October 25th, 2012. Life at 77.8500° S‏



McMurdo and Observation Hill

Early this week our foreman announced after morning yoga in construction outfits that they would be selecting crews for deep field camps. One of the biggest perks about being in the McMurdo carpentry shop is deployment to field camps around the continent. Our deep field camps are scattered around West Antarctica; truly the most inaccessible, unforgiving part of the entire world. The camps are erected, supported, maintained, and disassembled by the carpentry crew (carp shop) at McMurdo Station. So if someone where sick enough to want to spend a month in a tent without a shower on a frozen plateau of ice two miles thick thousands of miles from a resemblance of society working 70 hours a week in mind numbing cold and debilitating wind…the McMurdo carp shop is definitely your jam. 

The Carp Shop at McMurdo

Main street

Coastal areas here are busy with life, seals lie on the frozen sea like furry sacks of blubber around holes and cracks that lead into the frigid water. I’m told they’re alive but have yet to see one move. Whales will come to McMurdo Sound in January after the sea ice breaks up and several penguin rookeries are within miles of station. Fearless giant ugly seagulls called skuas are plague the skies and are considered station pests; they have been known to dive-bomb people carrying food from the galley, robbing them of contents and maybe gifting them with a giant ugly seagull turd. Our local Goodwill is also called “skua,” as is any unwanted item. I’ve been able to completely outfit myself with work clothes, Carhart pants, Red Wing boots, T-shirts, even a fake Christmas tree for the room, all complements of skua items. I must have looked interesting crunching across station in track pants and steel-toed boots with a pile of shitty clothes and a plastic tree. McMurdo Station is the largest establishment on the continent of Antarctica. Right now there are 690 people busying themselves with all things human; we engineer and build, experiment and investigate, play and puzzle, argue and romance, exercise and party.  It is truly remarkable to take society away from people, something we’ve endeavored to create for thousands of years, and ask them to build it in an isolated microcosm in a place where most other animals would perish. It’s a beautiful comedy to witness and be a part of.

McMurdo during "condition 2" storm

Antarctica is the size of America and Mexico, yet the largest human presence is just over a thousand individuals during the height of the Austral summer.  For all our differences and conflicts that threaten to shatter our fragile society, somehow we were able to agree in the most agreeable way on how to manage this massive place at the bottom of our world. There are no wars, genocide, deforestation, pollution, or any other nasty that has become a human trademark across the globe.  In a beautifully rare exception to our typical behavior, we set aside this place, exempting it from our chaotic obsession with destruction. Signing the Antarctic Treaty in 1959 (50 nations currently) we agreed this place would be the chapel for science only. We study life, the elements, the ancient earth, the atmosphere, the universe. Antarctica is a preserved blueprint of the origins of the planet, a continent twice the size of Australia with rivers, lakes and mountains, frozen along with their inhabitants of a warmer time eons ago, buried under miles of ice.  

Once you leave the relative comforts of the coast, life ceases to flourish. No other animals are able to survive there and none care to. What makes us different is our insistent, unrelenting desire to push ourselves; a curiosity that is unmatched and an ability to bring our curiosities into fruition no matter the cost. Whatever the motivation to travel to the interior of Antarctica is, it has long been a sought after place. We wanted to go because we couldn’t, people died getting there, people died getting back. Scientists go there in an attempt to understand certain complexities about our world or the universe beyond, carpenters (or people pretending to be carpenters) go there to live in a tent in the snow and build some crap to support scientists’ curiosities. I want to go because I haven’t been there, because I want to live in a tent, because the science fascinates me and because it’s somewhere I know I don’t belong. People aren’t supposed to be there, it’s the only place on earth without people for a reason. For 3 months of the year a dozen camps are set up, containing 10-50 people that leave as soon as summer ends and a dark sunless sky persists for half of the year.

WAIS (West Antarctic Ice Shelf)

I’ll be going to WAIS Divide camp next Tuesday for 3-4 weeks. We’ll pack into C-130’s and Baslers and fly 5 hours into the middle of absolute nowhere with tool bags, tents, and beer; a blue collar version of The Right Stuff. One year someone was dicking with their two-way radio on the flight and it killed the auto-pilot, sending the plane into a sudden lurching decent, throwing people against their seat belts. Oops. At camp the scientist and other important types sleep in heated Rac-Tents, which we assemble. We sleep in tents; I mean actual fucking tents that you camp in at home in the summer on fucking grass or dirt. My issued tent has patches in it like an old bicycle tire, should be cozy at 30 below zero. Last year after a storm, of which this area of Antarctica is prone to, the crew noticed at breakfast someone was late/missing. After passing by “tent city” they saw a tent bursting at the seams with snow like a giant nylon cream filled donut, mumbled cries for help emanating from its bowels. They had unzipped their tent in haste, no doubt en route to the outhouse, and were buried in a snow drift that came crashing through the opening. Probably didn’t need coffee to wake up that morning after getting leveled by a 10 foot wall of snow in his PJ’s. He was fine; cold as shit and a little scared but I’m guessing he opened his tent slowly from the top from that point on; I know I will. The last several days have been full of useful information on how to manage yourself in the situation I’m about to embark on. “Bring stuff to do in your tent because you will get trapped in there for possibly 2 days during inclement weather,” was my favorite little tidbit. Bring stuff to do? Like food and water to fucking survive!? A book to eat after I read it? I feel like an astronaut prepping for deep space exploration in a biplane, but I think they get heated accommodation and a toilet. I couldn’t be more excited though; sounds like shenanigans are a virtual guarantee.

Basler

C-130 Hercules

Work the last week has been training and making Rac-Tent end wall batons with a buffed version of ZZ Top named Lyons. Hours on a router cutting wood shapes and rocking out with Lyons has us covered in sawdust by closing whistle; I’ve picked saw dusted boogs that I’m shocked actually fit in my nose to begin with. Last night I made a wooden beer holder after work for our BBQ that’s shaped like a hammer; it’s like I’ve embodied Homer Simpson and Jesus.

My custom made beer coozy holder

We've been watching the sunsets the last few weeks, knowing they would be over soon. As the sun approaches the horizon (pictured) it will linger there and shift laterally for hours before it falls behind the horizon entirely. The sun is now up 24 hours a day and will stay that way for the duration of the season.



Beautiful Antarctica!