This couple fell in love while working in Antarctica

A kidney for your partner, the most authentic gift of love 3:34

(CNN) --

"I came to Antarctica to find a husband," Nicole McGrath told Cole Heinz, feigning seriousness.

Heinz laughed.

The two were having lunch at McMurdo Station, a US research facility built on volcanic rock on Ross Island, surrounded by mountains, snow and ice.

The year was 2013. McGrath, then 25, had graduated from college in the midst of a recession, wasn't sure what she wanted to do, and job prospects were bleak.

When she learned that the US government was employing people to work in the dining room and cleaning at McMurdo, McGrath was intrigued and immediately applied.

It took a couple of years for her to be accepted, but before she knew it, McGrath was aboard a military flight from New Zealand to the planet's southernmost continent.

"Who can say that he went to Antarctica?"

McGrath tells CNN Travel today.

"That's something I've never heard of. I'm originally from Florida, so I've never lived in a cold place before."

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Upon arrival, he was briefed on his duties as part of the dining room staff: working in the kitchen, washing dishes, and serving food for McMurdo's team.

Heinz, a McMurdo veteran who had just turned 29, took it upon himself to train McGrath, along with other new recruits.

He remembers the moment he saw her for the first time.

"I walked in and my jaw dropped," he says.

McGrath couldn't help but notice Heinz as well.

"I remember seeing this redheaded Texan in a baseball cap and going, 'Oh, he's handsome,'" says McGrath.

However, she only joked about going to Antarctica to find a husband.

Her joke was actually referring to the fact that McMurdo is 75% male.

The two strangers soon realized that they shared this wry sense of humor.

"I think what attracted us on the first day was that we joked around a lot and made each other laugh," says McGrath.

Other new recruits joined that day, and McMurdo was a place that never stopped.

It was hard to find much privacy.

But McGrath and Heinz had lunch alone the first day.

"We kind of had a little date, not really a date, but a little private lunch together that first day," says Heinz.

Life in McMurdo

Nicole McGrath and Cole Heinz were working at McMurdo Station, an American research facility, when they met.

Credit: Nicole McGrath and Cole Heinz

As McGrath settled into his job, he compared McMurdo's environment to that of a college campus.

Everyone lived in dorms.

Movie nights and events were organized.

There was a friendly and welcoming atmosphere.

There was also spotty Wi-Fi, community-use computers, and no cell phone signal, so connections were forged quickly and strongly.

"The community is very important there, because everyone is in the same situation, you are 10,000 kilometers from your home and your family," says Heinz.

The only downside to the hectic atmosphere was that it was difficult to be alone with a potential love interest.

But in the midst of their busy work days, Heinz and McGrath found time to chat alone, and Heinz often dropped by McGrath's workplace in the dining room.

On their first date, the two hiked to Hut Point to see the abandoned Discovery hut, pictured here, once used by British explorer Robert F. Scott during an expedition to Antarctica between 1901 and 1904.

Credit: Nicole McGrath and Cole Heinz

On the third day of their Antarctic adventure, McGrath asked Heinz out on their first official date.

He suggested they go to Hut Point to see the abandoned Discovery hut, once used by British explorer Robert F. Scott during a 1901-1904 Antarctic expedition, and later by Ernest Shackleton.

"It's exactly the same as it was over 100 years ago, because of the cold and lack of humidity, everything is perfectly preserved," explains McGrath.

The two chatted the entire way, marveling at the spectacular and ethereal scenery as they made their way through the snow.

"It's a very beautiful place, cold and desolate," says McGrath, recalling the frozen terrain.

Back at McMurdo, the two headed to the cafeteria and spent the rest of the day chatting and playing board games.

They shared their first kiss and have been inseparable ever since.

"That was it," says McGrath.

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antarctic romance

McGrath and Heinz used to go to see penguins together.

Credit: Nicole McGrath and Cole Heinz

The two soon realized that going out at McMurdo Station was different from going out in Florida or Texas.

On the one hand, there was the question of privacy.

"You have to be creative with your quotes," says Heinz.

They would go on excursions together with no company other than the penguins of Antarctica, looking for seals or whales along the way.

Back at the station, they watched movies in the common room.

The nights were spent sharing a drink with their friends, or playing in the coffee shack.

McMurdo workers organized events, such as banjo or language classes, for each other.

The station's scientists often gave fascinating talks about their research in Antarctica.

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On the eve of 2014, the station hosted its annual New Year's Eve festival, dubbed Icestock.

Heinz and McGrath attended the concert, along with all of their friends from McMurdo.

"It's the southern hemisphere, so the sun is out for 24 hours, the snow around the station has melted. So they build this big platform and people can sign up to play music," explains Heinz.

One of McMurdo's cabins is reserved for VIP visits, but when not occupied by congressional delegates, it is available for 24-hour rental by residents.

On one of his days off, Heinz rented the place and cooked McGrath a special dinner.

Dating in McMurdo means getting "creative" with dating, says Heinz.

Credit: Nicole McGrath and Cole Heinz

McGrath called his parents from McMurdo's landline every day.

She didn't mention Heinz until she had been at the station for a few months, but her mother had already guessed that her daughter had met someone.

Whenever McGrath was able to take a shift on the community computer, he would send his family pictures of his adventures, and his mother noticed that a red-haired man appeared in almost every picture.

In January 2014, the couple told each other for the first time that they loved each other.

They were spending time together, a rare time alone.

"I heard her whisper something," recalls Heinz.

"What did you say?" he remembers asking.

McGrath repeated the three words, under his breath.

"When he finally said it a little louder, I said to myself: 'I've been thinking for a week that I wanted to tell you this. But I've never said it to a girl,'" Heinz recalls today.

"I said it first. And I knew I was in love with him," says McGrath.

"But part of it was always like, I don't know, sometimes McMurdo felt like a fantasy world, like a reality show."

She wasn't sure how their relationship would translate to the "real" world.

"Maybe it's easy to be in love because we're in this very protected space," he remembers thinking.

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An uncertain future

The summer season at McMurdo ended in February, and McGrath had planned to tour New Zealand for the next six months, while Heinz was to stay over the winter.

The two hadn't discussed what that meant for their relationship.

"I knew I still wanted to be with her," says Heinz.

As February approached, he decided he had to be honest.

"What if I go to New Zealand with you?" he proposed to McGrath one day.

McGrath hesitated.

He did not want Heinz to give up the opportunity to work in the winter season: those winter jobs were coveted, since there were fewer jobs than in the summer.

Also, she worried that their relationship would only work in this Antarctic bubble.

McGrath said he thought it best if Heinz didn't join his trip.

"I said, 'Okay, I love you, I want you to be happy and do whatever you want, and if we cross paths again, great,'" recalls Heinz.

“After that, things were sad and tense between us. It was hard to know how to be around each other knowing that our relationship was coming to an end soon,” says McGrath.

But a couple of days later, she says she found herself alone in her room, thinking about Heinz.

"I realized that once I left, I wouldn't be able to see him every day and that made me very sad," says McGrath.

Determined, she went to look for him and resumed the discussion.

"I told him that if he was really okay with giving up his winter contract, I wanted him to come to New Zealand with me," recalls McGrath.

The New Zealand Adventure

McGrath and Heinz traveled around New Zealand together for six months in 2014. Here they are together in Queenstown.

Credit: Nicole McGrath and Cole Heinz

They began to form a plan and arranged their New Zealand working holiday visas.

Once there, they bought a van converted into a mobile home and traveled the country together.

“It was a bit stressful at first,” says McGrath.

"But I think we had a lot of fun. We had already fallen in love in Antarctica. But that trip was what made me realize that I really love him."

In a Skype call from the New Zealand van, McGrath met Heinz's parents in Texas for the first time.

Meanwhile, his parents flew out to join the couple for the last two weeks of their trip.

"A weird way to meet my parents for the first time," laughs McGrath.

"Like, 'Here are my parents and now we're going on a two-week road trip with them!'"

The pair grew even closer as they navigated the ups and downs of their RV odyssey.

As the six months came to an end, McGrath prepared to return to Antarctica.

"In the beginning, I was going to be in Antarctica only once, I was only going to do one season, but I liked it so much that I signed up for a second one," he says.

Heinz was unable to accompany her, so the couple was going to be at a distance for five months.

Neither of them was sure how this was going to turn out.

"We had just spent literally almost a year together of always being close to each other, living in the van together, seeing each other 24/7. And then me going to Antarctica and being in a long-distance relationship for five months where We couldn't even FaceTime or Skype or anything, it was just phone calls," says McGrath.

"But we got over it and I thought, 'Well, if I can live in a van with this guy, and also have a long-distance relationship with him, then we should be able to be together long-term because we've been through both extremes.'"

When McGrath returned to the United States after his second stint in Antarctica, he too had decided on his career: he wanted to work in urban planning and had landed an internship in Florida.

Meanwhile, Heinz had a job with the National Park Service and was about to move to Colorado.

The couple continued their long-distance relationship, but it was much easier now that they were in the same country, and they arranged regular trips back and forth.

On one of McGrath's visits, the two were touring the canyons of the Colorado National Monument, when Heinz proposed.

"The truth is that I was a little panicked when he asked me, because I knew that I loved him and that I wanted to marry him. But at that moment I said to myself: 'How is this going to work, if our lives are so far apart? '".

"And again, he was the one who said, 'We'll make it work. We love each other.' So after a bit of a panic, I said yes."

The two decided to take one more trip to Antarctica to celebrate this new chapter.

This time, they would be working at McMurdo during the summer and winter season, enjoying the opportunity to see the last sunset before the total darkness of winter 2016 set in, and visiting the South Pole.

An Antarctic-themed wedding

The couple married back in the US in 2017.

Credit: Dream Light Visuals

The couple married in McGrath's hometown of Miami in January 2017. Florida felt like a world away from Antarctica, but the couple found ways to incorporate the continent into the celebrations.

The color scheme was blue and silver, evoking polar ice.

Heinz made a miniature replica of Scott's Discovery Hut, in which guests left their wedding cards.

Instead of a guest book, the guests signed a map of Antarctica.

On top of the wedding cake were two miniature penguins.

And Heinz's cufflinks bore the coordinates of McMurdo Station.

McGrath wore a wedding dress worn by her late Chilean grandmother and later worn by her mother.

"At the reception we had photos of my grandmother and my mother in the dress, so our guests would know the story," he says.

Heinz made a miniature replica of Scott's Discovery Hut, pictured, in which guests placed their wedding cards.

Credits: Dream Light Visuals

After their wedding, the couple moved to Texas, where McGrath had been accepted to graduate school for urban planning.

She graduated seven months pregnant with the couple's first child, Samantha.

McGrath and Heinz say there's a bit of Antarctica in Samantha's everyday life.

“He gets a lot of penguin stuff all the time, he dressed up as a penguin for his first Halloween and he has penguin decorations in his room,” says Heinz.

Today, the family lives in upstate New York.

McGrath and Heinz say they moved north partly because of McGrath's job and partly because they missed the cold.

As for Heinz, he now works in the aerospace industry, and during his last stint at McMurdo he became interested in air travel and logistics.

The couple continue to maintain a close relationship with many of the people they met during their time in Antarctica, and they always encourage others to take up the opportunity to work there.

“I always try to encourage people to go for a season because obviously it was life-changing for both of us because we met there, but even just the experience of being there was life-changing,” says McGrath.

The couple always celebrates the Antarctic winter solstice, which occurs in June, by getting together with friends from McMurdo.

The celebration went virtual in 2021, but in previous years friends from Antarctica have flown in from all over the United States to celebrate.

"It's a holiday that we feel is very special to us, and it also keeps us connected back to the place where we fell in love," says McGrath.

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New Adventures

Currently, Heinz and McGrath have a daughter and live in upstate New York.

Credit: Nicole McGrath and Cole Heinz

McGrath and Heinz, who just celebrated their fifth wedding anniversary, say they have enjoyed embarking on new challenges and a new phase of life together over the past half decade.

"Over the years of marriage, just being around each other, you learn so much more," says Heinz, who says it's inspiring to witness McGrath's "drive and intelligence, and just the passion that he has." for all".

"From the beginning, I always knew he was a really kind and sweet person. And so I knew he was always going to be there," says McGrath of Heinz.

"Now we have a daughter, and fatherhood has opened up this whole new set of challenges and I'm continually impressed with the father that he is and just how dedicated he is to being a great father and being a great partner."

The couple say that they would love to return to McMurdo when they retire, and ponder whether an adult Samantha, and any future children they may have, might be interested in joining them.

When the pandemic allows, they also hope to take Samantha to South America, where McGrath's mother is from, and to Switzerland, where she also has family.

Whatever the future holds, McGrath and Heinz are thrilled to be living it out together.

"Every day is still like that first day in Antarctica, every day is exciting, different and fun," says Heinz.

Antarctica