes from New Zealand and America with Scottish, Polish and Belgian heritage.
