Life on the Ice

December, 23 2009

Today is cold. The wind is blowing hard and we are working outside with it chilling our bones and freezing the saliva dripping out of our respirators. It is an Antarctica sort of day. We are still working on the giant fuel tank, grinding rust away and then priming it with oil paint. It is quite humorous to be painting in this weather. The paint literally freezes to the walls and like i said, our own spitt freezes to our coats. But I have stopped caring what task I am told to do. Keeping emotions out of work here seems to be a good survival method. Making special projects work and succeed in Antarctica is like giving a group of kindergardeners the tools and peices to make a space ship and fly it to Jupiter. At least that's how it seems most days. Today a group of Russian tourists stopped by McMurdo. They came off of a boat near the sea ice and somehow got here, wearing matching yellow jackets and taking photographs of the workers digging and going to lunch. IT's funny being on the side of the workers here. A much different expereicne than the scientists or the full time emploees. It's a tribe. And this is a fun week to be part of the tribe. There are Christmas parties hosted by many of the departments, the MAAG opening, Chalie Brown Christmas play, Christmas dinner, etc.. .etc... trying to sleep, work and play this week is an exhuasting task! More on that soon....for now, lunch is over. I had my bowl of chilli and now it is back to the chillly winds.

Snow Day! Today I woke up to big snow flakes falling and accumulating on the ground! We have been having really nice, sunny, nearly hot days in the past fwe weeks, but toady the clouds formed and the wind was blowing snow our way. Funny because today is the summer solstice and everyday will be one day closer to wintere and the sun setting for months. But for now, the sun is spinning in tiny circles, never getting close to the horizon. We had an interesting day today. We were unable to work because a) the roof was wet and snowy and b) we don't have any material to put on the roof! So we were given the fortunate task of scraping and grinding the 2 million gallon fuel tank that is "supposed" to be painted this year, but most likely won't be painted and will surely rust again, making our work seem futile and pointless. However, the snow made us happy and the acoustics on the fuel tank were unmatched by even the tallest silo, we sang and echoed inside the tank, which made the whole grinding and painting in the cold and snow thing a whole lot better! And so another day in Antarctica passed...
Ken, Ruben, Anna B.Nana (aka Zepherette, Good Bye-girl or Annaconda), Kirk and Jade

A beautiful day for a ski out on Willy Field with Mt. Erebus looming behind me, smoking and alive!

The view across the Ross Sea ice to the glaciers beyond...

A sunny summer day in which I actually got to hold AND use a paint brush!!!!

Our two little fish huts that were placed next to buliding 155 to hold our supplies. appropriately named for paitners who are commonly seen wearing ty-vech suits and respirators!

I started my first jewlery class last wednesday night with with a fellow named Harry who has been making jewlery for 30 years... I am very excited to resize a ring and learn the basics of the art of silversmithing...

Notes from a Sunday.....

Walking down from the softball tournament to town toady I heard this incredible sound that makes me stop in my tracks every time. It sounds like a choir of whales, or an eerie howl, and i love it. It comes from the wind blowing through the metal on buildings. It makes me feel like I am in a magical place, hearing mystical singing from cathedrals...


And then I snap out of it. I am at McMurdo Station, surrounded by heavy equiptment, trailors, trucks, and machinery. It is cold and windy today. But it is Sunday, the day of rest, so there are no complaints!



This was a photo I took near McMurdo of a seal that had only moments prior jumped from it's sun bathing into the icy Ross Sea.

The year of dreaming about coming down to Antarctica is over. Here I am and after two weeks of training and travel and nearly three weeks of work I am finally settling in to life on the ice. Clearly life goes on no matter where you are in the world and every place you go or every place you live, you are on a journey. Well this is a bizarre journey! Life here is unlike anywhere I have every lived. It feels like work camp for crazies. I mean that in a very good way. (insert wink and smile!)

McMurdo Station (this is for you holly!)


McMurdo station is the largest U.S. research facility in Antarctica. It is located on the southern tip of Ross Island and lays 2, 415 miles south of Christchurch, New Zealand and 850 miles north of the South Pole. The National Science Foundation (NSF), through the United States Antarctic Program (USAP), coordinates U.S. scientific research in the Antarctic. Research performed in and around McMurdo includes marine and terrestrial biology, biomedicine, geology, and geophysics, glaciology and glacial geology, meteorology, aeronomy and upper atmospheric physics.

During the austral summer the population of scientists and support personnel at McMurdo often exceeds 1, 100 people. In the austral winter, the population drops to roughly 250 people.

A view from Ob Hill of McMurdo Station

It is now summer in Antarctica.

I have been training and working for three weeks now. The first week was a lot of safety lectures on fall protection, respirators, driving the trucks around town etc... The project that my crew was sent down here to do is quite the ordeal. We are to paint Building 155, the largest building on base. Inside it are many dorms, the cafeteria and offices. It is the main building, where everyone walks in and out of so we are very visible and easy to find.
Building 155

We are to paint the building a dark blue, which will be satisfying as it is now a light tan color. The biggest issue with the building is that it has a layer of asbestos coating under the lead paint. Yippee! This means that we wear respirators and full ty-vech body suits at all times when climbing up on to the roof to clean it off in preparation to paint it. And oh yeah, the paint was only just shipped a few days ago from Kansas. So One week of waking up at 6:30 working from 7:30 a.m. -5:30 p.m. six days a week can feel like a month. Luckily, I enjoy my crew and we manage to have fun even surrounded by asbestos! Well, most of the time. Unless it is cold and blustery and breathing ice wind down our faces! Things take time down here. Things take longer down here. It is Antarctica after all.

The weather also contributes to the work. We had a few cold blustery Antarctic days when we first arrived but overall the weather has been really nice. It all depends on the wind factor and if the sun is covered. When the wind blows it is darn cold. Yesterday was a strong cold wind can't hardly walk it's so windy kind of day. Today I was priming some boards in a t-shirt. It's unpredictable.

The sun shines 24 hours a day here. No stars, no moon, only sun. This makes me want to be up and at it 24 hours a day! I am learning to return to my room when it feels like 2:00 p.m. but it is really midnight! Very deceiving to us northern hemispherians. There are a lot of folks from Alaska here who do the Antarctic Summer and then the Alaska summer, chasing the eternal sun year round.

A few strange things about McMurdo are the fact that there are indeed no trees. There are also no children. There is a bird called a skua that is a mean looking thing and they hang out around town scavenging for scraps of food. Seals pop up out of the ice right next to town and I have heard rumor that when the ice breaker ship comes to restock the town in January the whales and penguins will frequent the area around town as well.

So yes, work is fine, funny, and ridiculous at times but overall it is work and the first full time job I have really ever had! After work there is an endless amount of activities to partake in, performances, parties and art shows to organize, yoga and soon to be belly dancing classes, science lectures, scrabble and cribbage in the coffee shop, x-country skiing and hiking and the occasional bar tour. I haven't had such a free for all social life since college. It's a nice community of folks from all walks of life. Everyone is quick to send a smile and welcome you to their table. So time is passing quickly. Already it is mid-December and no there is no paint on building 155; but I have rented ski's and a party costume for MAAG, (McMurdo Alternative Art Gallery Dec. 25th) I have been to Scott's hut and seen emperor penguins, I have hiked Ob Hill and skied Cape Armitage Loop, I have played fuse ball and eaten my share of frosty boy.... And these adventures my friends are the real work of life on the ice.