IT IS FIVE A.M. IN ANTARTICA, AND THE ROWBOAT IS FREEZING. I was beginning to wish I hadn’t refused those gloves ten minutes earlier in an attempt to impress the Greenpeace girls. Worse still, I was finding to my considerable disappointment that the whole lousy Greenpeace operation was a lot more bluster than it was bankroll. Between the twenty of us, freezing in the pitch dark on some godforsaken iceberg, it was discovered that only seven toques had been packed to share between us. The food rations were equally dismal; I’m a huge fan of pudding when it’s not frozen, and when my hands are warm enough to successfully get it to my mouth. This was not the case in Antartica. In fact, with the lack of any facial cover, I was beginning to be reminded just how important it was that my eyes are made primarily of water, as both of them were frozen.

“Paddle faster!” cried Jacques. Jacques was our fearless leader. I, apparently, was the paddler, though I hadn't recalled volunteering.

“I’m paddling as fast as I can,” I said, facing in the direction I thought him to be. I tried to focus on him with my ice-addled eyes. He was a strong man of twenty-six, and my leader for these past few weeks — my square-jawed guide through the crash course in hell that had been my introduction to volunteer environmentalism. He was wheelchair bound, natch, making it that much harder for me to despise him. Normally I would have already been plotting his death; but his infirmity had stopped any of those thoughts in their tracks.

“I don’t see why you aren’t paddling,” I grumbled. “Nothing wrong with your arms.”

“What was that?” Jacques asked. “I didn’t hear you.”

“Nothing,” I answered, loudly. Then quietly: “If anything, your arms should be stronger than mine.”

“Land ho!” cried Jacques, deciding to it best to ignore me.

“Finally,” I said, rowing the boat ashore with a scraping thump. “Let’s see these seals, already.”

We piled out of the boat in the foggy darkness, struggling up the icy, rocky shores of one of the South Orkney Islands. “Say, Billy,” I said, looking over at our quartermaster, who was busy picking the serious hell out of his nose. “What say we pitch camp and warm up some of that pudding?”

“Pudding!” Billy yelled, lolling his tongue around like a dairy cow. Billy was, to put it bluntly, the curse of any non-profit volunteer organization: the sort of person you’d expect to be freezing his testicles off in the middle of the night for no money. By this I mean he was an idiot, complete and total.

“Sure, pudding,” I said wearily, tossing a handful of pennies into a snowdrift. Billy’s eyes lit up and he dove headfirst into the drift, allowing me what I figured might be five or ten minutes before he gave up and started annoying the living Jesus out of me again.

“You shouldn’t do that to him,” said a seductive voice behind me. Simone. “He means well.”

“Hey, I meant well too,” I said, turning to face her. “There was easily four dollars in change there.” She ignored my argument and began pitching the first of our heavy army-issue tents. The tease. I had wanted her, craved her, ever since I had joined with Greenpeace a month before. But so far, no dice.

Once the other boats had pulled up onto shore, Jacques -- carried by four of our camp -- settled comfortably into the centre of the camp and threw rocks at someone until they built him a fire. Simone trotted over and fluffed his pillows for him.

I couldn’t believe I was losing out to this character. If I wanted to bed Simone by the time all this was over — and I did, oh yes —I would have to resort to bolder tactics.

“Four dollars, eleven cents!” said Billy proudly, careening back into my field of vision. I pushed him helpfully into the snow and walked over to Jacques, who was currently enjoying both the fire, Simone, and a bag full of marshmallows that the troupe was toasting for him; a bag that I, for one, hadn’t been briefed we even had, the selfish eco-bastards.

I sat down next to the fire and shot everyone else a look. They looked back at me expectantly, mistaking my “poopy mood” face for the onset of an intellectual outpouring. I was, after all, the outsider, the journalist, among them. Would I have anything to share that might shine perspective on our journey thus far? Any sage thoughts that only I, a trained tamer of the language, could voice?

“I’m cold as hell,” I said, looking each and every one of them in the eye in turn. “Fuck you all. When do we see these seals?”

Simone frowned, put a marshmallow on a stick and began toasting it for Jacques, who turned to me. “The southern elephant seal prefers to feed in the early morning,” he said. “I estimate that they’ll began appearing on those rocks over there..." he swept his muscular, untired arm toward an icy slope of shoreline “...around 4:30 a.m., no later than 5:15. And the Russians will be along soon afterward. Of course, on the Norwegian expedition of 1987, I —”

“Say, who wants pudding?” I asked, cutting him off. “Simone?” I held out a small tin I had heated over the fire, at the end of a stick. “Come on, have some.” I made as though to give it to her, then purposely upset the scalding-hot goo all over Jacques legs, hoping against hope that this distraction might close his gaping mouth for once this trip.

“You boorish ox!” Simone cried. “Be careful!”

“No worries, ma chere,” Jacques assured her, teeth gritted. “It doesn’t hurt a bit.” Apparently melted to bits by his display of manliness, she dabbed at his crotch in a dazed fervor; oblivious, it seemed, to the fact that overcoming the pain of a pudding burn wouldn’t be terribly difficult for Jacques, given his inability to feel anything in his legs. I was officially getting sick of this. Mostly because I was losing, badly.

I returned my focus to the seals, desperately aware that the sooner I made first contact with the rubbery little monstrosities, the sooner I could get off this godforsaken ice cube and into a warm jacuzzi. “Alright,” I said, making sure I understood perfectly. “So the seals come out around 4:30…”

“No later than 5:15,” added Jacques unhelpfully, before launching another seduction offensive at the infinitely willing Simone.

“Yes, thank you, Jacques,” I said. “But absolutely by then we’ll see some seals?”

“Absolutement, mon ami,” said Jacques.

“Thank Jesus,” I said decisively. “And then we shoot them.”

The camp grew silent at this. Simone was the first to speak. “You — wish to kill the Russian seal peltsmen?”

“Holy biscuits, no!” I exclaimed, to the visible relief of those around me.

“Ah, good.”

“I want to shoot and kill the seals.” To attest to my zeal in this particular arena, I unveiled my rifle with the cyanide-tipped armour piercing rounds, which was met with the appropriate amount of gasps. God, I love this gun.

Soon after I had put the gun away — after a lively demonstration for the camp in which I crept up Merc-like and savagely shelled a nearby douglas fir tree — Simone led me away from the others and, as tactfully as possible, explained that there had been a horrendous misunderstanding back at the docks. She accepted the full blame for the accident — it had been busy and crowded, and Jacques had been in such a hurry.

“So you’re saying I was supposed to go with the Russian guys then?” I said, cradling my rifle.

“I’m afraid so.”

“I see.”

I looked at her incredulously, all my passionate yearnings to jump her bones dissipating in an instant before my eyes, like so much exhaled breath in the chill Antarctic wind. Something between us had been lost. In her eyes, I was a murderer exposed. In my eyes, she was a lousy events coordinator, and this was the worst vacation ever.

“I’m sorry.” She looked away. Was that a tear in her eye? Or just detritus from my shelling? I couldn’t be sure.

“You don’t suppose I could maybe hang around,” I said, “And not kill as many seals as I’d originally planned?” But no. It was all or nothing. Within the hour, they had packed my gear into one of the rickety row boats, and provided me with instructions for reaching the Russian pelting vessel.

I thanked them profusely, consciously not thanking Jacques in an attempt to make him look silly. The goodbyes were teary and boisterous. These crazy youngsters had taught me something these past few days — the importance of planning your vacation well, and of not being swayed by the confusion that a lot of ships disembarking at once can bring. The importance of being true to yourself. Of packing enough toques. Of not flinching when someone pours hot pudding on your legs.

Most importantly, though, I learned the precise coordinates of their intercept location, and was able to tip off the Russians days in advance. And that, I mused, lying on the bullet-riddled carcasses of over twenty healthy baby elephant seals — that might well have been the most important lesson of all. Yes, actually, I think it was.