Season 5 Episode 2 Transcript George Washington Gibbs Jr

Alok: [Let me take you on a journey. To the coldest place on earth, and its last and greatest wilderness. On a voyage to Antarctica…]

Hello and welcome back to A Voyage to Antarctica, brought to you by the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust. I’m Alok Jha. 

Leilani Raashida Henry has a unique and very personal connection to the history we’ll be exploring in this week’s episode. She’ll be talking to us about her father: the pioneering Antarctic explorer and civil rights leader, George Washington Gibbs Jr. 

Born in Florida during the Jim Crow segregation era, Gibbs enlisted in the US Navy in 1935, and  went South aboard the USS Bear, under veteran polar explorer Admiral Richard E. Byrd. On 14 January 1940, Gibbs made history as the first black man to set foot in ‘Little America’ and the first recorded person of African descent known to have landed on the Antarctic continent. 

 

Leilani - an author, public speaker, executive coach and leadership consultant - pieced together her father’s story after his death from diaries and contemporary accounts. She wrote a book inspired by his life: The Call of Antarctica: Exploring and Protecting Earth’s Coldest Continent and also followed in her father’s footsteps on two expeditions to Antarctica.

Alok: we're here to talk about your father, George Washington Gibbs Jr. talk to me about his childhood. So where was he born? Where did he grow up? What was life like for young George? 

 

Leilani: Well, he grew up in Jacksonville, Florida. And as the story goes, he was about seven or eight sitting on the stoop of his house, realizing that there was more to life than the Jim Crow era. And poverty in Jacksonville, Florida, and I think that he realized that he was destined for greatness, even though he didn't know what that was. And then fast forward to teenage years, he had some encounters where his father said, you know, you probably eventually don't want to be in Florida because You're not as respected and you probably will die if you just stay because he was feisty.

 

So as a feisty young person, he left school early because of the depression and went into the CCC camps to help with the national parks and the other parts of the United States and then decided to enlist into the Navy. 

 

Alok: And just to sort of paint that picture out a little bit more, this is the early 20th century.

 

You mentioned that this is Jim Crow era America. And for many people listening to this podcast, they might not know what Jim Crow era America was. And, you know, people have kind of stopped talking about it. But Just remind people what it meant for someone living in Jacksonville, Florida at the time.

 

Leilani: Okay, well let me back up and say that he was born in 1916, and so then the depression was the 30s, and then he enlisted in the Navy in 34, I think it was. And so, segregation is really the best way to describe what was happening in the United States. So, Black people and white people weren't living together.

 

And there were laws on the books where Black people couldn't be out at night. There were only certain jobs that Black people were able to do. Second class citizens, basically. So when he looked for employment after the CCC camp and after being in the military for four years, he was in a paper mill. And it was a very, you know, dirty, smelly, hot job.

 

And that was all he could find. So that's when he decided to re enlist. 

 

Alok: And this is the context in which his father was telling him, you know, you'd better leave Jacksonville because this is not a place for you. 

 

Leilani: Right. You know, he didn't take any crap, quote unquote, from anyone. So, one story I read about was that a police officer asked what he was doing there and ended up escalating and the police officer tried to kick him and my father grabbed his foot. Now in today's world, you'd be on the ground in a second. But in the world of the 30s and 40s, you know, you could still do some things and get away with it. So he grabbed the policeman's foot and said, you know, I'm not doing anything wrong.

 

Please leave me alone. And somehow that de escalated the situation. 

 

Alok: So these are all pointers to his father's advice being good. And then so when he re enlisted in the Navy and was sent on this expeditionThis was Admiral Byrd's third polar expedition, which George was assigned to, talking the late 1930s, early 1940s, during the Second World War.

 

This is on USS Bear. Just talk to us about what the purpose of that expedition was, what were Americans doing going south? 

 

Leilani: The first thing to know is that it was a classified mission, and Admiral Byrd was asked by President Roosevelt to partner, because he was on his way to do his third private expedition, and the president called and said, due to the impending war, due to the fact that the Germans in 1938 are going to Antarctica, we don't know what they're up to.

 

We want to have our presence on the continent. And so, you know, he was actually directed to work together with the government and because it was a secret mission, it was not known exactly what they were doing. And in my research, working with diaries of other people, it was clear they weren't exactly sure on the two ships, what the destiny was.

 

But basically they were down there to establish a presence. They wanted to establish three bases. One which was a snow cruiser that didn't make it as a base. They built two bases. The United States took its time with establishing any territory or any presence in Antarctica. And so I think the government decided it was time to establish a presence.

 

They couldn't really establish any territories formally, so the idea was if we established bases that shows that we're living down there all year round, that would give us the benefit of actually having a presence. 

 

Alok: This is happening in the late 1930s, and I suppose it's funny because you usually think of the Americans doing all these things first, right? But the British, the Norwegians, and others that we talked about in this podcast were doing that from the late 19th century, beginning of the 20th century, so the Americans were late to this.

 

Leilani: Definitely. And it's still kind of a mystery why it's not on the radar as much as it is for other countries. But there was a hundred years before that, 1839, there was a government expedition and then Admiral Byrd's third was then a hundred years later. 

 

Alok: And when that expedition started in 1939, tell me about George. How old was he? How was he feeling at the time? What did he write in his diaries? 

 

Well, the amazing thing to me is that he wrote every day for six months. I've tried to do that, and I can't get to six months.

 

Alok: Tells you something about his character, right? 

 

Leilani: Yeah, exactly. A lot of the other diaries I looked at, no one wrote every day for six months. It was intermittent. So I think that maybe someone advised him that this could be his ticket if he wrote a book or if he documented what he experienced. And so he was committed to doing that night or day, no matter how rough the seas were, he wrote in the diary.

 

Alok: Well, can you read us a little bit of the diary then? So this is early on in the expedition. What was he writing? 

 

Leilani: January 7th. In route for Little America, still in heavy fog, but the sea is much calmer. Today we are in the Antarctic Circle. I was told that we should arrive today, a week in Little America.

 

Today, everyone is asking himself why. Is he participating in this expedition? I inspected and went aboard the Barkley Grow this morning for the first time. It was also my first time in an airplane. The Barkley Grow is Admiral Byrd's seaplane. 

 

Alok: There's so much going on in that, isn't there? I mean, not only is he on his way to some amazing location, which very few people have ever been to especially in 1939, but also he's on some sort of classified mission.

 

And? It's his first time in an airplane. I mean, he seems very calm about the whole thing, to be honest. 

 

Leilani: Yes, and I can also mention that November 22nd was the first day that they sailed. And the summer before that, they'd been scraping paint on the Bear. The USS Bear is the most famous ship in the United States Coast Guard.

 

And Edwin Byrd took it out of a museum for a dollar, because that's the only ship that he trusted to go down again. But the men did not agree. Because it was a 66 year old wooden ship. So they took bets. One of the diary entries prior to January 7th was, It's the fifth day. We think the ship is going to sink.

 

We don't think it's going to make it. So they had the pressure of being on this old ship, going through the ice, not knowing what they were doing, where they were going. So yeah, it was a lot going on. 

Alok: How long did George spend on Antarctica? So he arrived in around 1939. When did he leave? 

 

So Leilani: it was two round trips. So they left November 22nd, 1939. They arrived January 14th, 1940. They worked on the ice building the bases and they left late March. By the time they get home was the summer of 1940 and they left again October of 1940 and arrived 1941 to rescue the scientists that were on the ice. And then they got home maybe June 1941 and went right to World War II. 

Alok: And just so we get more of a picture of what he was doing on the ship. So what was his role on the ship? What was the job he was given? 

 

Leilani: Mess Attendant 3, which was the lowest rank on the ship. And again, for context, black people in America could only do certain jobs, and in the Navy, there were only the lowest level of job. Not that those jobs were bad, it's just that if you had any other talent, it didn't matter.

 

That was your job. So, making beds, cutting potatoes, cutting onions, washing the decks, working with the officers, Maybe even doing laundry. 

 

Alok: he wrote about how monotonous the job was, right?

 

And how he felt about it. There's another diary entry from February the 2nd. I wonder if you could read that for us as well. It really gives a sense of his frame of mind. 

 

I'm doing the same thing every day. And at times I think I will go nuts, especially when I think about my race being limited to the one branch of service, regardless of the many qualifications that members of my race have.

 

However, with the little courage and faith I have left and lived by, after these four years are up, I will try something that will offer me a better opportunity in accomplishing something in life, rather than just occupying a space. 

Alok: Wow, I mean, he's really got a plan, hasn't he? 

Leilani: And he's 23. He's 23, by the way.

Alok: And I think you said earlier, you know, he saw that writing a diary might be a ticket to something better. But also, this expedition, it sounds like he's thinking the same thing. It's like, this is way below my abilities to be doing all the things that I've been asked to do here. But I have a plan. And so therefore, he's kind of philosophically in his mind.

Leilnai: Yeah, I think that Antarctica builds character. And I think about what it means to me and the Antarctic scientists that I've worked with, the people in the labs, all kinds of jobs. But I think Antarctica touches people in a way that you want to be a better person.

You want to find something that's connected, that's bigger than you. Bigger than your life and I think that that was already his character and then Antarctica and the People that he was on the ship with brought that out in him 

MUSIC BREAK 1 

So when did he reach the continent then? He's on his way, he's doing all this manual labour and just being bored, but he has a plan.

When did he reach and what did he write at the time? 

January 14th, anchored this morning in the Bay of Whales at the South Pole, and digging holes in the ice with picks and shovels. This is the only way of tying the ship up along the ice. There aren't any docks at all. Was I surprised? When the bear came up to the ice, close enough for me to get ashore, I was the first man aboard the ship to set foot in Little America and help tie her lines deep into the snow.

I met Admiral Bird. He shook my hand and welcomed me to Little America and for being the first Negro to set foot in Little America. 

Alok: Little America being what they're calling this bit of Antarctica, right? It's not called that anymore, I'm assuming. 

Leilani: Well, it's Little America 1 to Little America 5. It's still on the map.

So this is Little America 3. Yeah, it's since floated away. One of the bases that they built, the West Base, has since floated away on an iceberg. But the East Base is still standing and it's not too far from Rothera. And it's a museum. 

Alok: What happened when he got to Antarctica? Did he continue being a mess attendant? Did he get other jobs? 

Leilani: The beautiful thing about the leadership on this ship and on this expedition is that All hands on deck, no matter what color the hands were.

And so, everyone did every job. So, if there was, I mean, they caught penguins with their bare hands. He wasn't trained to do that. 

Whatever needed to be done, if that person was in line to do something next, then they would just get chosen. So I think it was a combination of, he had this courage and zeal that the admirals, the captain selected him for different jobs, and also they just needed everybody to be versatile.

And all the things that were needed on board. 

Alok: I mean, he was obviously excited about going there, but he must also have been a bit frightened because people didn't know anything about that place, really, at the time. And the little jobs him and his colleagues were sent out to do, including catching penguins.

It was dangerous, thick fog, they couldn't see, they had no communications. Just paint a picture of that. I mean, what was he saying about those things? What was he thinking about those things at the time, the jobs he was asked to do? 

Leilani: Well, he never really said that it was dangerous. But, of course, I know based on research that it was dangerous.

That he talked about someone falling into a crevasse. He talked about one of the scientists on the ice trying to commit suicide from being on the ice for a year. So again, backing up the job of the crew was to set up these bases so that 59 scientists could stay for two years. So what happened was because of the war, they pulled the project.

And so they had to go back down and pick up the scientists. and evacuate and they all went immediately to war. So, you know, he never said, Oh, this was dangerous or that was dangerous. But I think from reading other people's diaries, it was dangerous. Like for example, your feet and your hands get cold.

Another thing is that the water. came all over the ship. So they had the danger of being wet sleeping in their beds or slipping on the ice on the deck, falling down the hatch, those kinds of things. So even just their daily living was dangerous, not to mention the crevasses and driving the dog sleds, building the bases.

Several times the ship was Stuck in the ice and the second ship, the North Star went back to Argentina to get supplies in case they were going to be stuck for a year. 

Alok: Not to mention, of course, that George went off for walks by himself as well in amongst all of this. It wasn't, you know, risky enough, but he also wanted to just, I don't know, what did he want to do?Just to have a look at the continent by himself? 

 

Leilani: Yeah, well, it's so beautiful. The beauty, the quiet. The solitude and just being curious about, well, what is this? But you're right, when the rowboats went out to collect penguins or do other small tasks, they got lost in the fog. And at one point he said he couldn't see his hand in front of his face.

The fog was that thick. And they had to find the ship. Eventually, the horn on the ship rang. So they followed the sound. 

Alok: It sounds like he was fully participating in all aspects of the expedition, you know, whether it's on the ship or off doing the scientific research, collecting materials. And you say the admiral who's leading everything was impressed with him. How were the rest of the fellow officers on the ship? What did they think of him?

How did they treat him?

Leilani: Well, there were what we call middle management. Officers that were uncomfortable. So perhaps they were officers for the operations. There were some hardcore people that weren't comfortable with him and.

You know, were maybe bullying, the word that we would use now. And, most of the people liked him. Most of the people admired him. And, I feel like the officers, the captain and so forth, protected him. They gave him awards, they gave him, you know, these jobs that he could do. I also wanted to mention, to go back and say that, You know, in his diary, it sounded like he just jumped off the ship as the first man.

But in my research, they actually orchestrated that. So Admiral Byrd talked to one of the scientists. And they decided to give him this privilege. Because you can imagine the Navy, I mean, you don't do anything without permission. So they orchestrated him getting off first and being the first. So I have even more admiration for that leadership.

Because they were thinking ahead as to what are the things that would benefit everyone. Particularly him. 

Alok: I mean, obviously he must have had a unique perspective. Compared to his shipmates at the time. 

And you've talked elsewhere about sailing to and from Antarctica, meeting indigenous people and people of color along the way. Just talk to us a little bit about that. What have you learned in kind of perspectives that people can bring when they're not the usual people that go to these sorts of places? 

Leilani: I think he admired learning about the Maori's and learning about the royalty. I mean, they didn't treat women like we would like women to be treated today.

So there were some patriarchal things, comments that he made. But he also talked about how people were treated, he was accepted, they were curious about him, they asked about his life, which was different than the white scientists or the white crew members didn't even mention that they met Maoris. Also, they met indigenous people now called Kowaskers, Indians from Chile.

But he was just touched by seeing different people, seeing what their lifestyles were, curious about how they functioned and, you know, what their laws were, what their values were, and most importantly, that he was respected, that no one questioned him as a human being like was happening in the United States, always a question about who are you and why are you here? And you don't deserve to be here. 

Alok: Yeah, he definitely deserved to be there and he was in fact, issued commendations by the leadership a couple of times. In fact, what did those sort of awards mean to him?

Leilnai: Well, he kept all his medals in a box. He had several that I unearthed after he passed away. And He was a very humble person, so I didn't really understand how magnanimous he was during his time in the Navy. You know, you get the medals and you see the medals, but as a kid, oh, this was his whole life before he had a family.

So, you know, I wasn't really that interested in it, and I think he was humble. But all the citations were there about his courage and his zeal, he used to say the phrase, you know, stick your neck out. He stuck his neck out for other people. I think I read later that he did help pull this person out of the crevasse, you know, maybe prevented someone from falling into a crevasse.

So acts of bravery that I think he just took for granted. He was fit and he just took those things for granted. 

Alok: Whenever you talk to people about, You know, going to Antarctica and all of that, people say, you know, it kind of profoundly moves them and changes them. I wonder, in your father did he express a desire to go back?

Well, the joke was, if you saw George Gibbs as a speaker at a conference, You knew what he was going to talk about, which was Antarctica. So he talked about it for the rest of his life.

He was very proud that he served. He was proud of the accomplishments of Admiral Byrd in particular, accomplishments of the ship, the things that they mapped and they discovered. So he was very proud of that. I learned later. That he wanted to go back. I think it was the I. P. Y. The fifty eight fifty nine and he applied to go and I found a letter in his files later that turned him down and that's when he retired from the Navy.

Alok: So he never went back, but he really wanted to. 

Leilani: I think he did. And he also wanted to have a reunion of the people on the ship. And he had talked about that later in life, and that never happened as well. But it was a pivotal experience. 

MUSIC BREAK 2

Alok: Obviously, you came along many years after he came back from Antarctica,

I just wonder, did you grow up listening to stories about Antarctica? What did it mean to you growing up? What was this place that Dad kept talking about? 

Leilani: I have to be honest and say, it didn't mean a lot. I didn't understand, I didn't connect with it. My friends in sixth grade remember. That he talked to my class.

This is, uh, 11th, 12 years old. So some of the boys remember some things. I remember in elementary school, he talked about the ice palace. And the ice palace was the toilet that they built for the scientists. That were staying on the ice. And you also needed, when you went to the Ice Palace, you took a hot water bottle.

So in case you got stuck to the Ice Palace 

Alok: Oh, no. 

Leilani: Sometimes people had to help you dislodge from the Ice Palace. So, you know, I remember at eight years old, that's one of the stories I remember. 

Alok: This is the kind of thing we don't hear about too much, which is people being stuck between blocks of ice in very intimate moments of vulnerability back in the day before normal toilets were available

It was a completely different time, right? It's an amazing story. When did Antarctica become something that you became interested in then? 

Leilani: Well there were really two things.One is a bit embarrassing. So, I like the store Banana Republic for shopping. And I remember going there to shop and they gave me a bag and Antarctica was on the bag. And that was, I was like, Oh! It's famous! Antarctica's famous! So that was kind of the shallow me. 

So that was the one kind of seed that was planted. And then the seed was when he passed away. So when he passed away on his birthday, November 7th, 2000, he had commissioned someone to write his story. And he always said he wanted to write a book, but he never did. But he had commissioned someone to do that.

So I went to meet with her and she said, I'm sorry, I'm having a family. Uh, my life is changing. I'm giving you all this stuff back. Cause they had already, you know, worked out an outline and so forth. So she gave me everything back. And my first thought was, you know, oh my gosh. This seems important, but what am I going to do?

And then a few months later, really, literally like January of that next year, my mother found his diaries in the back of the dresser that he had lost. They'd slipped behind the dresser and he never found them. And he kept saying, when I asked him about writing a book, he kept saying, well, I, I don't have enough information.

I have to, you know, get more information. And I couldn't understand why. And he never said he lost the diaries. 

So that's when I decided that, well of course I read the diaries when my mother sent them to me. I read them in a weekend, and they read like a film, I mean they read like a bonafide adventure.

And then that's when I said, okay, well this expedition is important. 

Alok: And this is just after your father died. And what happened in your mind then? You said that at that point you decided you're going to tell the story.

Were you a writer? Were you able to think, right, I'm going to be able to write a book

Leilani: I just felt the call. And so my book is called ‘The Call of Antarctica’. I felt that call. of this expedition, that there was little known about the expedition.

I mean, I wondered if it should be a biography, because he did have an amazing life. But, what I did was I started blogging about Antarctica, and understanding a little bit more about climate, and what's happening, and our responsibility. And, so a publisher eventually picked up my writing and she said, You've taken a 20th century story and turned it into a 21st century story.

So what I needed to do was find what was important to me. And so climate, climate change, climate crisis, that was important to me. And then I kind of backfilled. with the information about his story and about the expedition.

Alok: You said you had the diaries, which your mother had found, and you read those. And they're interesting and sort of adventurous enough, but how do you then piece together the rest of the story that you wanted to tell about your father's life, but then also the things you were interested in?

Leilani: Well, I think the first step was that I wrote an article in the American Polar Times. And then people started calling me, and writing me, and inviting me to their house. And invited me to look at their father's diaries. And so that's how I started piecing the story together, was working with other people.

You know, one man hadn't even looked at his father's trunks. I found his father's diary in the trunk he'd never seen. We found pictures of my father in the trunk and found out that both fathers were friends, chipping paint on the bear before the expedition.

So the stories kept me going, and then understanding climate change, and I studied environmental science very briefly, and biology, so I had a little bit of science background. And so that also kept me interested in what is actually happening there. And then the Antarctic Treaty was also very exciting to think that politically, the world did come together at a time when you wouldn't think it would to protect this continent.

And I thought that was intriguing. So everywhere I looked, there was something intriguing about the story. And that kept me going. Although I did stop and start many times. 

Alok: You followed in your father's footsteps, of course, several years after you started to research his story. So in 2012, you made it to Antarctica. Just describe to me what it was like. What happened on the journey? What happened when you got there? 

Leilani: I was on one of the first flights, the Chilean airline. And they had told us we were going to go on Zodiac boats and we were going to do all these amazing things. And when we landed, it was snowing.

And the first thing they said was, well, we're sorry, we might have to cancel this trek in Zodiac that we had planned. And so the phrase is, If you don't like the weather in Antarctica, wait five minutes. So I experienced right away the changeability. And of course we were able to go on Zodiacs, we were able to go see the glacier.

It was very emotional. I did weep when I saw my first glacier and thinking about what they must have seen in 1940, 1941, what they must have seen. 

Alok: And what it must have been like for them as well. I suppose the thing is for us is, now we see pictures of Antarctica regularly, we see great coffee table books with pictures of beautiful icebergs, we've seen documentary films of penguins on these icebergs, but for your father's time and before, they would have seen none of these things really, or very, very little, I mean, small black and white pictures or something like that.

 

There's a scale of what he must have been comprehending when he first saw all of this stuff would have been incredible. 

Leilani: I went to King George Island on my first trip and it was very short. It was a day and a half. I saw wildlife, I saw glaciers, I saw bases, I kind of saw everything in a small scale very quickly and that allowed me to finish the book.

What I didn't realize, or I kind of knew but I couldn't focus on that is, there's so much more that I needed to see and I didn't know if I would ever see it. So just coming back from this National Geographic Lynn Blad tour. It was amazing that I even wrote the book without seeing the peninsula, you know, without really seeing how amazing it is.

I don't think my father saw any pictures before he went. They just went and experienced. And so, the trajectory is, when you go to the peninsula, you know, you see your first iceberg. He wrote about seeing his first iceberg. I noticed, when I saw my first iceberg, for example, you notice about the sea and the waves, and The waves getting seasick and, you know, not being able to function for days and days and days, they were stuck in the sea that was, you know, rolling and pitching the ship at one point, the ship went, I still don't know all my language, my ship language, but it went all the way perpendicular and back again.

 

So again, the danger of just sailing to get there. I was struck by the beauty. No one can tell you the beauty. People can describe it, but you can't really understand it until you see it. It's just stunning. 

Alok: Well, you just mentioned that you've just come back from an expedition, actually, and it was a much more involved expedition, seeing much more of the continent.

Can you talk me through it? And we'll hear some of the recordings you made when you were on the expedition, but just what was the expedition about and how long did it take, where did you go? 

We went to the peninsula. So, we have a model in my book where the Antarctica is your left hand and the peninsula is your thumb.

So, we went about as far as the first knuckle in your thumb. So, there's still a lot to be seen, but I think it was about 63 degrees south, as far as we got.

There's one experience that I had where, in the diaries, Mickelson Island was in my father's diaries, and I had remembered the name. I couldn't find it. I scoured Diary One, and I couldn't find it, but I knew it was in there. I had to go to Diary Two, which I haven't read for years. And found out that where we had just been is where they built an ice field for the plane to evacuate the explorers.

 

Alok: Wow. 

 

Leilani: And so that was just amazing to realize that we had just been there. 

Alok: You were right in the place where your father was, basically. 

I can see the ice shelf for the first time. And there's an iceberg the closest so far to the ship. But seeing the ice shelf and the blue color, it's extraordinary.

Very emotional.

… 

It's just so moving to see the landscape and to see places that my father saw in 1940, which were even more dramatic. We just saw whales, we saw killer whales, and we saw humpback whales.

Alok: I mean, you are living the life now that I think that your father would have liked to live in many ways, right? Telling people about Antarctica, writing books about it, giving talks, going on expeditions, 

Sounds like this was the life that he wanted, and to some extent had. How would your father feel about you continuing his legacy like this? 

Leilani: I think that he would be very happy. And surprised

Alok: surprised!

Leilani: Yeah, I didn't show a lot of interest So I think he would be surprised and delighted Because I think that in a dream he came to me saying - and I really have had my due.

I really have had my Honor, and so don't spend your life honoring me, but live your life. So I think This idea of taking the story and building upon it and encouraging people to work together, encouraging people to work with people who are different from them and Not degrade people and not underestimate people.

And I think all those messages, he would be delighted that I'm carrying those forward. 

Alok: Delighted and I'm sure very proud too, because you've done more than just carried his messages forward. You're building a completely new vision of the place based on the adventure that he almost accidentally went on all those years ago.

Leilani: He definitely accidentally did that. 

Alok: Well, we always ask this to our guests for the final question. Why does Antarctica matter to you? 

Leilani: It's important to me in several ways, I think it builds character.

It helps give us the context of how big or small we are, in terms of human beings, in connection with nature. I think it also builds a group coherence. I think that you realize that you need other people when you're in Antarctica, or even when you're studying Antarctica and you're studying the history, you understand that people need to work together.

You can't do it by yourself. I love that it's a place for peace and collaboration and science, that we have a place that At least at this point, that we've set aside to protect and that it is one of the wildest places left on Earth. And I hope that we keep it that way because Antarctica responds to what we're doing on the planet.

And it's a symbiotic relationship. So what we're doing affects Antarctica and what's happening there affects us. And I think that it's the one place we need to pay attention to for all of perpetuity, which is Admiral Richard E. Byrd's vision as well, that this is a place for us, for humanity and for the future of humanity.

Leilani, thank you so much for your time. It's been such a great conversation. 

Thank you, Alok. It's been fun.

It's like everything here is breathing, ice, the water, the birds, the seal, the people, the air. Everything's breathing.