If you ever complain about your winter being too long, spare a thought for Carsten Borchgrevink, who decided to spend the entire Antarctic winter of 1899 on the mainland—a feat no one had attempted before. His ingenious "portable camp shelter" became the grandfather of modern polar tents, though his leadership style wasn’t quite as innovative as his gear.

While he did manage to be the first to climb an Antarctic mountain and essentially wrote the handbook for polar exploration, his crew might have preferred a different author. Still, his pioneering work at Cape Adare laid the groundwork for future Antarctic expeditions, proving that yes, humans could survive a winter on the continent - even if they didn't particularly enjoy each other's company while doing so.