Last week, geologist Johannes Koch returned to Squamish after spending three months on an expedition cruise ship in the Antarctic and in the end, coming home wasn't as big of a deal as he had imagined - at least not yet.
"It's a neat feeling. You're returning to civilization but not really sure what you're returning to" he laughed. "Suddenly you pick up a paper and Britney Spears has no hair and you wonder 'what happened?'" Perhaps the shock hasn't quite settled in.
After graduating with a PhD in Earth Sciences from Simon Fraser University last year and completing a term there as a sessional instructor, Koch switched gears to join the crew of the MV Polar Star - the ship being one of the only ways to travel to Antarctica - from December to March. Koch said it was nothing short of life-changing.
"Antarctica is a daunting place," he said Thursday. "But it gives you a high that you can't get fixed anywhere else."
Koch is no stranger to ice. From 2002 to 2006, he tirelessly combed Garibaldi Provincial Park for data on 10,000 years of glacier fluctuations, on which he based his doctoral thesis.
Previous to that, he studied glaciers in the Argentine region of Patagonia for his Masters degree at the University of Freiburg in Germany.
His Garibaldi research, which following up on studies geologist William Mathews' studies in the late 1940s, produced extensive results, making it an important resource for understanding the history of glaciers and past climate change in the park.
Koch said that going to Antarctica augmented his understanding of the area.
"In some fjords, you see a stage that British Columbia would have been at 12,000 years ago," he said, explaining that regions like Howe Sound are essentially similar landscapes that were formed through the same processes but have lost ice cover.
While on the ship, Koch provided guests with information about the geological development of their surroundings as they toured the northern Antarctic Peninsula and South Georgia, Falkland and the South Shetland islands. Cruises departed from Ushuaia, the southernmost point of Argentina, each taking two days to cross the often fierce waters of the Drake Passage before skirting the underside of the world.
Koch said once there, it was unlike anything he'd seen before: thousands of penguins in a single colony, numerous species of seals and whales - some of which he photographed from metres away, and icebergs in every shade of blue.
It was the latter that blew him away: floating ice unfathomable in size, perhaps as large as Squamish or even Vancouver, he said.
"Many people come for the wildlife, but the landscape is what leaves everyone in awe. It's a place where nature will actually cut you off," he said, reflecting on the fast-changing seas in the Southern Ocean.
"Wind prevents landings, packed ice is so thick you can't get through, or, while you're out on a Zodiac, ice shifts and it's difficult to get back to the ship."
Living on the ship, he explained, is also an adjustment.
"It's so small compared to the immediate landscape. It shows you how much of a foreign object you are."
In a land where most natural colours fall into the scale of blue, grey and white, Koch continued, many of the images that stand out are human-generated, such as the red buildings of the Almirante Brown Research Station in Paradise Bay.
"It makes it very apparent, visually, that you are imported."
Now that Koch is once again surrounded by signs of human development - most notably construction on the Sea to Sky highway, which has progressed significantly since his departure in December - he has an unmistakable respect and appreciation for the wilds of the southern icecap.
"Antarctica touches me on a primal level," he said. "You don't leave an impact on it, but it leaves an impact on you."
