I wake lying on my back, staring up at a bright Antarctic sky. Although I don’t understand how I got here, I’m not surprised at having been unconscious on the ice. A childhood spent reading tales of Shackleton and Scott has left me believing Antarctica is where scientists and explorers go to die, or at least lose their toes. Despite, or perhaps because of, this conviction, I leapt at the opportunity for fieldwork on a volcano on the edge of Antarctica, in what then seemed the wildest place on Earth. And over the next few weeks, whenever things go wrong – snowmobile accident, frostbitten nose, internet malfunction – we will say to one another, making light of it: ‘Well, what did you expect? It’s a harsh continent.’