As Schaefer settled into the rhythm of camp, his body adjusted to the incessant polar sunlight and the relentless manual labor, leaving his mind free to wander. Often, he found himself fixating on the ice sheet—its incomprehensible vastness, its unfathomable fragility. How could something this immense and forbidding be so vulnerable? How could a landscape so obviously capable of killing a person be at risk because of humanity?
