Experience: I survived a power cut in Antarctica

It was -55C outside. The whole base dropped to almost -20C inside, and we had no heating or lights and no link to the outside world I shouldn’t even have been there. Winter in Antarctica means living with only 13 other people for eight months, including 103 days when the sun doesn’t rise. Everything is hostile and alien: the temperature, the darkness, the wind, the isolation. People rarely stay for more than one winter at a time. I was heading home in early 2014, but the person who w