Big. White. Cold. Awesome.

Posted on December 2, 2011 by

“The problem is, when you get back, people always ask you what Antarctica is like. What do you say?” said Stu Arnold, our field trainer, shrugging and looking out across the endless white plain of the Ross Ice Shelf. After a pause, he answered his own question: “Big. White. Cold. Awesome.”

New Zealand's Scott Base - a long way from anywhere

I’m with Stu. It’s big. It’s white. It’s cold. And it’s awesome.

We stayed our first night at Scott Base, but before we could go anywhere else – to the historic huts, to scientists’ field camps, for a walk on the pressure ridges – we needed to go through Antarctic field training. “If I throw you out there and get you to survive on your natural instincts, you’ll pretty much get spanked out there”, said Stu.

So our natural instincts have now been enhanced with many hours of breifings (including powerpoint presentations!) on a range of topics all around being safe on and off base. The difference between a black flag (danger, stay away), a blue flag (American fuel line, stay away), a green flag (safe route) and a red flag (hmm, also safe route). How to protect yourself from frostbite. How to use the radio. And more. After that we packed our safety gear, food and ECW (extreme cold weather) clothing and headed off base in a yellow Hagglund, a Swedish military all-terrain vehicle. About half an hour from base we pitched our tents on the Ross Ice Shelf. 

Last night’s campsite on the Ross Ice Shelf

With tents pitched, we used a saw to cut blocks of snow to build into a shelter wall, and used a Primus to boil water for cups of tea and our rehydrated meals. Come “night time” I pulled on my sleeping mask to shade my eyes from the all night sun and snuggled down in my four layers of bedding – a cotton sheet bag, a down sleeping bag, a synthetic sleeping bag, then a canvas cover – on my triple layer sleeping mat – a foam pad, a Thermarest airbed then a sheepskin. Luxury. In the morning, we de-mobilised (there’s a lot of military talk around here) as a thick white fog slowly crept its way over the hill between Scott Base and Mount Erebus and headed back to Scott Base.  

We just pitched a tent. On the Ross Ice Shelf.

It turns out, we were lucky with the weather – there was only a slight breeze blowing and the temperature, with wind chill, never dropped below minus 9 degrees C. Stu described conditions as “extraordinarily warm for this time of year”.  

Perhaps we should have spared a thought for poor Scott. His journal entry for this day 100 years ago started with: “Camp 27. Lat. 82° 47’. The ponies are tiring pretty rapidly. It is a question of days with all except Nobby.” He shot one pony, put poor old Nobby in show shoes and carried on marching.

Melancholia? Not even. I got to drive the Hagglund back to base. Tonight we’re going on a pub crawl at McMurdo Station and tomorrow we’re going on a helicopter trip to the historic huts and the Dry Valleys. I’m having so much fun that I’m almost ashamed of myself.

New Zealand buildings beside the ice road back to Scott Base.
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I don’t want to go to Antarctica tomorrow

Posted on November 29, 2011 by

I started today feeling very grumpy about having to go to Antarctica tomorrow. I missed my family as soon as I left for Christchurch, the strawberries in my garden were about to ripen, and I had a headache. And it was cold. What was I thinking?

I’m not surprised I feel like this. Going to Antarctica is so monumentally exciting for me, the fulfillment of a near-lifelong dream, that it’s just too much to process, and I think I short-circuited. I’ve done this sort of thing before when something is so big that I can’t quite engage with it while it’s happening. In that sort of situation I can become inappropriately chilled out or goofy. I don’t want to be like that in Antarctica. I want to make sure I can experience Antarctica while I’m there, rather than just store it all up to process when I get home. That said, I also don’t want to be a sobbing emotional wreck while I’m there. That would be foolish. I need to find some sort of happy medium.

Today I flew to Christchurch, then reported at 1430 hours (we’re on US military time now) to Antarctica New Zealand for a general briefing about the trip from our “on-ice escort”, communications manager Matt Vance. Matt briefed us about the week ahead then left us with logistics staff for a briefing on tomorrow’s journey and for our clothing fit out – thermals, fleeces, salopettes, jackets, gloves, hats, neck gaiters, goggles and boots that will keep our feet warm down to something insane like –100°C.

It’s funny. I’ve wanted to go to Antarctica since I was a geology student in the 1980s, but in all my imaginings of going there I’ve never really thought much about the cold. Putting on all those ridiculous layers of clothing – which was really uncomfortable in today’s 18°C heat – brought it home that it’s kind of cold down there. You’d think I might work it out after looking at the Scott Base weather forecast every day for the last week.

Do you think I should tell my on-ice escort about my mild-to-moderate fear of flying? Or shall I just surprise him with it when I freak out on the plane? We’re flying down courtesy of the US Air Force tomorrow on a C-17 Globe Master, a giant transport plane that usually does tours of the Middle East. The good news is that coming down to New Zealand to fly planes to Antarctica is kind of a cushy number for the Air Force pilots when they’ve been dodging bullets in Baghdad. The bad news is we are landing on something called the “ice runway”. It’s a runway, situated on about one foot thick sea ice. This enormous plane lands on it. With us inside it.

Anyway, tomorrow I hope to get over myself and go to Antarctica.

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Learning to pee standing up

Posted on November 28, 2011 by

Among all the firsts I expect to experience over the next week – my first step on the continent of Antarctica! My first ride in a C-17 Globemaster! My first night in a tent in subzero temperatures! – I get to use a FUD for the first time.

On Tuesday I report to Antarctica New Zealand in Christchurch where they will supply me with all the outdoors gear I will need when I’m in Antarctica. I will get four jackets, six pairs of gloves, two pairs of boots – Sorels! When I lived in Colorado only the rich tourists (or my roommate) had those – as well as various balaclavas, hats, socks, goggles, thermal underwear and so on. I also get a survival kit. And a thing called a “urinary director – females only”.

The reason that we get this thing is because it’s so damn cold down there. Someone worked out that it would be a whole lot easier for the girls to just undo one zip and pee standing up, just like the guys do, than to have to undo and unzip everything (jacket, overalls, etc) and sit down in the sub-freezing cold. Yes, there are toilets in Antarctica, regular indoor ones at Scott Base and a variety of portable ones in tents even in small remote field camps. But there are also “pee sticks” at each camp, which are pretty much a flag on a pole in the snow, to mark a spot where everyone goes to pee.

I’ve spoken to two female friends who went on media trips to Antarctica. One thought the female urination device, or FUD, was great, and she used it all the time – she says the key is to wait until you really, really, really need to go. The other friend … well, she said it wasn’t that cold anyway, and she only used hers once. I’ll see how I go. I’m mostly worried about using it the first time. Will it come with instructions? What if I do it wrong?

These devices are a twentieth century invention, and are now popular with outdoor festival goers – the Wikipedia entry has a photo of girls using them at Glastonbury – as well as field scientists. Though, according to this post by Two Nerdy History Girls, there is a long history of women trying to pee standing up. Back in the days when women wore floor length hooped skirts and petticoats and many layers, hoisting all that garmentry up to sit down was a bit of a mission, so the stand up pee was facilitated by a handy little porcelain vessel called a bourdaloue, a sort of girls only chamber pot.  This must have been in the days before underwear was de rigueur. A dirty old Frenchman called Francois Boucher found them so fascinating he painted this picture of a woman using one in the 1700s. (Thanks to my colleague Anne-Marie for finding this picture.)

Anyway, this is my only post about the FUD. I’m not planning to post about all the intricacies of using it. This blog is meant to be about science not peeing. There are other sorts of blogs for that sort of thing.

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My Antarctica playlist

Posted on November 27, 2011 by

Over the last week, I asked people for recommendations on what I should listen to when I’m in Antarctica. Among the suggestions were “anything by Seal or Penguin Café Orchestra” (thanks Kim!) and “The Happy Feet soundtrack” (um, thanks Andrew!). OK …  I also got other general suggestions like “anything by Snow Patrol, Cold Chisel, or Vanilla Ice”. But if anyone recommended a particular tune, or album, I put it on the list, which I’ve copied below. It is a weird mix. I don’t think I’ll really like all this music – some of it’s a bit strange, some is a bit challenging (I find the idea of listening to Vangelis very “challenging” and worst of all, iTunes is now recommending music to me based on this purchase) – some is perhaps a bit dull. But perhaps that’s what it will be like in Antarctica? Strange, certainly. One thing that struck me is the general expectation that moody melancholic tracks are best for my trip (thankfully I’ve already got an iPhone full of those). Perhaps that would be true for an Antarctic winter, or a lonely field camp in the middle of the ice shelf, but – weather permitting – I’m expecting my eight-day trip to be anything other than melancholic so I’m also putting in some Bjork. I think her transitions from melancholic to frenetic (often in the same song) will suit things well. I’ve talked to friends who’ve been on media trips to The Ice (am I’m allowed to start calling it that now that I’m going?) and they tell me that with the midnight sun, the helicopter rides, the strangeness and newness of everything, that I should expect a week with not much sleep. Perhaps I should have included some lullabies?

Anyway, here’s the list. Thanks to everyone for their suggestions.

  1. Antarctica Starts Here by John Cale
  2. Across the Tundra by Funkinsense.
  3. Crystal by New Order
  4. Music for Airports (album) by Brian Eno
  5. The Frozen Man by James Taylor
  6. Takk (album) by Sigur Ros
  7. Electric blue by Icehouse
  8. Antarctica (album) by Vangelis
  9. Tiny blue biosphere by Rhian Sheehan
  10. Aquarium by Saint-Saeans
  11. Terra Nova by iLiKETRAiNS
  12. Holocene by Bon Iver
  13. The Great Beyond by REM
  14. Wanderlust by Bjork
  15. Blue Thunder by Galaxie 500
  16. Fifteen Feet of Pure White Snow by Nick Cave
  17. Antarctica by Midnight Oil
  18. Ice, Ice Baby by Vanilla Ice
  19. Miss You by Bjork
  20. Avalanche by Leonard Cohen

And some late additions:

- Sinfonia Antarctica (album) Vaughan Williams
- Icehouse by Icehouse
- Nature’s disappearing by John Mayall

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Shackleton’s Antarctic whisky

Posted on November 21, 2011 by

Speaking of Antarctica, one of my recent Listener stories was about Ernest Shackleton’s whisky. I went to a whisky tasting in Wellington, mostly for fun, but then I realised there was actually a pretty good science story there. I didn’t even drink all the whisky – I’m not that much of a fan – but I did like the replica of Shackleton’s 100-year old whisky.

…

When Ernest Shackleton was ordering provisions for his 1907 expedition to Antarctica, he made it clear that along with the requisite tins of herrings, mulligatawny soup, gooseberry jam and marmalade, he and his men required a supply of whisky. Not just any whisky, but a fine Highland malt. Twenty-five cases of it.

When Shackleton left Antarctica in 1909, after reaching 88° 23′ south – the closest anyone had been to the South Pole – he left some of that whisky behind. Now, thanks to an international team of conservators and chemists, we know what the whisky looked like and how it was made. And whisky-lovers willing to pay £100 (NZ$200) for a bottle of the replica whisky that went on sale last month will know just what it tasted like.

Read more …

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A feeling for snow

Posted on November 20, 2011 by

I remember the first time my eyelashes froze together. After a moment of panic – I can’t see! – I rubbed my gloved hands over my eyes and my vision cleared. It happened again, almost instantly, and kept happening until I learned to adjust the scarf covering my mouth and nose, so that my warm, moist breath did not escape upwards into my eyes, where it would freeze in the frigid air.

It was winter in the Colorado Rockies, in a small ski town nestled in a long, skinny valley at an altitude of 2,445 metres. My American friends thought I was weird – for many reasons perhaps, but not least for my preference of eschewing the free bus and walking to work under almost any weather conditions. This day, though, was fine and clear. My eyelashes had never frozen before but, as I later discovered, it was the coldest day yet of the winter, reaching a high of only minus 17°C (about 1°F). It was cold and crisp – in Colorado’s dry mountain air I never felt as miserably cold as I have in a Wellington southerly when the cold wind cuts into you and the icy rain blows horizontally into your face.

I’d been in snow before, on family ski trips in New Zealand and California, but I’d never lived in snow before. I loved the way it changed everything. You had to learn a new way to walk, a confident stomping downward step, so as not to constantly slip on the ice. You had to dress right.

I left Colorado at the end of the winter, before the snow turned to slush and everything changed. I never went back, but I’ve been chasing snow ever since. I went helihiking on New Zealand’s Fox Glacier. It was too tame. I went to Iceland and tramped around the northern extent of the Vatnakofull iceap. I went to Greenland and drank a martini made with ice from a glacier that calved into Eric’s Fjord. I went camping in the Arctic circle in Sweden, where the sun shone into my tent at midnight and the mosquitoes were as big as dragonflies. I went to Finland, where my great-grandfather was born, and to Norway, where I was told “there is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing”.

I fell in love with snow in Colorado. I fell in love with science from books. Now I get to combine the two. In Antarctica. Not as a scientist – I gave up that opportunity when I left geology for writing and the history of science – but as a journalist and science historian. It’s a short trip, from 30 November to 8 December, but I’m plenty excited. I expect I won’t be able to shut up about it for a while, so expect more posts on this topic leading up to my trip.

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