It has always been a dream of mine to go to the southern-most continent. An adventure in one of the harshest places on Earth, I yearned to visit.
How does one get there? I have glanced at some touristy ways of going there in the past—typically on a cruise for a week or even longer, depending on how deep your pockets were. But even the more budget options seemed to start at around $15,000 USD, maybe $10,000 if you managed to get some last-minute deal, which necessitates an extremely flexible schedule departing from South America.
Ok, so what is plan B? Why not work in Antarctica? Many countries have research stations on the ice, and the United States is no exception. In fact, there has been an American presence ever since the 50s with Operation Deep Freeze.
I am not a scientist, and that’s the first question people ask me when I tell them I worked in Antarctica. But it takes a village to support science down there; the ratio is about nine support personnel for every one scientist at McMurdo Station. You need drivers, heavy equipment operators, mechanics for those vehicles, carpenters, plumbers, electricians, cargo techs, firefighters, doctors, power plant operators, water production and treatment plant operators, and a slew of other positions. But nobody is working on an empty stomach.
My wife and I recently started joking that I was down there for “Antarctic dihydrogen-monoxide and kinetic energy application to the removal of carbon buildup on metallic surfaces,” which is just a super fancy way of saying I’m using water and elbow grease to clean scorched pots and baking sheets.
They have a galley that serves the 600–1,100 people that are present during the summer season. I would say on average there was about 800 people while I was there, but it’s in constant flux. The galley is the second biggest department on station, right after cargo.
The galley is like a buffet. You walk down the line with your tray, and there are a bunch of hotel pans of food you can scoop on to your plate. No charge!
Within the galley dept., there is the back of house—all the cooks—and the front of the house—who are tasked with in inordinate amount of cleaning, shuffling hotel pans back and forth from the kitchen, deep cleaning, tidying up the dining area, and a bit lot of cleaning to top it off. I did the latter while I was there.
