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

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

He also insists that the more blogs there are about Antarctica, the better. "Many people I talk to aren't familiar with Antarctica; they don't even realize it's a continent," he says. "So the more opportunity the general public has to understand its value, I'm all for it."

On September 21, Erin cheered the first official sunrise, even if it was just a tiny peek above the horizon, and blogged about how the Polies were getting ready to see other people again.

Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station.

A group shot at McMurdo Station last May.

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"It has however been rather windy for the last few days meaning we have not actually SEEN the sun yet," she wrote. "But as soon as the wind dies down and the horizon cleans we should be able to see the beautiful wonderful glorious sun! Even though it is plenty light outside now the sunrise won't be real for me until I actually get to glimpse that sun for the first time.

"To celebrate the sunrise we had another dinner like with sunset and midwinter. Lots of wonderful food and drinks! And after appetizers and dinner we had a dessert and open mic night. I performed a few songs with various members of the community, and I think everyone had a good time. You can tell that most everyone is pretty exhausted, as almost everyone went to bed by 11 p.m. — that's pretty early for us polies!

"The first flight is scheduled for October 15! Just 24 days away. So that date is also our deadline to have the station opened. So people are busy with not only our normal daily tasking but also lots of additional jobs that need to get done like digging out "summer camp" and re-warming buildings that went cold for the winter.

"Everyone has been given their 're-deployment' dates which has made everyone start to think about their post ice travel plans. These dates are of course rather fluid because when we get out of here is all very dependent on the weather and how much it will cooperate.

"I am anxious to get home to friends and family but I've been told that it is good to take some time before returning home (mostly to re-adjust to the real world and normal life).

"Especially after spending a year on the ice."

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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.)

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

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