Photos by Joannes Koch
While most would recommend a sunny seaside resort in Havana or a historical tour through Prague, a Kwantlen Polytechnic University professor is recommending a vacation destination that would likely fall near the bottom of most people’s bucket list.
Absent of world history, warm beaches, a hotel or even a permanent settlement, Johannes Koch points to the vast emptiness, bitter cold and largely untouched terrain of Antarctica as his destination recommendation.
Koch, who teaches in KPU’s environment and geography department, first visited the rough continent 10 years ago while working on an expedition cruise ship. The relatively small ships – 100 to 120 passengers – leave the southern tip of Argentina to the most northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula.
He’s visited the white continent about 25 times over the years, working on the tourist ships while searching for teaching jobs in Canada.
Spending anywhere from 12 days to three months on a ship, Koch – who specializes in glacier research – would educate the passengers during the expeditions.
Once the ships approached the Peninsula, Koch would – with other research specialists – take tourists on a zodiac to the shore to hike the area.
Antarctica is home to approximately 70 research stations, about 30 of which are occupied year round.
“It’s not an easy location for any form of life,” he said, explaining that on a warm, sunny summer day he’s experienced a high of 11 C.
Koch says his interest in the continent is twofold. One is an academical interest in the land, and another is its uniqueness of being not yet settled by the human population.
“It’s basically untouched except things that we put in the atmosphere that find their way to Antarctica. When the climate changes because of things that we do, that obviously affects Antarctica… When you get there you feel humbled by the size of this unspoiled vast landscape and by the stark contrast on the west coast where we’re used to everything being green.”
Although there’s a great contrast between Antarctica and B.C., Koch has found some troubling similarities. He has undertaken glacier research in Garibaldi Provincial Park over the past 15 years, at the Pemberton Icefield over the past five years, and has worked in the Yukon, northern B.C., Alaska and Chilean Patagonia.
“The glaciers here, really close to us… are retreating quite traumatically at this point,” Koch noted.
He said he’s visited a few glaciers year-after-year, and has witnessed a difference of the size of the glaciers.
“They’re becoming smaller, their snouts are less and less extensive. That’s a common pattern throughout western Canada and, really, throughout the world.”
He said he has not seen the same year-to-year changes in Antarctica, however, “I can definitely say I have seen changes from the first time I went (to) the last time I went there.”
“The changes are not as in your face year-to-year, but they are clearly observable on a (larger) scale, then they become significant.”
Through travelling to Antarctica, Koch believes, a tourist would learn that as individuals we’re small, but as a species, we have impacts that affect our planet to a larger degree.
“We need to become better stewards for this land. I feel Antarctica is a good location to raise that awareness for people who go there because it is such a different place where you feel how the planet should be in terms of being unspoiled.”