Beth Shapiro

And we discovered that we had landed in a place where we were going to be for six weeks that had been glaciated during the last ice age, which meant that our chances of finding what we wanted were really small.

I know.

It was devastating.

And the Russian... We had a cook with us.

The Russian cooks had brought medical ethanol because it weighed less per unit of alcohol than vodka, which they would normally bring on the helicopter.

So they brought medical ethanol to drink.

Whoa!

Well, you know, you can only take so much stuff with you.

Because it weighs less than alcohol.

Well...

You know, they decided it was safe.

Anyway, by three days in, it's 24-hour sunlight.

We're at 72 degrees latitude.

Did you try it?

I tried the medical ethanol.

I mean, obviously.

You water it down with a little bit of river water, and you have it with your freshly caught fish that you've filleted, and yeah, it's great.

We had fish and rice for the whole time.

We had to catch our food, yes.

Fish, and there were some geese and some ducks that they would try to shoot while we were on our zodiacs, normally without telling us that they were about to shoot.