The Spencer-Smith Memorial Lecture, March 8th 2025, All Saints, Cumberland Street, Dunedin.

***You may have to copy and paste links rather carefully as I haven't been able to get the editing to work properly*** I am honoured to have been invited to deliver this talk, which has the title "Paths Are Made by Walking". I'm intending to present material under three sub-headings, which hopefully will make sense as we go along. 1. Firstly, the reason I was interested in Antarctica is because my grandfather, H T Ferrar, was the geologist on "Discovery"(1901-4) and as such was the first man to walk - and so make - many of the most-used paths on Ross Island, where the American and New Zealand bases were subsequently established. In 2016 I was fortunate enough to join in the SCAR conference in Kuala Lumpur where I presented a short paper about his life and work. The first part of my talk will involve showing again the power point presentation I made for that conference. I don't think I can upload that here, so here's the first photograph ever taken of an emperor penguin chick. There were several people with cameras on the "Discovery" expedition and I don't know who took this particular shot.

2. Secondly, one of my particular interests is in site-specific improvisation. I use my violin to explore my reactions to particular places. It helps me to focus on what is in front of me and clarifies the responses of my imagination. A fellow student on the PCAS course, "CY", filmed me playing in the "Discovery" hut and I will show that film during my talk. It is about 7 minutes long and can be found here, 42 minutes in: href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBJMpeu2wLA&t=2508s"> Under the same heading, broadly, "Artistic responses to Antarctica", I'm posting 3 more links here, though there is lots of other wonderful stuff out there: 1. Ruth Watson, who was my tent-mate in December 2011 when we camped on the Ross Ice Shelf.  

https://eyecontactmagazine.com/2012/08/the-future-of-antarctica

This is her website: https://www.ruthwatson.net/about 2. Phil Dadson, a fellow free improviser, made some wonderfully playful work in the dry valleys:

https://www.circuit.org.nz/work/echo-logo 3. Lita Albuquerque, whose book "Stella Axis" I borrowed from the library and will make available for people to look at:

https://www.litaalbuquerque.com/stellar-axis-antarctica

3. Last but not least, Religion in Antarctica. This is a vast subject now and I haven't even scraped the surface of it. My experience was of taking communion on the Ice on Christmas Day 2011. It wasn't practical for me to get to the Chapel of the Snows at the American base so I took consecrated host, already sprinkled with wine, in a pyx lent to me by Fr Ron Smith of Christchurch. I shared communion with CY who had been filming me. I was the first person in the 14 years that PCAS had been running who wanted to take communion on the Ice. Here is the link to the New Zealand Antarctic Society: https://antarcticsociety.org.nz/ and to the definitive book about the Ross Sea Party: https://www.amazon.com.au/Polar-Castaways-Ernest-Shackleton-1914-17/dp/0773528253 (I'm having difficulty getting the blog publishing to work properly) There's a discussion about Antarctic Arts here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPq1vwvyEKc