Life in Antarctica is cold — but bloggers there can still get burned

A A A Comments (7) By Jonathan Shikes Thursday, Oct 8 2009

It was 85 degrees below zero, and Erin hadn't seen the sun in five months. Her skin had lost its pigmentation and she was sneezing blood because her sinuses were so dried out. A marine biologist turned dishwasher, Erin was working in the coldest, harshest place on earth, alongside 42 other slightly frozen, slightly insane people. None of these Polies, who were spending the austral winter at a tiny United States base at the South Pole, had seen a fresh face since March, when the last small plane had taken off for McMurdo Station, the largest U.S. base on the Antarctic continent, about 800 miles away. None of them had traveled more than a mile from where they slept, been outside for more than a few minutes or eaten a vegetable that wasn't previously frozen.

Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station.

A group shot at McMurdo Station last May.

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On Saturday, August 1, while everyone in Denver was enjoying a beautiful summer weekend, Erin typed up this list of things that she hadn't seen or done since arriving at the South Pole ten months earlier and posted it on her blog:

— driven a car

— seen grass, or a tree (or any evidence of plant life outside of items in the greenhouse)

— walked on any surface other than snow and ice

— seen a sunset

— played my cello

— had a decent cup of tea

— used a cellphone

— seen my parents or my sisters, or any friends from home

— seen anyone under the age of eighteen

— gone swimming

— seen or smelled the ocean (or seen any large body of water)

— watched live TV or gone to see a movie

Polies work hard — six days a week — which keeps them busy and tired, especially since the South Pole is more than 9,000 feet above sea level (about the same altitude as Breckenridge). And in their off time, there isn't much to do: They read, drink, watch movies until they run out of new ones, cook creatively, talk, drink, play cribbage, have sex, blog (satellite position permitting), drink and make up their own fun to deal with the extreme conditions.

For example, there's the "300 Club," which is convened only when the temperature drops below -100 degrees. "This is where you sit in a 200-degree sauna and then run outside to the pole marker naked...or with very little clothing on. It's just a crazy South Pole tradition... I do not think I will be heart broken if this does not happen," Erin wrote on her blog.

The United States has three permanent stations in Antarctica — McMurdo, Amundsen-Scott South Pole and Palmer — and conditions there are tough, especially during the winter (our summer), when it's dark 24 hours a day. The crew members have to be very careful when they go outdoors, and the constant darkness robs them of their normal circadian rhythms and the vitamin D that humans need. After a few months on the ice, many of them develop a condition they call "brain freeze," in which they start mumbling, and it can take seconds, even minutes, to complete a thought or form a cohesive sentence.

The three stations are operated by Raytheon Polar Services, a Centennial-based division of Raytheon, the $23.2 billion, multinational defense contractor that has 73,000 employees worldwide. Raytheon won the ten-year, $1.12 billion Antarctic Support Contract from the National Science Foundation in 1999 and reapplied this year, but it's facing competition from six other conglomerates that have spent millions of dollars just to prepare their bids. The new, thirteen-and-a-half-year contract is valued between $1.5 and $2 billion; it was supposed to be awarded October 1, but the NSF recently delayed its decision without explanation.

The contract involves not just supporting the NSF's scientific research — on climate change, astronomy, biology and atmospheric and environmental science — that has to be justified to Congress and to taxpayers, but also constructing and maintaining the buildings and equipment at the U.S. bases, providing water production and fuel operations, planning missions, transporting personnel and cargo, and maintaining communication. The contractor must also hire, train, feed, house, pay and protect the small army of support staffers who live in Antarctica, whether for five months or twelve, keeping them alive, warm, fed and happy.

That's not always easy, as Raytheon has discovered. Over the years, unusual activities and behavior have been tolerated — in the name of science, but also because word of any antics rarely reached the States before employees returned home. But as blogs, YouTube and social media sites became popular, employees who used to talk with friends and family only via high-frequency radio could start sharing every detail with the world.

Those details aren't always flattering: Stories about massive amounts of drinking and Jell-O wrestling (for which one person was fired), along with other tales of strange and wild behavior, have leaked out. In 2004, Modern Drunkard interviewed an anonymous staffer who told of bacchanalian orgies and cross-dressing parties. In June 2008, a national newswire wrote about a shipment of 16,500 condoms to Antarctica, where they were distributed, free of charge, just before winter began.

Bloggers have also criticized Raytheon and its corporate policies. As a result, say a number of current and former employees, Raytheon has cracked down both on blogging and on some of Antarctica's odder traditions — particularly as the new contract deadline approaches.

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lsdkfjs 09/08/2010 10:56:00 AM

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Twelvetrips 02/25/2010 3:24:00 PM

Worked in Antarctica from the mid-80's to 2004. As such, I worked for ASA and Raytheon Polar Services. It was like night and day. In ASA days we were appreciated, treated well, and there was value in doing the job rob and continuity. That all changed when Raytheon took over. Funny story: while at a social event far away from Denver, a woman approached me if I worked with Raytheon in Antarctica. I told her I did. She then asked if several people worked there. Confirming they did, she started laughing. She worked for Raytheon in another division and said "it must be true, it is Siberia for any Raytheon employee that doesn't fit in anywhere else...". Given my experience, it seemed to fit. I greatly miss working in Antarctica, I do not miss Raytheon.
Patrick J 10/12/2009 12:05:00 AM

Good article; my interest was pre-piqued about this time last year when an aquaintance who works for Raytheon was a Polie for a few months doing software maintenance. His wife got emails about twice/month & I got copied, and it was pretty cool to get first-hand accounts from a wide-eyed newbie. The first email mentioned a training session on visitor etiquette - about not making eye-contact or otherwise directly engaging with long-timers right away because it's an insular community w/ somewhat atrophied social skills. There is one small-but-illuminating technical detail that you missed: Even with the WWW - email, blogging, etc. - communication is still limited, owing to small send/receive windows. It's fairly obvious once you think about it (which I hadn't until last Fall) - it's impossible to put a comm. satellite in a geo-stationary orbit above the poles; the closest they can get is just above the horizon for someone near the poles, so unless that person is right on the south pole, the satellite is only visible when it's to the north and not on "the other side of world." This limits not only the time window, but the amount of band-width individuals are allowed, since researchers often need to send large data files to their northern colleagues.
mdf 10/10/2009 2:04:00 AM

Very good story about the life of a "Winterover". One correction that should be made is before 1990 the program was called the United States Antarctic Research Program. USARP was the service patch on the ECW gear we wore. It took alot of getting used to when I went from USARP to USAP (should have been spelled Usap!). Also the best mode of communication back in the pre-computer day was the HAM radio. We were allowed to send MARSgrams. These were the way we talked to friends and family. They were very short Morse code messages that were picked up by dedicated HAM operators all over the world and relayed to our families in handwritten (sometimes) messages. I once got the pleasure of talking to my uncle in Kansas, the skip was just right.. The living conditions on the Ice are enough stress. Jammed into dorms during the summer, harsh and isolated in the winter. The employer does not have to compound the stress by acting irresponsibly and harshly. I know people who have spent decades fighting the elements to promote science. Some are heroes and some or zeros. We need more people like Art Brown involved with the program. At least he carried about the contract employees. Winterover '89 '90 '91.
Jen 10/07/2009 11:19:00 PM

I spent two winters and a summer at McMurdo Station. Raytheon had a habit of going over the edge in terms of employee relations. I brought The Vagina Monolgues down to the Ice for the winter season 2001, they told us we could not use the word vagina as it was offensive. One woman felt sexually harassed by the word. Needless to say it was the most ridiculous thing ever...I work in HR now and would never do this to any group of people isolated from the rest of the population especially when they work hard. Eve Ensler heard about the situation and thought it was one of the funniest things she had ever heard. So am I surprised that they are doing this, no, this has been their MO since they took over the contract. "Jen Shaw, an RPSC employee like me, decided to put on a play. The play she chose is a series of monologues collected by a playwright who interviewed a whole bunch of women about their relationships with their genitalia. It's called [WATCH OUT, POTENTIALLY OFFENSIVE WORD AHEAD] "The Vagina Monologues." Jen sent out email to all the women on station looking for cast, techies, set crew, etc. Next thing you know, Jen is called in to HR and informed that somebody on station complained to RPSC headquarters in Denver - about the title, nobody on station has read the script yet. Tom Yelvington, the head of our Raytheon division, had the opportunity to shrug and say "Well don't go then," but instead declared that THIS PLAY IS OFFENSIVE and will not be produced in a McMurdo facility. Whereupon Scott Base, the NZ station 2km up the road, invited Jen and the production over there. End result? The play will happen anyway, with a guaranteed audience, and whoever complained about the word in the first place must be miserable right now beca use I have never heard the word "vagina" used so much in my entire life. It's been an almost universal topic of conversation in the galley - you can hear it spreading from table to table - there are inflammatory signs on the walls, people are wearing hastily-stenciled shirts with catchy vagina-related sayings, and even the DJ at Saturday's disco dance interrupted the music to say "VAGINA VAGINA VAGINA."
Jeremy 10/07/2009 10:28:00 PM

Probably one of the better Antarctic related articles I've seen in a long time...kudos westword and thanks for the link! The 2008 midwinter thing was mentioned a couple of times...I'd just like to say that at The South Pole we celebrated the mid-winter holiday with the sanctioned day off and everything. I don't recall what exactly Nick had said about it, but it seems to me that they (in McMurdo) were told by their local management that the decision had come from Denver HQ to mix up the schedule or whatever happened. That completely conflicts with what I experienced. I believe that Nick and others were flat out lied to by their local management. Ice people can go on and on about low morale, but the fact is that this low morale isn't caused by some lack of fresh vegetables and inability to purchase hard liquor or have bingo games. Low morale comes from a complete lack of discipline and weak, lying leadership. See above example for weak, lying leadership - there are more if you look around. As for a lack in discipline - the gentleman who was fired for jell-o wrestling was constantly drunk at work - but since he was productive, the behavior was overlooked. People who came to work on time and sober received the same (or less) bonuses and pay.
Elise 10/07/2009 9:35:00 PM

Hey there. Looks like the captions on the photos on the left side at the beginning of the article are switched. The top photo is South Pole, the lower is the group from McMurdo. Winfly was my favorite time there. Watching the sun rise above the horizon for the first time in months was amazing! I left right before the morale go so low. No doubt, some of it was fueled by the insane budget cuts that trickled down from the NSF (which trickled down from the federal government), in addition to changes in Raytheon policy. Many of the changes mentioned in the article were on top of change after change to other cuts and regulations. No matter where in the world you are, you have to keep your employees happy when they give you so much. I believe the novelty of the harsh conditions, enduring the 54 hour+ workweeks for months, and modest pay - even with bonuses and uplifts for deployment will only last so long before people's souls can't take it anymore.(And these are tough, resilient people - many of whom have returned decade after decade.)