My Last Continent by Midge Raymond

hanging on a line, adog harness from a beam. A pile of dark, oozing seal blubber drips with oil; seal carcasses hang, well preserved, on one of the walls. A large box labeled LAMP OIL reads, SCOTT’S ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION 1910— one of several other parties that once inhabited this place.
    It’s eerily noiseless—the hum of the station gone, no penguins outside, no petrels above. Instead of the diesel fumes of the station, we breathe in the thick, musty flavors of hundred-year-old burnt blubber and the dusty artifacts of men whose time here was both celebratory and desperate.
    Keller knows not to touch anything, and he moves as little as possible, taking in everything he can. I hadn’t thought to bring a camera with me—but then I realize, in all our time together, I’ve never once seen him take a photograph.
    â€œRemember the lost men?” Keller asks.
    â€œYou’ll have to be more specific.”
    â€œThe Ross Sea Party,” he says. “They were right here—in this room—never knowing they’d devoted their lives to a lost cause.”
    â€œThey knew the risks.” In 1915, ten men from the Ross Sea Party, the group Shackleton had tasked with laying supply depots for his Endurance expedition, had gotten stranded when their ship lost its moorings and drifted. Not knowing that Shackleton’s crew had been forced to abandon their own ship, the men kept going, completing their mission, but three of them didn’t survive.
    â€œThat’s exactly what I appreciate about being down here,” Keller says. “You know the risks—the hazards are tangible.” He takes another look around, as if what he’s trying to say is written on the time-scarred walls. “Back in Boston, I was livingthis so-called normal life, blissfully ignorant of the dangers all around us. That’s so much worse. Because when something does happen, you’re not prepared for it.”
    I move closer, and he pulls me into a long hug, so long I feel as if maybe he’s afraid to let go—as if by clinging to me, in this hut, in this faraway place, he can preserve his memories and leave them behind at the same time. I want to assure him that he’ll find a balance, that it’s the same fine line as going from here to home and back again, but I know he’ll learn this soon enough, in his own time.
    At last he pulls away, kisses my forehead. “Thank you for this,” he says.
    We go back out into the summer night and walk around the other side of the hut, facing the sound. Clean, cold air freezes through my nostrils, carrying the faint scent of ocean and iced rock.
    In the water, flat fragments of ice float around like puzzle pieces; in the distance beyond, thin layers of silver glisten over the light blue of large bergs. As a breeze begins to stir, I lean into Keller, a chill biting through my clothes.
    He pulls me closer, staring over the top of my head. “Sea leopard,” he whispers, using the explorers’ term for the leopard seal that is passing within fifty feet of us, on its way to open water. We watch the seal, a full-grown male, as he propels his sleek gray body forward, focused on the sea ahead.
    Then the seal stops and turns his head toward us, sniffing the air, revealing his lighter-gray, speckled underside. He gazes at us, his face like that of a hungry puppy with its wide, whiskered nostrils and huge wet eyes. We’re downwind, butI feel Keller’s breath stop halfway through his chest. After a few long moments, the seal turns his head and continues on his way, slipping silently into the water.
    Keller exhales, slowly, and I feel his weight settle against me as he relaxes. Though a leopard seal had once hunted a member of Shackleton’s Endurance party—first on land, then from under the ice—and while they can be highly dangerous, attacks on humans are rare.
    I look at Keller, thinking he’d been worried about