Dispatches from the Field, a new digital program designed to bring The Explorers Club community closer—wherever you are.
Each session kicks off with a 10-minute talk from a Featured Speaker, streamed live to the public on explorers.org and our YouTube channel.
This will be followed by Campfire sessions—intimate, Members-Only breakout groups where you can connect, share ideas, and build relationships.
This edition features Wayne White, MN’09, to present Isolation and The Thing: Three Winters at the South Pole:
Wayne White takes us deep into the isolation of the South Pole, where John Carpenter’s The Thing has become a haunting tradition after the last aircraft departs and Amundsen-Scott Station is cut off from the world. Having served three Antarctic winters as Winter Site Manager, Wayne shares stories from his book Cold: Three Winters at the South Pole. He will also share insights from his recent interview for Ian Nathan’s forthcoming The Thing Expanded (to be released in early 2026) and draw parallels between the challenges of Antarctic wintering and the lessons they hold for future Mars colonization — a theme he has presented at the Mars Society Conventions in 2022 and 2023.
Members only – click here to register.
Wayne White
Wayne White is the former three-time Winter Site Manager at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, where he was responsible for the health and safety of three winter crews of approximately 42 personnel, as well as the station itself and its science assets. His assignment took place in one of the most extreme environments on Earth: the South Pole winter, which runs from mid-February to early November, bringing nearly five months of total darkness, temperatures below –100°F (–73°C), complete physical isolation from the outside world, and no viable way to leave. In his final year, 2020, his crew faced even deeper isolation and external pressures with the onset of the global pandemic. During this period, Wayne also participated in The Explorers Club’s “Minute at the Mic” and “World Oceans Week.” Over the course of his three winters, he logged more than 4,300 miles walking in the polar night and chronicled these experiences in his book Cold: Three Winters at the South Pole.
