Big Dead Place: Inside the Strange and Menacing World of Antarctica [Paperback]

Nicholas Johnson (Author), Eirik Sřnneland (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 2005

Johnson’s savagely funny [book] is a grunt’s-eye view of fear and loathing, arrogance and insanity in a dysfunctional, dystopian closed community. It’s like M*A*S*H on ice, a bleak, black comedy.”—The Times of London

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

When Johnson went to work for the U.S. Antarctic Program (devoted to scientific research and education in support of the national interest in the Antarctic), he figured he'd find adventure, beauty, penguins and lofty-minded scientists. Instead, he found boredom, alcohol and bureaucracy. As a dishwasher and garbage man at McMurdo Station, Johnson quickly shed his illusions about Antarctica. Since he and his co-workers seldom ventured beyond the station's grim, functional buildings, they spent most of their time finding ways to entertain themselves, drinking beer, bowling and making home movies. The dormlike atmosphere, complete with sexual hijinks and obscene costume parties, sometimes made life there feel like "a cheap knock-off of some original meaty experience." What dangers there were existed mostly in the psychological realm; most people who were there through the winter developed the "Antarctica stare," an unnerving tendency to forget what they were saying mid-sentence and gaze dumbly at the station walls. And if the cold and isolation didn't drive one crazy, the petty hatreds and mindless red tape might. Though occasionally rambling and uneven, this memoir offers an insider's look at a place that few people know anything about and fewer still have ever seen. Photos. (July)
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Review

"No one has done more to change the way we understand Antarctica. Nick was unflinching in his critique of bureaucracy and authority in the United States Antarctic Program, but mainly he sought to create a dialogue within and about Antarctica that cut through cliche and hypocrisy in order to describe things as they really are, in all their glory and strangeness." -Progressive Review

"It took a full century and the building of centrally heated infrastructure for the island at the bottom of the world to produce something like a minor classic. Its author was a young American writer and itinerant contract worker named Nicholas Johnson, whose memoir Big Dead Place upon publication superseded a century’s worth of self-serving ice-beard memoirs and press-junket hackery." - Alternet

Product Details

• Paperback: 276 pages
• Publisher: Feral House (April 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0922915997
• ISBN-13: 978-0922915996
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.7 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #87,682 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #8 in Books > Travel > Polar Regions > Antarctica
  • #20 in Books > History > Arctic & Antarctica
  • #44 in Books > Sports & Outdoors > Winter Sports

More About the Author

Nicholas Johnson has lived and worked in South Korea, New Zealand, Antarctica, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

"Big Dead Place: Inside the Strange and Menacing World of Antartica" has been reviewed by The New York Times, The Times of London, The Boston Globe, The Stranger, Penthouse, The Polar Times, Lawrence Palinkas (prominent polar psychologist), Jerry Stahl ("Permanent Midnight"), and Gretchen Legler, the adventurer and ecofeminist professor from the University of Maine at Farmington, who called him "...the nature-hating bad boy who watches porn with breakfast."

He has also been published in Harper's Magazine, by Granta, and has websites at www.bigdeadplace.com and www.shadewhile.com

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 35 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic, hilarious black comedy June 22, 2005

By Justin Mason

Format:Paperback

'Big Dead Place' is an excellent collection of anecdotes, discussing life on the ice at McMurdo Base and the US South Pole Station. I've long been a fan of the author's website at http://www.bigdeadplace.com/ , so this book went straight on my wishlist once it was available at Amazon, and I've just finished it in time for Midwinter's day.

It's a fantastic book -- very illustrative of how life really goes on on a distant research base, once you get beyond romantic notions of exploration of the wild frontiers. (Like many geek kids, I spent my childhood dreaming of space exploration, and Antarctica is the nearest thing you can get to that right now.) A bonus: it's hilarious, too.

Unfortunately it's far from all good -- there's story after story of moronic bureaucratic edicts emailed from comparatively-sub-tropical Denver, Colorado, ass-covering emails from management on a massive scale, and injuries and asbestos exposures covered up to avoid spoiling 'metrics'.

If you want to get a good idea of what the reality of life exploring the wild frontiers on behalf of the US government is like, this book is an eye-opener. Here's hoping they work out some way to trim some of the bureaucratic fat before that lunar base George Bush keeps talking about is set up...

29 of 33 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Having been there... September 13, 2005

By A friend of Mr. Speed

Format:Paperback

Having spent 12 years working "on ice" and at every US Station and Ice Breaker, I can say this: Johnson has only scratched the surface on the lunacy, idiocy and buerocratic hell the US Antarctic program has become.

Since Raytheon has taken over as contractor, it's been one laugh after another. HR isn't about helping employees, it's about sticking to the corporate policy with a velvet hammer.

It'll be a fine day when the last Rathioyd leaves Antarcitca, but like the old song by The Who, it'll be "...meet the new boss, just the same as the old boss..."

Having met and known a few Antarctic treaty signatories, I'm sure they're doing a slow spin in their graves.

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars You will enjoy this book. I promise. September 8, 2005

By Max

Format:Paperback

Big Dead Place is a great combination of Antarctic history and Antarctic humor. It's fascinating to see that a place that could be described as an icy hell has somehow become a beaurocratic one as well. While the tone of the book is lighthearted, with an emphasis on humor, it's clear that Johnson cares deeply about Antarctica. This book gave me a great insight into Antarctica, one that I doubt I could have gotten elsewhere; it did so whilst being funny! If you get this book, you will be entertained and you will learn something about what is probably the strangest place on the planet. I can't recommend it highly enough.