Intro: An intrepid lesbian adventurer braves
the cold shoulders of the white contintent.
In the January/February 2005 issue of The Out Traveler magazine (published by the same LPI company that puts out The Advocate) lesbian author Lucy Jane Bledsoe writes about her experience on the fozen continent.
Entitled 'If Antartica Were a Woman' Ms Bledsoe wraps her story around the theme of a love affair with Antartica inspired years ago by the lesbian polar explorer Ann Bancroft who, with her fellow (straight) explorer, Liv Arneson, skied across the continent.
"Traveling to Antarctica is like having an affair with an inappropriate lover. A famous inappropriate lover. Cold. Dangerous. Unaccom-modating. She makes you do some crazy shit. But she's oh, so gorgeous. You've got to have more." With that forceful introduction, Bledsoe details her arrival and trials at the American McMurdo research station on Ross Island.
Within a day she was treated to the playful verbal rough-housing common to the isolated community: "'How do you get a woman in Antarctica?...My new friend slapped the table and crowed, 'Be one!' All the women here, according to my new friends, were lesbians.
This wasn't true, of course, but there were lots of out girls. In fact, a lesbian couple taught McMurdo's ballroom dancing class."
During her stay Bledsoe was able to visit the actual south pole, "the Crown Jewel of any antartcia trip." She also saw the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station where 200 scientists and support staff live and work researching data "from a telescope that looks back to just 300,000 years after the Big Bang."
She was able to explore the Trans-antarctic Mountains with geologists studying global warming. At Cape Royds she visited a colony of Adélie penguins.
As for other women, "I made do with the fabulous community of lesbians. A friend and I skied in the Antarctic marathon, doing only half the course--and still coming in last beyond everyone who did the whole course. We danced at the big music festival, called Icestock, on New Year's Day, where everyone dances with partners of their choice regardless of gender. In the evenings my friends and I walked to the continent's edge to watch orcas and minkes playing in the icy Antarctic waters."
Most people would think one such an adventure would be enough, but Bledsoe was smitten with Antartica" "I cried when the Air Force crew flew me home." So, two seasons later she returned, this time by ship from the southern tip of Argentina for another tumble with her beloved white land.
For copyright reasons, GlobalGayz cannot reprint the full story here. To get all the juicy details of Bledsoe's affair go to http://www.outtraveler.com/detail.asp?did=121 .
