The Dry Valleys

I just had the chance to test out the formatting of some of my video footage, and threw together a small clip. I’m aiming to get a good 45 min – 1 hour film out of this season. Production quality should improve once I learn the software and how to press all the shiny buttons on the camera. What you see here is basically arriving at camp. Enjoy!

Since I’ve been at McMurdo I’ve heard an incredible number of stories from people who’ve been down for 3, 4, 5 years and NEVER seen a penguin. I was worried. The possibility of this happening to me was unacceptable. I was on a mission.

Twice so far my plan had been thwarted. The first time, I had been out walking on the ice and saw fresh penguin tracks only to discover that they went in circles until finally disappearing. The second time, I was bumped off a tour to Cape Evans Hut that was overfull, and that group had 11 emperor penguins come up and stare at them. I was devastated, but persisted onward.

My last Sunday in McMurdo. It was now or never to get on another tour to Cape Evans. I showed up an hour early for the tour. The list was full. There were 8 alternates. My hands were sweaty as I waited to see if they had extra space. My pee bottle was nearly full in fear. I was in luck, 10 people cancelled. They called out my name and I boarded the monstrosity that is the Delta vehicle.

GPM not MPG

(The Delta is a vehicle that they use to transport up to 20 people over the sea ice to any location at the astonishing speed of 10 mph. It’s fuel efficiency is measured in gallons per mile, not miles per gallon. Maybe.)

We were an hour and half into our drive when we came to halt on the sea ice. The driver had pulled over so we could take pictures of a glacier (oh boy, more ice). We were climbing back on the truck when someone called out “there’s two black dots in the distance”. Penguins.

The little creatures were nearly two miles off and coming straight for us. They moved insanely quickly; running, hopping, and sliding they made it over to us in record time. They looked like little aliens, the way they stood out against the white landscape and how awkwardly they moved. As they got closer we could see that it was a pair of Adelie penguins. Penguins are funny little bastards. If they see humans on the ice, they’ll coming running up to check you out, presumably since they think you’re another penguin and might share some warmth or company. As these guys came up and stared at us, they brightly noticed that we were not, in fact, similar. Squaking to themselves they ran off to the next dark spot on the landscape.

Preparing for take-off

I wonder if it tastes more like chicken or fish?

There’s no way to adequately describe how strange it is to see them move. I’ve seen footage before, but in person it’s another experience entirely. It’s like watching an alien in a tuxedo hobble forward without bending its knees. While wearing a back brace. Easy enough to imagine?

Awkward...

I had accomplished my penguin goal. I wouldn’t have to return home ashamed. When people will ask me “Did you see any penguins while you were in Antarctica?”, I won’t have to turn away and hide the tears. I can stand there proudly and say, “Yes. Yes M’am, I saw penguins.”

That’s the term for people who stay for the 8 months of Antarctic winter. Generally, someone begins their contract in October, the start of “summer”. Over the next four months they are deluded into thinking that staying for the year would be an interesting adventure (I would love to do a winter. Once). These poor souls then extend their contract (if they hadn’t already signed a year contract) so that they’re now stuck on the continent for 12 or 13 months.

When I was at McMurdo I met a bunch of Polies coming through town on their way back home after having just spent a full year at the South Pole. They started off with 4 months of permanent sunlight, then a few weeks of sunset, 6 months of darkness, and then a few weeks of sunrise. They looked like they’d seen a ghost. Or been to war. Or seen me naked. Their first day was spent sitting in a huddled group together in the mess hall, staring blankly at cups of coffee. It was their first time seeing new faces in over 8 months. They’d been confined with the same 40 people in a small base in the coldest temperatures in the world, unable to leave, no chance of evacuation, in permanent darkness. I’m half-surprised no one was eaten.

I ran into one of the pale-face people out at the coffee shop later that day. He was standing around with one eye bigger than the other and had his sunglasses on the table. “Nice glasses” I said. “Oh. Oh yea, these are really good. You use them outside.”

Those guys were completely toasted.

Robert F. Scott was one of the early British Antarctic explorers. He led two of the most ambitious expeditions into the continent, the Discovery expedition (1901-1904) where he walked around a lot, and the infamous Terra Nova expedition (1910-1913) where he walked to his death.

Discovery represented Britain’s first main exploration of Antarctica’s interior. Scott and his team (which included Shackleton at this time) had major finds including the Polar Plateau and the Dry Valleys, however this trip didn’t represent a push for the Pole. During their time on the ice, Scott and his men set up Discovery Hut on Hut Point, Ross Island, which is within easy walking distance of McMurdo. This hut served primarily as a store house for the expedition, but also was used on occasion for living and other work.

Like a ski chalet

Last week I had the chance to wander down there and have a stumble around inside. The most impressive thing is that in 100 years since it was built the exterior of the building looks immaculate. Structurally sound, it looks like quite a pleasant place to live. Until you step inside. It’s an incredibly cold building, amazingly more cold inside than it feels outside. Laws under the International Antarctic Treaty mean that historic relics must be preserved for future generations with as little interference as possible. Old seal carcasses hang frozen in the back room, a rack of rib meat sits on the floor of the hut, blackened but still in one piece after a century of aging. Boxes of goods line the walls, and are used as building blocks to separate sections of the hut into “rooms”.

_________

Mmmmm

_________

Then there’s the kitchen. A pan of something, cooked fat it seems, rests where they would have eaten meals and looks decidedly unappetizing. Cases of biscuits made of rock are uneaten and are next to cases of cocoa powder and hard liquor – the necessary item used to convince yourself to force down what’s in the pan.

The clothes they give me are a little more advanced

If the food doesn’t evoke enough sympathy from tourists, the early explorers’ clothes hang across the room. I complain about having 4 pairs of clothes for 3 months. These guys had one pair for 2 years. After having read the stories and now seen their hut and supplies, these explorers must have been made of tougher stuff than most of us mortals. Exceptionally tough though they may have been, it didn’t mean they were exceptionally brilliant.

The Terra Nova Expedition. This was Scott’s death-march to the South Pole. While history books often endlessly praise Scott’s bravery, I tend to think these are glorified tales of a guy who was either negligent or ignorant when planning his expedition. Briefly, this expedition was a race to the South Pole. Scott was racing Roald Amundsen, a Norwegian, to become the first team to reach the Pole and claim the glory and nationalistic prize that such an achievement brings. Scott and his men struggled against some of the worst conditions in the world, only to reach the Pole and find a tent flying the Norwegian flag, and a note confirming that Amundsen had gotten there first. Scott’s devastation is well recorded – “Great God! This is an awful place and terrible enough for us to have laboured to it without the reward of priority.” On his return, Scott and his men froze to death in their tent, having marched themselves to near starvation after running out of supplies, getting lost, and blizzard after blizzard. The manner in which they died was incredibly dignified and brave (Oates, a member of Scotts team who knew he was dying and slowing down the team’s progress, stepped outside their tent during a blizzard and said, “I am just going outside and I may be some time.” thus relieving the team of the burden of caring for him). However, the British just didn’t have their brains on when planning things. They were inept with and had not practiced using sled dogs or skis as transport, they brought ponies and early motorized vehicles to try as alternative means of moving across the continent, and they generally had no Arctic or Antarctic experience among them.

The Norwegians on the other hand were masters. Amundsen and his men were experienced with their equipment. They planned their provisions correctly. They used sled dogs. Amundsen had coldly calculated that they could carry less weight with them across the continent if they fed the sick and dying sled dogs as food to the others throughout the journey. Thus they may have started with 50 dogs, but they returned with 25 (I didn’t look up the actual numbers). Not a story for the kids, but incredible planning. The Norwegians journey to the pole and back was relatively straightforward and mundane when compared to the harshness of Scott’s. Perhaps it was this martyrdom that garnered the attention, perhaps it was the vivid imagery of his death. Regardless, I think the Norwegians have been overlooked as masters of the continent in favor of a harrowing story of poor planning and incredible misfortune.

Upon hearing the news of his death, the men who had remained on Ross Island erected a cross on Observation Hill memorializing Scott and his South Pole party. The cross still stands to this day. If you look closely you can still read the inscription, “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield”.

Observation Hill, overlooking McMurdo

Scott was a brave man, but his expeditions chronically suffered from poor planning and over-ambition. His historical status has been the equivalent of hero-worship. There’s someone else I respect much more:

Before the race between Scott and Amundsen, one leader had gotten within 97 miles of the pole. Facing deteriorating weather and running out of supplies, Ernest Shackleton knew that continuing on meant certain death. He turned around. In a letter to his wife he wrote “I thought you’d rather have a live donkey than a dead lion”. That’s my hero.

"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield"

One of the major perks to being a “Grantee” (scientist in Antarctica) are the multitude of training programs that we’re required/forced/coerced into taking. Most of these are pretty generic safety lectures about the fact that it’s cold outside, knives are sharp, and don’t stand in front of moving vehicles. However, some are quite interesting – ATV training, generator training, and helicopter safety information. But one such training regime holds a special place in my heart.

Happy Camper. This is a two-day, overnight snow survival school where the mountaineers at McMurdo train all the scientists and personnel going out to work in field camps. Training begins with a group icebreaker (get it?) where we say where we’re headed and our cold weather experience. My only previous snow camping has been by accident, and I have been foolishly trying in vain to keep it that way.

Happy Camper

The first morning started with an ease in to camping on the ice shelf. We were transported out to the ice flow near Mt Erebus and into a little ihut. Training in the hut on multi-fuel stoves provided an opportunity to acquire individualized burns to remember the occasion by, followed shortly after by the explanation that the afternoon and evening would give us ample time to cool the wounds as we would be sleeping on the ice.

Safety First

Snow school is essentially a very quick course on what to do in the event that you find yourself stranded on the ice. The first thing done was establish shelter – Scott tents, four-season mountain tents, and a wind wall. The wind wall was pretty cool. I’ve never made a proper igloo or snow shelter before, so to see and learn how to quarry snow is slightly amazing. Essentially, you take a flat, untrampled area of snow and take a hand saw and cut brick shapes. Then, using a shovel just “pop” the brick out. If done correctly, this gives you perfectly square building blocks – which amazed me in its simplicity. I’ve never thought of snow as such a workable building material capable of being quarried. Once the quarry was in working order, a walled city was built using the Scott tents (capable of sustaining harsh Antarctic winds) as corners and the wall to block the wind for the mountain tents. The brave members of the group even had the opportunity to dig their own graves and sleep in a snow trench for the evening.

Cool, eh?

The remaining hours of the day were spent boiling snow for water, eating, and fighting off hypothermia (it was -30 out without the windchill). I froze my ass off. After deciding that no matter how long I starred at the sun it wouldn’t go down, I hobbled into my nipple-high sleeping bag designed for hobbits and spent the night nursing my toes.

Sometimes it does get close to the horizon

The following morning was gorgeous weather. I mean that with sincerity. We broke camp with incredible speed and went off to more training – radio training on HF radios left over from Vietnam, white-out training with buckets on our heads, and basic first aid drills. After falling asleep to a relatively important safety lecture we were packed back into a goliath transport beast and brought back to McMurdo.

I must admit that despite my midget sized sleeping bag, I rather enjoy winter camping. Damn good thing too, since starting on Friday it’s what I’ll be doing for the next three months. Time to think warm thoughts.

There's nothing like make-believe