White Out

Following the advice of Josh the painter, known for his blue mohawk, we sat naked on the edge of the ice hole before doing our first “Polar Plunge.” The plan was to drop through a hole in the floor of a fish hut into an ice tube used by scuba-diving scientists to access McMurdo Sound, Antarctica.

 

“If you jump straight in from a standing position,” he explained, “you’ll curve underwater and smack the ice wall. That’s how I cut my leg the first time.”

 

Bare buns on the splintery plywood of the hut, feet dangling above ice below, I planned to wave for the camera when I came up. I shoved off and plunged in, surprised by how salty it tasted. My momentum sent me a few feet under.

 

As I rose to the surface through churning bubbles, I tried to wave. When my head popped out, however, my arms and legs started acting on their own, clawing at the ladder. I realized how cold I was when my eyeballs started freezing and I had to blink, blink, blink to see. But suddenly I was out, standing on the wood floor of the hut, and feeling fantastic.

 

After we all jumped in, we shared a toast of Bushmills Irish whisky.

 

“To Antarctica!” we hollered.

 

Those interested in seeing the last wilderness continent on Earth – also the coldest, windiest, highest and driest continent –- have four main options:

 

The simplest way is to pay roughly $10,000 for a tourist trip aboard a cruise ship. I haven’t experienced this, but it seems like a quick way to see a variety of Antarctica’s wildlife and environments. About 15,000 tourists do this annually.

 

Another options is to come down as a researcher. For this, it seems you must either be a university professor who has won a grant, or a research assistant on such a team. This I also have not done.

 

Members of the U.S. armed forces come down in support of science for a range of jobs as well.

 

The last option, which I am doing, is to come down employed by a contractor. The United States Antarctic Program has the largest presence on the ice continent, so the contractors hired by the National Science Foundation offer the most jobs. Working as a dining attendant, mechanic’s helper and work order scheduler, I spent 11 months at McMurdo Station in 2004 and ’05.

 

Landing at McMurdo

 

Three hours into the five-hour flight between New Zealand and Antarctica, we started walking forward in the cavernous cargo hold of the Air Force jet and peeking through the one, tiny window.

Faces framed in the little circle, we finally saw the muscular, white mountains of Victoria Land, Antarctica. We couldn't talk over the roar of the jets but we signaled with our hands and took turns peering through binoculars.

For veterans this was just the start of another long season, but for us first-timers, this was it - the bottom of the Earth. We were finally nearing "The Ice."

The plane landed on 20-foot-thick ice on the surface of McMurdo Sound. When the door opened blue light flooded into the fuselage, but we were not allowed out for several minutes. Bundled in red, government-issue parkas with fur-lined hoods and gripping orange carry-on bags, we stood in line, eager to leave the plane and see the inhospitable environment surrounding us.

Finally ducking through the aluminum doorframe into the glaring light, I erupted with laughter. It was absolutely glorious. We had landed in the middle of a frozen bay with sheer mountains on three sides. Steam trailed from our mouths. The air was thin and amazingly cold – it felt sharp to breathe. Orange trucks with giant tires crunched snow as they rolled around us, delivering fuel and hauling cargo. We were herded onto a massive red and white bus called Ivan the Terra Bus, which had tires 5-feet tall and 4-feet wide.

They drove us across the ice to the spit of land on Ross Island where McMurdo Station – the largest of three bases run by the U.S. Antarctic Program and the largest settlement on the continent – is located.

 

Before long I settled into my routine as a dining attendant (“D.A.”) working 10 hours a day, six days a week. The job of the DA is to serve the food and wash the dishes of the 1,200 summer residents at McMurdo. During the dark winter the population drops to about 200.

 

After arriving we noticed changes in ourselves like accelerated growth of finger and toenails. Others felt pressure in their sinuses and got nosebleeds because of the cold, dry air.

 

Another difference was the people. At dinner you might sit with a Nobel-Prize-winning scientist, a bulldozer driver, an Air Force jet pilot and plumber. Everybody has a story. Of course, after a while cliques form and most people sit with their co-workers.

 

One day I was asked to go "dive tending." This is where you help scuba-diving scientists haul air tanks and put on dry suits. In a tiny orange hut like the one used in the polar plunge described earlier, I watched two men drop into a hole bored through the ice. When bubbles rose back up, I figured they were coming back early. Instead, with a loud exhale a Weddell seal popped up in the hole, seemingly spooked by the divers. I grabbed my camera and talked to it as it caught its breath and looked at me with eyes the size of ping pong balls.

 

There are plenty of activities at McMurdo. League sports include bowling (on a warped two-lane alley built by the Navy) volleyball and dodgeball There are yoga, gutz 'n' buttz and self-defense classes. Plumbing and welding classes are offered as well as weekly science lectures.

 

Morale-boosting trips are taken to Cape Evans, where you can walk around inside the hut built by Robert Scott’s team during their 1910-12 race to the South Pole. After losing to Norwegian Roald Amundsen, Scott and his team perished before making it back to the hut. It’s strange to stand next to the actual table where they celebrated Scott’s last, or to gaze at the bunk Scott used, which still today has a seal-kin sleeping bag with boots and mittens hanging alongside.

 

Once on my day off, I volunteered at the helicopter launch pad. During the summer there are four helicopters flying out of McMurdo -- supplying remote research camps hundreds of miles away. I was put to work picking up supplies from around the station such as scuba tanks, ice axes, generators and crates of boxed apple juice. These were sorted by their destination and whether or not they are "KF" (Keep Frozen) "DNF" (Do Not Freeze) or "KC" (Keep Cool). DAs are pretty much stuck in the galley, but other workers such as carpenters, fuelies and general assistants sometimes get to fly out to the remote camps for work.

 

One of the nastiest days of summer, 2004 was the day of the marathon. Six of us finished the running race and one woman skied it. The recreation department set up three “aid stations” with water dispensers on unattended tables. They looked surreal out there on the ice shelf, where there is nothing but flat snow as far as you can see. The water spigots quickly froze so we had to unscrew the tops to drink. Anything you spilled on your shirt turned to ice.

 

Because of a driving head wind for the first 10 miles, we ran in single file and took turns leading, with the rest “drafting” like Tour de France cyclists. Halfway through our faces were crusted with ice. On the horizon we could see the shape of the Russian icebreaker hired to cut a shipping channel to the station. Odd to think we were running on an ocean, with hundreds of feet of water beneath us.

Marathon Tours and Travel claims to offer the only marathon in Antarctica, but the small group of runners who finish on the Ross Ice Shelf each year prove that's not the case.

 

I felt fine until about mile 22 when, drained from work and with wet gloves, I just wanted to stop. The others drifted ahead and I walked alone on the ice. Luckily the recreation van came by and I got dry gloves with chemical hand warmers and a handful of Gummy Bears – enough to push me over the finish line in 4 hours and 20 minutes. I haven’t jogged since.

 

Working as “D.A.s” in the kitchen for five months, we passed the time with invented games like “Would You Rather.” That meant asking each other if we’d rather do A or B. For example: Would you rather work as a dining attendant for 6 years or be in a minimum security, white-collar prison for three? Everyone chose the prison sentence. Another was would you rather work as a D.A. for 5 years or have a half-inch of your middle finger cut off? The answers to that were evenly divided. Finally a chef shut us up by asking, “would you rather be a D.A. or in combat in Iraq right now?”

 

There were other funny things like the Phil and Debbie Party, which was a party for everyone on station named Phil or Debbie. I didn’t get to go, but it sounded fun.

 

There were 11 films released at the annual McMurdo Film Festival (including a lot of neat time-lapse stuff and a striking short-story about a creative girl who works as a pin setter at McMurdo’s two-lane bowling alley (built by the Navy).

 

That same girl, who goes by the name “ Sandwich,” was the brains behind “Santarctica,” which was 25 of us dressed in Santa suits marauding around town. We jogged on the treadmills in the gym, played a game of shuffleboard in the bar and swarmed atop a passing fire truck. Then we Ho-Ho-Hoed into the town Christmas Party, where we posed for pictures with Santa himself. Wow.

 

We all felt good about the community effort to raise money for the tsunami victims. In two weeks right after the waves struck, our little town donated more than $12,000, which we sent in a money order to AmeriCares Two D.A.s -- Chad Goodale and Ross Mote -- raised $435 alone with their delightful waffle toss in the dining room.

 

Rather than come home after five months working at McMurdo Station, Antarctica, I decided to stay another six months. It was hard to secure a job, but I finally got a spot as a mechanic’s helper working on loaders, bulldozers and a fleet of Ford trucks.

 

The first time I opened an oil drain plug under a truck, I positioned a cut-off 55-gallon drum to catch the oil. It was a big Delta truck with 5-foot tires, so I wrestled a bit to loosen the plug. When it gave, a stream as thick as a garden hose shot out and hit me in the chest. I scrambled out of the way, moved the pan under it and lay there for a second in a puddle of oil.

 

Obviously I like the job here well enough to sign on for another season, but it’s not for everyone. First of all, there are no trees or green plants -- just a few scant lichen on the rocks. There are no children or dogs or cats. There are creature comforts like a gym and a coffeehouse, but they’re not the same. They have some nice new equipment, but they’re housed in beat-up old hangar-type buildings left by the Navy and the coffee is anything but fresh.

 

Also, for people who are uneasy about things like “selling your soul” to work for military contractors, it’s kind of a drag to work for Raytheon, one of the larger military-industrial conglomerates in history. A co-worker pointed out that in the recent Incredible Hulk movie, the big, evil military-industrial complex company that is trying to destroy the world is called “Aytheon.”

 

“Isn’t that great,” he said. “It’s an obvious commentary on Raytheon. They only changed one letter.”

But a lot of people here don’t care about that.

 

“I’m here for the money plain and simple,” said Ernie, a mechanic. “I wouldn’t care if we were building a nuclear bomb – I’m just here for the money.”

 

On the other hand, all our work here supports science. Hair stylists, laundry workers, cooks and recreation employees are all here to support a community who’s only apparent purpose is science. And the U.S. base provides support for Italian, Japanese, New Zealand and other international teams as well. People here say Raytheon doesn’t profit from running the U.S.A.P., but wants the contract for “P.R.” purposes.

 

The winter season at McMurdo is pretty different from summer. During summer (Oct.-Feb.) it’s full daylight for five months and there are people everywhere. Planes fly in almost daily, arriving from and departing to Christchurch, New Zealand (the main hub) to science camps around the continent, and to South Pole Station, another 800 miles south.

 

Now that it’s winter (Feb.-Oct.) there are 240 people at McMurdo and only 66 women. We had gender-specific meetings with the doctor and he told the men to lay off the ladies because they “feel too much pressure.”

“It’s not hunting season, guys,” he told us.

 

People pass the time watching the dark skies for Aurora Australis (Southern Lights – mostly neon green and wiggling here), soaking in the hot tub (an old fish tank from the Crary science lab) or socializing. Naturally, there is a lot of drinking going on at the bars and coffeehouse. One guy was already black listed after a poker-night confrontation. Theme parties so far this season have included break dancing, toga, white trash and time travel.

 

As for wildlife, we’ve had two visitors, both of whom seemed lost: a small Weddell seal who wiggled miles over the hill to the Kiwi base, and a little Adelie Penguin who quacked loudly and almost ran right inside the open door of the heavy mechanics hops before jogging away in the storm.

 

There are more workers this year than during a typical winter because of two construction projects. A new power plant is being built with big Caterpillar generators and mobile buildings are being built for the Long Duration Balloon program. Balloons 800-feet tall are sent by astrophysicists up 26 miles high to search the atmosphere for various particles. The old LDB building is being gradually buried in snow each year. After being dug out annually it sits in a gaping hole on the ice shelf. The new buildings will be towed into place behind bulldozers.

 

That project is being done near Scott Base, home to the New Zealand Antarctic program. They have complained that the bright lights from the LDB site, which are constantly on, have affected their view of Southern Lights. We get along though. They invite us over for smaller, more intimate dinners and they use our gyms and play in our dodge ball league. They also have regular trivia nights, which are popular and a good time to get a rare glass of Guinness. During the mid-winter party at Scott Base we’re invited to go over for another Polar Plunge.

 

Over the summer it was an honor to meet Sir Edmund Hillary who was first to climb Mount Everest along with Tenzing Norgay in 1953. He came to Antarctica to commemorate the air tragedy of sightseeing flight 901 which killed 257 people in 1979 when it crashed into Mount Erebus, located near Scott and McMurdo. Hillary stayed at Scott base, which he helped establish in 1957, but he visited McMurdo several times. He told adventure stories, like the time he was flying over Antarctica and he had to pee, so he asked the pilot to land and they did – stopping just short of a crevasse to drain their bladders.

 

After the endless sun of the Antarctic summer, those of us who stayed watched the sun slowly set to the north. The day it finally set was cloudy.

 

When the last plane left for the winter, most of us got off work early for a champagne toast. We crowded onto the wooden porch of the National Science Foundation “chalet” and held plastic, stemmed glasses in the cold. The flags of 30 nations rolled gently overhead while we made small talk in our parkas and sunglasses. We cheered as the massive C-17 jet banked hard above us, rocketing past with a wobble of the wings and disappearing over the hills to the north. I pictured my bundled-up dining room colleagues riding in the fuselage at more than 100 mph. I dreamed of the plants, children and new movies and songs they would soon be enjoying.

 

The next plane to take us north is expected in about six months.