The blockades of the COVID-19 affected everyone, but few were as difficult as the one suffered by the leader of the Australian Antarctic station David Knoff, his standard stay of 365 days became 537 days on the continent more relentless.
As head of the station, David commanded 24 expeditions and had to navigate the stress and anxiety of not knowing how long they would all be isolated or when someone would come looking for them.
His was an experience like no other, but here are five examples of David’s 537 days in Antarctica that he says can be applied to everyday life.
Work-life limits
Establishing and respecting the boundaries between work and play: It is important that people and leaders avoid exhaustion and work 24/537.
Farewell to the Australian Antarctic icebreaker team Aurora Australis in March 2020. (Supplied by: AAD / David Knoff)
“We had a lot of fun with DIY,” he says. “There was a big hobby where you could use scrap metal, scrap wood to do things.”
This was useful for all those extra birthdays and Christmas presents to keep in mind.
“It was a fantastic and attentive activity,” he said.
The team also did band nights and themed parties.
“You weren’t just having dinner with the same 24 people again. You were having dinner with 24 Vikings, or sushi train nights, or Italian nights where you dressed up and felt like you were on vacation, instead of stuck in Antarctica.” .
The working hours were long and sometimes the boundaries were blurred.
“We worked from 7:30 a.m. to 5 or 6 p.m.,” he recalls.
“After that, you should say, ‘Hey, park it. You can wait until tomorrow or put it in an email.’ You have to be firm in that.”
David Knoff captures the spectacular sunrise over Davis Antarctica Station as he walks in the morning. (Provided by: David Knoff)
Plan everything so that nothing is a surprise
In the face of an uncertain future, planning for each contingency, however unlikely, will ensure that, if / when things go wrong, you are ready.
“There was a very small, but unlikely, chance that we would have to stay another winter, so we had to have some plans in place, so if that happened, we would have enough resources to do it.”
David says that because they depend so much on the weather, they had to be prepared to roll with the blows and send equipment to one glacier or another, depending on how it worked.
The Australian Antarctic team working during their 537-day stay on the icy continent. (Provided by: AAD / David Knoff)
“It may seem ad hoc, but it’s not. In fact, you’ve planned all these different options and then just throw them off the shelf as needed.”
David is used to planning everything after spending a few years in the military and then as a diplomat in conflict zones.
“I’ve always dealt with the fact that you say, well, that’s what we want to do, but very quickly, you may have to pivot and decide what to do in the ashes of the plan. I still live that way.” he says.
Embrace chaos and uncertainty
An emergency evacuation of the station is an example of what David and his team had to deal with.
Unable to reveal the most detailed details of the operation, David conveys that it was a massive effort.
Members of the Australian Antarctic team take a cruise at midnight sunset. (Provided by: AAD / David Knoff)
A Chinese helicopter, an American plane and an Australian intercontinental flight took part.
“The distances involved were as far as Perth, Melbourne, Sydney, Hobart.”
It was completed at 03:00 on December 24, 2020.
“As frantic, exciting, interesting and professionally amazing as it was, sitting down for Christmas the next day with just 22 people was one of the darkest and most unique experiences you can imagine. You still understand me.”
The emergency evacuation was not the only chaotic moment, one of them came when the team finally returned home.
“As we turned north and thought, ‘That’s it, it’s all done and spoiled. We’re finally back in Australia’ … the captain came on the radio saying, ‘Fire, fire, fire in the engine room.’ “. he remembers it clearly.
“We were six hours with the engines off, the boat was full of smoke. They had to fight the fire, have everyone and finally start one of the engines.
“We were able to return home limping in Fremantle after being by the side of lifeboats for most of the day and contemplating what it would be like.
Australian Antarctic station leader David Knoff arrives home in Melbourne in April 2021 after 537 days on the ice. (Provided by: Michael Knoff)
“We were right at the end of our exhaustion and resistance limit, but I think my team was incredibly calm throughout the process. We’ve been through a lot of things, of course there’s fire, we’ll be fine.”
David says you have to focus on what you can control and accept the unknowns as part of life.
“Anything can happen,” he says, “and it usually happens.”
Make it all a lesson, especially failure
“You’ll learn more from failure than from victory,” says David.
“When times are tough and uncertain, you will fail quickly and often fail, so the sooner you learn to accept failure as an opportunity to learn, the sooner you will turn failure into success.”
Some of the most important failures during David’s time in Antarctica came from the social side of things, rather than work.
“Crossing the line and misjudging the line between running the station as the station leader and letting the community do things,” he admits.
“I would often try to control things or keep the team together and go beyond the brand and into the social space.”
David dives in the winter in water below two degrees. (Provided by: AAD Will Kenton)
David relates this to the setting of boundaries between work and play.
“Understanding your own motivation and then understanding the motivation of your team members is critical to understanding their resilience and getting them to work or [to] understand why they are not [performing],” he says.
“If you can help them identify their motivation and work with it, you will have more chances of team and individual success.”
Imagine how it would feel to look back
David says that when the end is not seen, imagine the future and what would you say about your actions now: would you be proud? Or could you have done more to keep up with the occasion?
He says that helped him get through the toughest days as a leader.
“When I felt like I was failing, I found the energy to keep going as I imagined what my future would tell me in those moments,” he says.
David Knoff’s 537 Winter Days is now available. (Supplied)
“When we were told we would stay a few more months … for me, that became a challenge I hadn’t signed up for, and none of us had signed up. Now I had to lead a team that I didn’t want to be there for so long. “
To help him overcome it, he looked back on two years, 10 years and 30 years.
He told himself, “It will have been such an amazing experience that it will have been worth the effort to live up to it.”
“Make the most of it, instead of looking back and thinking, ‘I just complained all the time.'”
* 537 Days of Winter by David Knoff is now available.