“Sure, you bet,” I say out loud to myself. Walk around the bottom of the world in one day or less? Unbelievable I’m thinking until I read about Antarctica and the South Pole. Oh yes, I can walk around a pole in a few minutes, and I have to admit, walking around the pole at the South Pole is walking around the world.    

   Now I’m curious, so I keep reading. I want to know more about this seventh continent of our world. Why is Antarctica a continent and not the Arctic? What about penguins? Are they really only at the bottom of the world? Who discovered Antarctica anyway? Do kids live there?    

  Antarctica has land under and above its ice, but the Arctic is only ice floating on water, therefore not a continent. While their names sound alike, the places are very different.    

  Also to my surprise, penguins are found in Antarctica but not in the Arctic. Polar bears live in the Arctic but not in Antarctica. There are many other animals, though, like seals and whales that live around both icy poles.    

   Antarctica is one chilly, incredible place. Temperatures sometimes reach 127 degrees below zero and winds gust to 200 miles per hour. It is amazing explorers could even survive a journey to the South Pole.    

  But Antarctica does have a summer season—a time when the land has six months of light and warmer temperatures ranging from above zero on the coast to thirty below inland (still too cold for me). In 1911, during these warmer summer months of October and November, two men and their teams entered a race to be the first to reach the South Pole.    

  Roald Amundsen, a Norwegian explorer, left his hut at Ross Ice Shelf on the nineteenth of October, 1911, with eight men and 118 sled dogs. Two weeks later, Captain Robert Scott, a British naval officer, set off from his camp on Ross Island with his team of thirty-two men and thirty-three sled dogs. He also took seventeen ponies and two motorized tractor sleds. The ponies and tractor sleds helped move supplies the first part of the journey.    

   Amundsen and his men had favorable weather conditions and made it to the pole on the fourteenth of December, 1911, three weeks before Scott. It was sad to read that Scott and his men died on their return. They had bad weather and ran out of supplies.    

  Many other famous explorations followed. Presently, forty-two countries operate Antarctica’s research stations. During warmer months, tens of thousands of scientists and technicians visit from all over the world. Tourists and families with kids visit but only a few scientists and technicians remain at the bases during the dark, bitter cold winter months.    

   Maybe, some day, during summer months, I’ll visit Antarctica. Until then it’s a fascinating place to read about.