Research on Ice – American Birding Association

t will be spring when this book review is published, but no matter what time of year it is when you sit down to read Naira de Gracia’s The Last Cold Place, you’ll soon find yourself transported to a land of ice, snow, wind—and penguins.

The Last Cold Place is de Gracia’s memoir of her first year as a NOAA field technician studying Chinstrap and Gentoo penguins breeding on Livingston Island, a remote island off the Antarctic Peninsula. Each Antarctic summer (October through March), a small crew of technicians, some assigned to penguins and the rest to seals, move into a collection of huts on one of the island’s few ice-free areas to gather critical data on its animal inhabitants—data that is used both to inform crucial regulations for the region’s krill fishing industry, and to monitor how the Antarctic ecosystem is responding to climate change.

On every page, de Gracia’s sense of wonder at getting to experience the penguins’ world shines through. She is utterly charmed by her charges, immersing herself in the birds’ daily routines and getting to know their quirky personalities. She and her fellow penguin technician spend each day at the island’s penguin colonies, counting birds, marking and weighing them, and following the fates of their nests. Skuas and fur seals round out the island’s residents, and de Gracia brings these creatures to life as well. She weaves together her own experiences with vignettes about the history of Antarctic exploration, the ways in which multiple nations work together to manage the region, and the environmental challenges that Antarctica’s ecosystems face today.

De Gracia’s lively use of language illuminates the full sensory experience of spending a season on an Antarctic island—not only the sights and sounds, but also the smells (working with penguins means putting up with a lot of poop), the physical sensations, and even the flavors of the crew’s monotonous meals. In one memorable passage, she simply begins to list all the tiny, often uncomfortable moments that make up life in Antarctica: “Eggs on rice. Eggs on wet, thawed spinach. Socks so stiff with use there was a left sock and a right sock. Mold in my water bottle. Mold on the walls. The feeling of shoving my toes into damp boots. Mud on everything.”

The Last Cold Place is well paced; each chapter covers a specific span of time as de Gracia takes us through the full field season, from penguins collecting pebbles for their nests to the emptying out of the colonies as the chicks finally “fledge” into the sea. The isolated field station provides a small, built-in cast of supporting characters in de Gracia’s fellow researchers, and each of her companions is fleshed out through enjoyable character sketches.

I loved this book and would highly recommend it to anyone interested in birds, Antarctica, or just a taste of what it’s really like to live in one of the world’s most remote places. I read it in December, and if you can bring yourself to wait, it might make the perfect book to tuck away to be read next winter. Settle in on an icy, snowy day with your hot beverage of choice and let de Gracia take you on an adventure among the penguins.