The Significance of the Title

The title works on more than one level, and its richness is part of what makes the piece memorable.

At the most literal level, Antarctica truly sits at the geographical "end of the Earth." It is the southernmost continent, far removed from the inhabited world, reached only after a long and arduous voyage — over a hundred hours across nine time zones and three bodies of water. Calling the trip a journey to the end of the Earth captures both the extreme remoteness of the destination and the sheer effort of getting there.

On a second level, the phrase points backward in time as much as it points south in space. Because Antarctica preserves the record of Gondwana, a supercontinent that existed six hundred and fifty million years ago, and because human history occupies only the last flicker of that immense timeline, travelling there feels like journeying to one of the oldest, most untouched corners of the planet's story. It is a voyage to the edge not only of the map but of comprehensible time. …