Where the Earth Meets the Sky: A Story of Penguins, People, and Place in Antarctica

Summary

Antarctica is a land of extremes. But while its hurricane force winds, tooth-breaking cold, and resident penguins have long been iconic, the perspective of a practicing female scientist is all but absent from modern day Antarctic accounts. Where the Earth Meets the Sky fills that gap.

Louise and her campmate David Ainley—one of the greatest Antarctic scientists on the planet—live in a world defined by hostile weather, breathtaking beauty, a continuous parade of avian visitors, and an occasional human visitor. There she explores the lingering grief that has followed the untimely death of her sister, and presents penguins as a window into how climate change and other environmental impacts are altering what has been one of the most untouched corners of the globe.

While penguins and the awe-inspiring landscapes they inhabit provide the thread that runs through this story, a central theme is how the world's most unforgiving environment has shaped the psyches of Antarctica’s human visitors, past and present.

Experiencing the Antarctic wildernesses has the potential to heal the human psyche and, perhaps, to give us the optimism to reimagine our relationship with the natural world.