Ï㽶ÊÓƵ

News

Montreal Gazette - Antarctic mission emboldens McGill students' passion

Published: 25 March 2011

Lick the seasickness, Eric Galbraith says, and there's no place on Earth to beat Antarctica. Maybe that's because Antarctica doesn't actually feel like Earth at all.

"Antarctica is as close as you can get to being on another planet," says Galbraith, an oceanographer and professor of marine biochemistry at Ï㽶ÊÓƵ. "You leave Argentina, and it takes two days to get there through the Drake Passage. You travel through this grey, windy cloud. Then the sun comes out, and there's this crazy, beautiful, amazing world."

Galbraith has just returned from his seventh trip to the polar ends of the Earth, where he and a group of McGill students took part in Students on Ice. Now in it's 10th year, the two-week field study course enables researchers and students from campuses across Canada to conduct research, admire the scenery and check out the wildlife—in this case, penguins and seals that were curious and not the least bit afraid of the strange beings wandering across their beach.

Back to top