In 1915 one early explorer, stuck on a ship that was making its slow and weary way through the pack ice, wrote this prescient entry in his diary:
I do so wish sometimes that I could just pop home for an hour or two as easily in the flesh as in the spirit. No doubt the explorers of 2015, if there is anything left to explore, will . . . carry their pocket wireless telephones . . . and . . . of course there will be an aerial daily excursion to both poles then.4
He wasn’t so very far off. In the summers these days there is a plane from McMurdo to the Pole most days; you can come here just for part of the season, when the sun has returned, when the temperatures are cold but bearable and a steady stream of planes is bringing in resupplies and options.
But if you are really hard-core, if you are ready to see the continent at its harshest, and get a taste of the isolation that the early explorers experienced, you need to spend a winter here. In winters, there are no planes and no chances to pop back home. Even today, it is easier to leave the International Space Station in an emergency than it is to leave the South Pole after the last plane has gone, after the continent has dropped its dark curtain and you are frozen into the silence. I have never spent a winter in Antarctica, and probably never will. But I am still gripped by the idea of it, a fascination that was only quickened by the many winterers that I met there.
‘The winter is a totally different animal from the summer. It’s like comparing apples and . . . pick-up trucks.’ Larry Rickard was a carpenter from New Jersey, who I ran into in the galley the day after my arrival. He was eating ‘midrats’—midnight rations—which were supposed to be just for night workers but which anyone could join if, like me, they were hungry and couldn’t sleep, and asked the cook nicely. It was 5 November, the US had just re-elected George W. Bush, and the galley staff had served up a themed menu of ‘pork barrel roast, mashed hopes potatoes, big business gravy and squashed dreams’. On the wall was a red bell labelled ‘whining alarm’ with a sign underneath saying ‘no sympathy for the picky’. One side of the galley had nothing but huge picture windows framing the ceremonial pole and its flags just a few metres away, and, although it was midnight, the summer sun was streaming in.
Larry had already spent two winters on the ice, one at Mactown and one at Pole, and he was about to embark on his third. He was wiry and full of coiled energy. He had tight black curls and words tumbled out of him almost more quickly than he could frame them. If he were a cartoon character, he’d be a fast-talking, wisecracking black Labrador.
It was Larry who told me that the slang for people at the South Pole was ‘Polies’, and that they got special clothing—hefty Carhartt overalls and extra thick green parkas, which were a badge of honour as you passed through McMurdo and turned your nose up at the red parka brigade. But he also had his poetic moments, as when he struggled to explain what the winter here was truly like. ‘If I were to describe it with just one word, it would be: surrender. It’s not giving up, it’s giving in. Relinquishing all power to do something else, realising that whatever happens you just can’t leave. It’s very powerful. That’s what makes it addictive to me.’
He knew the base inside out and, since the following day was his day off, he offered to show me round. First stop was the new station. This was being built as a replacement for the previous one, which had been constructed in the 1970s and was now both too small for the current scale of science, and too susceptible to drifting snow. I was already staying in a berthing wing of the new building, and the galley was also now in operation. But we explored the new medical facility (labelled, by tradition, ‘Club Med’) containing a dentist’s chair and operating room and other stark reminders that in the winters here you were medically on your own. We poked our heads around the doors that would eventually lead to science labs, gymnasiums, weight rooms, and more berths, but were now just sites of hammerings and sawings and scrapings.
A huge silver cylinder housing a spiral staircase provided both the passage between floors and one of the main exits to the outside world. Everyone on station called it the beer can because that’s what it looked like. The rest of the station was designed in wings like capital letter Es lying on their sides. Most of these were yet to be constructed, though the steel structures were in place for some. And the exterior of the building was still an incongruous yellow, though it would eventually be a cool steel-grey. The doors were the massive insulated kind that you find in industrial freezers. But in this case, the freezer was on the outside.
As we stepped out, there was the familiar dazzling sun-snow combination, the same gasp at the intensity of the cold. Temperatures were hovering around -58°F. Thanks to its thick mantle of ice, the South Pole lies 9,350 feet above sea level, and the coldness of the air gives it an effective altitude more like 11,500 feet. From the moment you step off the plane everyone you meet warns you to take it easy, drink plenty of water, avoid caffeine and alcohol, not to move too fast or carry too much until you’re acclimatised. For most of the first few days you walk sluggishly, as if in a dream, gasping if you try to take the stairs too quickly. You have a persistent nagging headache and an unpleasant tingling in your feet from the side effects of diamox, the pill pressed on all visitors to the Pole to ward off altitude sickness. And then, suddenly, your head clears and your breath returns and insanely cold temperatures begin to seem normal. Dashing between buildings at -58°F, you might neglect to put gloves or hat on. Acclimatisation, it turns out, is as much about attitude as altitude.
(You can, however, take this too far. Though the sun may be shining and you may feel like you’re inured to the cold, there are certain things you just shouldn’t do. Larry told me how late one summer he was sitting in the computer lab when one of his colleagues came in. Both sat silently for a while, then they caught each other’s eye and Larry said: ‘How’re you doing?’ ‘Thon’t puth a penthil in your mouth when you’re out-thide,’ came the reply. It turned out that the graphite in the pencil had frozen to his tongue.)
The famous South Pole Dome lay just a short walk away from the new station. It was a geodesic Buckminster Fuller segmented dome that had been built here in the 1970s by the US Navy. It must have seemed like a good idea—make something that was strong enough to withstand the weight of blowing snow that would land on it, and round enough to deflect the ferocious winter winds. Oh, and that was also utterly gorgeous, a shining seventies image of a moon base, just as the stark new station reflects modern images of how we might live in space. But the shape turned out to be far from ideal. It seemed to attract drifting snow rather than repel it. Every year, huge amounts of fuel and time went into shifting the drift that had accumulated around it in the winter. And even so, where the entryway was once on the surface, it now lay down a steep incline of snow, dubbed ‘heart attack hill’ by those who struggled to climb back out. (Though little fresh snow falls at the Pole, plenty is carried in by the winds, gradually burying anything that humans have brought in. When I arrived in 1999, the ceremonial pole was chin-high, but now, five years later it barely came up to my knees. The new station was on stilts that could be jacked up to keep it ahead of the drifting, but eventually it, too, would succumb.)
And yet, there was something glorious about the Dome. It wasn’t heated, but simply provided shelter for the more prosaic container-like buildings inside. So the roof was encrusted with enchanting stalactites of ice, and the networks of steel arches housing the gym, fuel bladders and storage facilities were crystal caves of wonder. The buildings, though blocky, were cosy and idiosyncratic, decorated over the years with odd mementos from around the world. On the door of the bar, a sign filched from somewhere in Australia declared that this was ‘the last pub for 250 kilometres’ and someone had scratched on an extra ‘1’ to make the distance a more accurate 1,250 km. Although this past winter was the first in which the new station was officially occupied, Larry and many of his comrades chose to stay here instead. It might be less comfortable, but it had more soul.
Behind the
Dome, Larry took me round a few half-cylindrical sheds to the bizarre sight of a Russian biplane pegged into the snow with guy ropes. Apparently, this Antonov-3 landed at the Pole on 8 January 2002. Since the leader of the expedition was Artur N. Chilingarov, Deputy Chairman of the Russian State Duma, the plane was accorded an official welcome and the right to be refuelled. (Official NSF policy is to give no support whatsoever to ‘private expeditions, US or foreign, in Antarctica’. In practice, this means that all private teams have to bring all their own life support with them, though they do at least get to visit the station store where they can mark their passports with a South Pole stamp and buy T-shirts that say things like: ‘Ski South Pole, 2 inches of powder, 2 miles of base’, or, my personal favourite: ‘South Pole Station: Not all who wander are lost’.)
However, when the occupants spilled out of the plane, the visitors turned out to include a group of tourists who had hitched a ride. That might not have been a particular problem except that, when the tours had been completed, T-shirts bought, photos taken and the team reloaded on the plane . . . the engine wouldn’t start. The government delegation was eventually flown back to New Zealand via McMurdo on a US Hercules, and presented with an $80,000 bill for their stay at the Pole, the fuel that was uselessly pumped into the biplane, and the plane ticket back to civilisation.5
The number of private visitors who make it to the Pole is steadily increasing, and the NSF’s policy not to share resources is more and more rigorously enforced. This seems unusually uncooperative for a base in the dead centre of the most cooperative continent on Earth. But the National Science Foundation has no control over the preparedness, or otherwise, of the adventurers who come here. On 17 December 1997 six people—two Norwegians, an Austrian and three Americans—attempted a sky dive from a Twin Otter plane over the Pole. Three—the two Norwegians and one American—were skilled and well prepared and their jump passed without trouble. The three remaining people made many mistakes, which culminated in the worst one of all: they failed to open their parachutes in time. It was NSF staff who had to go out there with the body bags and pull their frozen corpses from the ice. (The station was shocked, of course. But with the black humour that seems to be an integral part of polar personalities, somebody later commemorated the event by half burying two boots upside down so they were sticking up in the snow.)
If someone takes pity on certain visitors and sneaks them in, they can get some highly unofficial privileges—though it is still likely to come at a price. On my first trip I found myself sitting in the galley next to four Frenchmen who had skied unsupported from the coast to the Pole, a gruelling journey of more than 900 miles. Between mouthfuls they told me cheerfully how they had also skied to the North Pole and climbed Everest and achieved a host of other feats of endurance that left me dizzy. I felt honoured to meet them, but when they had finished their meal they ‘paid’ for it by heading off into the kitchen and helping with the washing-up. And then they left the station buildings and went back to their freezing tents.
It seems harsh, but then all resources are scarce here. My initial orientation warned me that water was precious at the Pole because it had to be melted using fuel flown in from the coast. Showers should be no more than two minutes and were permitted only twice a week. If you noticed that somebody consistently ran over their allotted time, when you passed them in the corridor you growled ‘shower thief!’ And good behaviour, or winning a tournament or a fancy-dress party, could gain you the right to a five-minute shower, officially inscribed on a certificate by the base manager.
Of course, they could simply have installed two-minute cutoffs for the showers but there was an ethos of trust here that I supposed was necessary when you squeezed a small number of people into a remote place and expected them to get along. There was also, perhaps necessarily, a general goofiness in the air here that belied the official solemnity. On the way back to the station as we passed the ceremonial pole, Larry suddenly stopped, took the camera hanging around my neck, thrust it into my gloved hands and said: ‘Take a picture!’ Then he sped over to the pole, and sprung into a handstand while I obediently snapped. He ran back, laughing at my puzzlement, pressed the review button and turned the camera upside down. There on the screen was a figure, clad in a green down parka and bunny boots, apparently clinging to the mirrored globe as he dangled precariously downwards from the pole at the bottom of the world.
South Pole winter, February-March
The last plane leaves around the middle of February. In a way, the timing is arbitrary. The temperatures are high enough that you could still fly later than that if you wanted to. The sun is still shining, and from one day to the next the conditions are more or less the same. But the choice is made by the logistics guys, the date is set in everyone’s calendar, and it’s a momentous one. When you wake up that morning, you know that there is still a chance to get on the last available plane out of town. And later, after it has gone, you know that you are now effectively trapped until October.
Your first reaction is probably relief that the rush is finally over. The last few days of the summer season are always the most frantic. People are scrambling to finish their summer tasks. The ones who are leaving are talking vacation plans; the galley is full of ideas about how to spend your summer salary in tropical travel spots. You have to close your ears to this kind of thing. You can’t let it get to you. But it’s hard when the energy levels rise, as the last plane gets closer. When they finally leave, it’s like the quiet that hangs in the air after a family reunion, when everyone has gone home and you can digest it all in peace.
But if this is your first time, you’ll probably also be feeling jittery. In the twenty-first century there are few places left on Earth where you can be genuinely stranded. And yet here you are, in the middle of a thick mantle of ice sliding over a bare continent of rock. And whatever happens they’re not coming to get you. They’re just not.
When this jolt of panic subsides (as it usually does) you’ll be left, if you’re lucky, with another kind of relief, the sense that you have little to worry about beyond your own work, and that of the people immediately around you. In Larry’s memorable phrase it’s not about giving up, but about giving in. (This is also the time when you can guarantee that you can’t be packed off home. If you had a twinge of backache or a slight toothache in the past week or two, you’ll probably have stayed well away from the doctor just in case. Now that it’s too late to be repatriated, chances are there’s a queue already forming outside Club Med.)
By long-standing tradition, the first act of the new winter crew is to gather around the TV for an official screening of the two versions of The Thing. Both are horror stories set in remote polar stations. The older one, set in the Arctic, looks foolish to modern eyes. Its monster is a unimpressively wooden kind of Frankenstein, and a woman wearing a powder-blue parka with a fetching furry trim keeps popping up to smile and offer all the men coffee. John Carpenter’s later version is much more frightening. This one is set in an Antarctic station in the winter. For those who don’t know it, I won’t spoil the story but an alien presence becomes increasingly disturbing, and the claustrophobia is extreme. Perfect viewing, in sum, for a team of people who are about to be isolated in a remote Antarctic station for nine long months.
The next few days will be for taking stock. Now that the population has gone down from two hundred to just a few dozen, there’s space to breathe. Nobody’s working nights any more—everybody is on the same daytime shift. You might be nailing down everything that could be blown away by the winter storms, or taking down the flags that marked the runway and putting up new flag lines, one marker every three metres, between the main station and all the outer buildings. These might look redundant while the sun is still shining, but when the darkness comes, and the raging blizzards, these flags and the ropes looped between them might just save your life.
And each day, the circling sun dips almost imperceptibly closer to the horizon. The two Poles are the only
places on Earth that experience a single day per year. Both places have exactly six months of daylight and six months of darkness, the transitions marked by a single sunrise and a long drawn-out sunset lasting three weeks or more. The first sign of the coming sunset is the lengthening shadows. Each day those thrown by buildings, storage piles, skidoos will stretch a little, until they seem to reach almost to the horizon. Your own shadow will seem impossibly long and as you walk two vast legs will mimic every step you take with a gigantic stride.
Now while there is still some daylight and the weather isn’t yet too cold, you might grab the chance to sneak into Old Pole, the Station That Nobody Mentions. This was built back in 1956 under the supervision of former Boy Scout Paul Siple, and marked the first human presence at the Pole since Scott and his men had trudged disconsolately away nearly half a century earlier. (Paul Siple was wholesome enough in his appetites to make Baden-Powell cringe. At the end of an earlier Antarctic expedition, when finally back in New Zealand, he wrote how ‘I hurried to a field where I flung myself on the ground and lay daydreaming in the soft warm breezes until my body cried out for a glass of milk and some fruit.’6)
Originally Old Pole was on the surface, but the ice has since taken it, as it will one day take everything else. Most people know that it lies roughly over there, buried somewhere under that large patch of ice; but in the summer few people dare risk going in—I certainly didn’t—for fear of being summarily sent home. Entering it is strictly forbidden, officially for safety reasons though there are some who mutter that officialdom would prefer everyone to forget it exists. But in the winter, what can they do? Sack you? Visits certainly take place and photos are later passed round the station like contraband, showing images that are misted with frosted breath hanging in the air. Though some of the rooms are still intact, others are dramatically contorted, their steel joists twisted and buckled by the awesome power of the ice.
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