From the engine room the steel frame of our ship looks like Jell-O: the Razor-sharp ice chunks, called ‘growlers,’ hammer at the metal ship as we try to pave a path of escape, and they make the ship flex from the outside in. Fears of a breach creep in: we tell nervous jokes about the […] More »

It’s five days until Christmas for environmental activists in the Antarctic Oceans. Most of them have sacrificed annual quality time with their families in their warm, safe homes this year. Instead, they’ve opted to sail around the southern oceans in wet, stormy, and extremely cold conditions in the hopes of tracking and stopping illegal whaling. […] More »

She beats a heavy heart that is her engine. She seemingly jumps up to the sky and crashes down into her own wake in the open ocean, only to repeat it again and again. She is as cold as death. Yet there is a quickening to her pace as she heads toward history-making. She is […] More »

They are both Canadian, in their mid-20’s, female and with long brunette hair. One women is on a high-speed inflatable boat called a Zodiac in the Pacific Ocean. The other, on the bridge of an entirely black 59-metre Scottish patrol vessel in the Antarctic Ocean. The woman in the Zodiac steers her inflatable in front […] More »

[Editor’s note: today we introduce “Polarized,” Emily Hunter‘s dispatches from Antarctica, where she is documenting Sea Shepherd‘s 2008-2009 anti-whaling campaign aboard the Steve Irwin. The campaign lasts until the spring, and Emily will periodically post her writing, photos, and video on BLOG THIS.] Sitting in a grey room that feels as cold and stale as […] More »