So I’ve had many people ask me about where I’m actually going to be living and what life is going to be like down on “the Ice”.
This journal is for all of you.
This is actually where we'll be!
No- we will not be cuddled up in tents on the ice for the entire time. No, we will not be on icebreakers making our way through the frigid waters. And no, we will not be in fancy hotels or in houses of our own.
A view of McMurdo
First off, we’ll be at a research station called McMurdo. McMurdo is about 55 years old and it is the main research station of the three permanent American stations on Antarctica. It became the center of scientific and logistical operations for the United States Antarctic Program during what is known as the International Geophysical Year (1957-58). Other US stations include Palmer Station (closer to Chile) and the Amundson-Scott South Pole Station. In total about 30 countries have seasonal or permanent research stations on Antarctica.
Another view of McMurdo
An interesting fact is that no nation “owns” Antarctica and interestingly enough, we actually don’t need a passport to enter Antarctica. Thanks to the Antarctic Treaty System which took effect in 1961, the area south of 60 degrees South latitude reserves as a “zone of peace”. Imagine that! Shouldn’t the whole world be like that? Military activity including nuclear explosions and the disposal of radioactive waste is banned on Antarctica! Antarctica is also set aside as a scientific preserve and international cooperation is encouraged!
So our research station in the “zone of peace” has many interesting opposites. On the one hand we’ll be in what’s considered the coldest, harshest environment but on the other hand, we’re actually on lava hills on an island with an active volcano only 20 miles away. Technically McMurdo is on the southern tip of Ross Island on the shore of McMurdo Sound, a body of water that is frozen solid most of the year but breaks up in late summer (December or January). Mount Erebus is the active volcano that looms 12,448 feet over us. It periodically spews smoke and ashes and has a mile-deep 1,700-degree Fahrenheit lake of magma at the top. Cool, huh?
Our local volcano in the land of ice
Though the surroundings sound breathtakingly beautiful, I’ve heard McMurdo is actually like an old Alaskan Mining town and I’ve heard it’s not particularly beautiful. But it does have about 100 buildings, from tiny shacks to giant three-story structures, including not only administrative buildings, dormitories, repair facilities, and warehouses but also a library, a climbing cave, a gym, shops, bars, clubs, a health clinic, a firehouse, a power plant, a water distillation plant, a wharf, and 3 airfields, a heliport. There’s even an ATM in McMurdo and five live television and three radio feeds in McMurdo. They also had a bowling alley but sadly it collapsed last winter!
Will we get to enjoy any of that? Probably not but that's ok as we'll have exciting work to do in even more amazing places.
Above-ground water, sewer, telephone, and power lines link up all of the buildings in McMurdo.
There will be about 1200 people living on this research station with us. These include lots of support staff for the scientists. I’ve heard there are about 100 support people there for every scientist. Station personnel are there to provide support for operations, logistics, information technology, construction, and maintenance. Support staff include administrative and managerial people, cooks and janitors, dive tenders, drivers of all sorts of nifty vehicles, dentists, counselors, and pretty much anything you could find in a regular city.
So where do these many people sleep?
the dorms at McMurdo
In dorms! We will be sleeping about 2 to 8 to a room. The people that have the most months on the ice get the nicest rooms. The people new to the ice get the last picks. There's actually a pretty sophisticated point system which takes into acount not only the previous months on ice but also your position to assign housing and who you sleep with. Most of us will have a roomate or 5 and we’ll have a bathroom to share with either another room or, more likely, with an entire floor. Our rooms will be small; luckily we'll barely be in them!
Though we will have to clean our rooms and do our laundry, we won’t have to cook, buy groceries, or clean the dishes. (This is so we can devote more of our very limited time to our research). Food is served in a mess hall which provides breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
The cafeteria at McMurdo
Food is cafeteria style; we get to help ourselves to what we want though we have to eat everything that’s on our plate. Waste gets complicated as everything has to be recycled and flown or shipped off Antarctica. Most of the food that we will eat is flown in from New Zealand. In the past, some veggies, locally called “freshies”, were also grown in greenhouses on the Ice but this summer the greenhouses will not be operating! (Yes, there is some green on Antarctica. In fact, if the "whiteness" gets too much, people used to sign up for greenhouse time! Sadly, we'll have to get our "green" fix elsewhere.)
Sunday brunch at the Mess Hall is supposed to be fabulous as is the Thanksgiving feast, which we’ll celebrate in dress clothes down on the ice in the cafeteria
Help yourself - but finish your food!
Our commute will also be very nice. I think it’ll be a five-minute walk from the dorms to the cafeteria and then to the laboratory where we will start our day. It’ll actually take longer to get all of our ECW gear on to survive the walk then it will to actually walk to the places! Who can say that about their commute?
Our laboratory, called the Crary Lab, has over 4,320 square meters of work space that is shared by the many science groups. We will have two rooms full of science gear and a small tank in which we can test SCINI.
Inside the Crary Lab
Our days will consist of getting dressed, eating, and then preparing things in the lab. Then comes the exciting part. We’ll get to jump on various vehicles and head out to various parts on the ice. We’ll be lugging loads of diving and science gear and engineering stuff including SCINI. Then we’ll get to drill holes, dive, explore, and see what we can find under the ice. After 6 to 10 or maybe 18 hours of that, we’ll get to head back to the mess hall for dinner (yes, most likely very late dinners) and then back to the lab to analyze data, fix SCINI if she needs fixing, and prepare for the next day.
Sound fun, eh?
Will we have time and energy to work out?