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.

The Job Application

Here’s the United States Antarctica Program (USAP) page: https://www.usap.gov/jobsandopportunities/

I’ve had it bookmarked for years, and I finally got around to actually applying to a position early last year. Note that this is the American program, and they typically only take Americans (not sure about green card holders; since I am not one, I didn’t investigate that thoroughly). My friends in other countries should look to see if their country has an Antarctica program. If they don’t, then my understanding is that you either need a super-specialized skill one of the existing programs needs, or your only chance might be to go as a tourist.

The US Antarctica Program contract is currently administered by Leidos, and they subcontract out almost all the individual functions to other companies. I would suggest looking through the companies and seeing where you might have relevant experience.

I used to work in kitchens and have restaurant experience, so working in the galley made the most sense. I sent off the one application, and I managed to get the job as a food steward with Gana-A ‘Yoo, who does all the galley functions. Do note that I heard there are upwards of 1,000 applicants, they only interviewed about 200, and only about 30 “stewies” were hired. Some people have been applying for years and never get an offer. So don’t feel discouraged if you don’t get something the first year.

When I was looking, I didn’t apply to a lot of jobs where it seemed like I didn’t quite fit the bill. But now that I have been there and talked with some of the people who worked in cargo, fuels, or hazardous waste, I discovered that quite a few people had very limited related experience, if any at all. So shoot your shot and apply to anything you might be even remotely able to do. Worst case, you just don’t hear back from them.

Some people say you need to apply as soon as job openings are posted on Jan 1. I know I applied later, though, and I still got in my first year. So you never know, but it doesn’t hurt to be an early applicant.

I had a first interview and then a follow-up interview. Most people only had the first one, so I suppose they were on the fence with me, but in the end, I was offered an alternate contract (more on that later).

However, getting the contract offer was only the first part of the process. Employment/deployment was still contingent on getting physically qualified (PQed).

I won’t lie—the process was …long.

In no particular order, one needs to complete:

Physical examination: I had to visit a doctor and get a typical physical done, complete with a rectal-finger examination.

Blood drawn: Part of the physical exam, they wanted to check that my levels were satisfactory.

Dental examination: Gotta make sure you won’t need a root canal while down there.

Background check: No criminals allowed!

Drug test: Also, no druggies. Can’t test positive for cannabis, by the way.

Fingerprints taken: The guberment needs to track you.

And all of this just for a job where you’re primarily washing dishes lol. To be fair, it’s the same process for everyone, but it sure did seem overkill for the job I was about to do.

I needed to send in the paperwork. The original email I received stated I needed to fax everything (and not email back, since the email was unsecure). Hello 1990s… I don’t have a fax machine, let alone a house line, so I went to Office Depot and paid about 40 dollars to do so for the dozens of pages required.

I followed up a few days later to ensure they had received the files, and they responded that I did it wrong and was should upload everything to Box, and they sent me those instructions. So I wasted that money due to their outdated email they initially sent me.

A note on PQ process costs: For the physical examination, you have the option of visiting a doctor in the Denver area that the USAP program regularly works with. If you do that, then you don’t have to pay, as that doctor directly bills the USAP program. For the dental exam, you just visit your normal dentist; mine just marked it down as one of my two annual checkups and didn’t charge me any additional fee, so that was nice. Most of the other steps I had to take were also billed directly to USAP. If you end up paying for any of those steps out of pocket (not using the Denver doc for your exam, your dentist check, etc.), then the USAP does reimburse you. However, I recall some people I worked with had still not been reimbursed as we were about to go home after our six-month deployment. I am sure they ultimately did get reimbursed, but just know that it might take some time. I luckily incurred no costs at all, so I didn’t need to bother with filing reimbursement. I recommend going to the Denver doc they work with if you’re able, as it ultimately was one less thing I had to worry about.

Anyway, once you pass all those steps and you’re “PQed,” then you are set to go to Antarctica! Or are you?

If your contract listed you as a primary, then you’re going for sure, assuming you don’t back out. If you’re an alternate, then you are essentially on the list just in case a primary does back out. Sometimes a primary doesn’t PQ (I heard about a couple people discovering they had cancer or some other serious issue going on that the PQ process revealed, which is nice to find out I suppose), or they might just have something else going on in their life after all.

So they go down the list, contacting alternates with updated primary offers. For the stewie position, it was my understanding that they ended up going through almost all the alternates (I can recall only one person in the Facebook group being dismayed at not going). So don’t fret if you’re not immediately offered a primary contract. (I can’t speak to the experience for other depts or companies.)

In my case, I had been offered an alternate. So I got everything done, and then I waited. And waited. A couple months went by (I PQed early August), and I heard nothing. Little did I know, they were contacting alternates and getting them on board. I received a notice that I had been shifted to a primary, and then I received a call ensuring that I was able to do so. They let me know mid-September, and they wanted me to fly out October 3. So I barely had enough time to give my current job a two-week’s notice. But I did so and made Antarctica happen!

You fly commercial to Christchurch, New Zealand, and then you fly on a US Air Force plane from there. But to get to Christchurch, USAP does buy your ticket for you. For them to do so, I had given them my passport information. When I went to confirm my ticket with the airline, the system stated that I had a UK passport. I messaged USAP, and they kind of condescendingly told me that I wrote down that I had a UK passport (in the paperwork I originally faxed them). I double checked, and no, I had indeed entered that I had an American passport (do they even take UK personnel?), and I showed them again. A minor hiccup that was easily fixed, but it just goes to show that the process wasn’t entirely smooth. (But really, who expects the government to know what they’re doing?) However, if you have the patience, flexibility, and drive to make it work, then going to Antarctica can become a reality.

 

Packing

For the most part, pack for a normal trip. Bring some clothes, toiletries, etc. I brought a laptop as well as my Nintendo Switch. I brought a couple books too, but they have a pretty well-stocked library at McMurdo, and they also have a laptop with thousands of ebooks you can “check out.” There are also ample DVDs (and the players for them) of movies and shows scattered around the various lounges.

You don’t need a ton of clothes, as they have several washing machines you can regularly use. There’s certainly a “rush hour” with their usage, but it you use them not right after most people finish work, you can usually find one free.

As for outdoor clothes, they issue you everything you will need. The “big red” jacket is pretty warm, if not overkill. I only used it a few days when it got particularly cold. The “bunny boots” I think were good when they were first issued, but they no longer have any traction. And I didn’t find them that warm in any case (my $50 cheapo winter boots are warmer than those). The rest of the gear is pretty standard, sometimes even lacking. I really wish I would have brought my own thin gloves / thick mittens combo; I didn’t like their yellow leather gloves at all.

They have a packing list, and it’s a bit overkill. I would recommend reading through it, but they suggested like 2 pairs of thin thermals, 2 pairs of thicker thermals, etc. You might want more if you’re working outside, but even one pair of thermal pants was enough for me when I opted to go outside on a hike, since I always worked indoors.

I brought several tubes of toothpaste, shampoo, etc., but that wasn’t necessary since they sell a few varieties in the store, and the store was surprisingly reasonably priced. Alcohol as well.

If you’re there in the austral summer as I was (October to Marchish), the temps aren’t too bad. When I first landed, it was probably -30F or so, but it “warmed up” to around 20 to 30 degrees within a few weeks and stayed around there for most of the time. It did get over 32 for a little, and even topped 40 degrees for a few days. Sure, it’s still around freezing temps, but it wasn’t so bad.

Anyway, back to packing. They give you around 90 lbs packing limit, possibly a bit more if you get issued mandatory gear (e.g., dress uniforms for the galley). I was way under the limit; I think I had 50 pounds or so. But some people were at the max and had also shipped a few boxes to themselves ahead of time (something you can do and will get info about). I still don’t understand what all they brought…

There wasn’t much that I found myself wanting for. A few minor things I wish I would have brought include a proper shower caddy, magnetic hooks (to hang stuff off your metal dresser), and small binoculars. Otherwise it’s standard fare.

And if you do find yourself lacking in the clothes dept., or some other stuff, there is Skua. A skua is a bird that lives in Antarctica during their summer. They’re scavengers. As such, the “Skua” is a building where people can donate clothes, shoes, costumes, games, kitchen good, etc., and other people can grab it for free. It’s a thrift store that has no charge essentially. I grabbed a few things I found from there, including a Darth Vader mask, a sweet winter mask that was awesome to wear when it was windy (which I did wash several times before first using it), and a couple t-shirts I liked.

Long story, short: check out their recommended packing list, but don’t stress too much about it, especially if you’ll be working indoors. You can wash clothes, there’s Skua, there is a store that sells clothes and toiletries, and there are just other people you can ask for help from.

I had even heard of one person who made it a challenge to go down there with nothing except the winter clothes they issue you, as in he had no luggage at all. And it would totally be possible, but I definitely wouldn’t recommend doing it the first year!

Once you’re all packed and ready to go, it’s time to go fly to Christchurch!

 

Training and Boomerangs

Before you fly out, you’ll get access to some training modules in some app (forget the name off the top of my head). They are mandatory and have to be done before the flight from New Zealand to Antarctica.

Someone in the Facebook group we were invited to recommended waiting till you get to Christchurch to do your training because then “you’re being paid for it,” but you get paid a full day in any case. Definitely do the training ASAP, likely at home, so apart from the 1 zoom meeting you have to attend in Christchurch, you can spend the rest of the time in Christchurch checking things out. I forget whoever gave that advice, but I am not afraid of publicly calling them out on how wrong that guidance was.

Once you reach Christchurch, you’re technically employed. However, it did take some time to get our first paychecks, so try not to come down on the wire with impending credit card payments. A few people did and were really stressing out when their first paycheck would come in.

Anyway, you’ll typically be in Christchurch for three or so days (at least). You will get per diem. I wasn’t sure if I should save my receipts or not, since I’ve never got per diem before. You don’t need to save any receipts, though, and you just get the additional pay later. If you get stuck in Christchurch for longer, you continue getting per diem for each day you’re in CHC. Getting stuck? you ask. Well…

The boomerangs are real, so get used to it. A boomerang is when the plane takes off and comes back to Christchurch, usually due to bad weather at McMurdo. Or they might just cancel the flight for the day without even attempting if the weather looks particularly poor. While it’s kind of nice to get another day in CHC and the per diem, you also need to wake up at 4 a.m. or so to call a number and see if your flight is good to go or delayed. And for some reason, no matter how much I tried and got guidance from the front desk, I could not get any outbound calls to work from my hotel room, so I kept having to annoy the front desk and making them call on my behalf in the early hours.

Depending on which plane you get, your flight one way is around five hours (C-17) or eight hours (C-130). Our flight was delayed by several days. But some people recounted times when their flight didn’t take off for a couple of weeks. The first two or three days, our flight was canceled in the morning, affording us another groggy day of per diem stay in Christchurch. One day we all loaded up and the flight was canceled as we were boarding, so we went back to our hotels. The next day, we got on the plane, took off, and hit a bird. You could see the plane crew looking out the tiny porthole window. Curiously, we kept flying for an hour or two, and then we flew back to investigate. We stayed on the plane while they checked it out, they determined it was fine, and we went back up in the air, landing in the evening. We were in a C-17, so while it was the faster of the two planes, since we went out, came back, and went out again, we had been on that plan for something like 12 hours by the time we arrive.

The doors opened, and a wave of frigid air hit us. But we made it! We had arrived in Antarctica!

Why You Came to Antarctica: to Work

I was posting quite a few pictures of the more fun side of being in Antarctica on Instagram. One of my friends jokingly asked if I was actually working at all. And let me tell you, we sure did!

Once you arrive, they don’t really give you time to get acquainted with things. You often need to work the next morning after arriving in the evening, so brace yourself for that. And since people come in staggered over several flights, there’s not really any orientation that they do. You just kind of figure it out. That being said, the recreation department would regularly host tours that I would encourage taking, just to get your bearings.

In any case, know what you’re signing up for. You are going to work 6 days a week for 10 hours each day, making 620 bucks a week (as a stewie). After taxes (yes, you do pay taxes, despite what some people think, and both federal and state in fact!), you end up making around 9 bucks an hour. Adjusted for inflation, it’s actually the worst paying job I’ve ever had.

To be fair, you don’t pay for food or lodging, so if you’re like quite a few of the younger bucks there and you have put all your belongings in your car on your parents’ property and have no bills, you can save quite a bit. And in the end, you’re not going there for the pay, you’re going because you want to be in Antarctica!

And to work.

 

For the food steward position, you’re mostly restocking food on the floor in addition to cleaning. There’s a tasking board, and they do break tasks up, for better or for worse. Sometimes you’re just getting in the groove of things and then you need to go to another task. Sometimes you get stuck doing something you don’t like for an hour. The switching of tasks is supposed to limit work-related stress injuries, but plenty of people still had repetitive-stress issues, usually in the wrists. They profess good handling techniques, but the fact is, when you have to wash thousands of hotel pans and plates in a week, your hands are going to get strained. I myself started getting an irritated wrist near the end of my deployment, but I was luckily able to borrow a brace and stymy that from becoming a bigger problem.

Side note: Maybe bring a universal wrist brace with you, just in case. They’re small and light, and you might end up wanting to use it or letting someone else borrow/have it.

Like any kitchen-related job, there’s a lot of cleaning involved. The adage “If you have time to lean, you have time to clean” was upheld with zealous adherence. They’re paying you for 60 hours of work a week, and they’re going to get their 60 hours, down to the minute. And that’s all I have to say about that.

I met a wise Antarctica veteran down there who had worked as a Stewie in a previous season, and he gently reminded us, “You don’t go to Antarctica to be a Stewie, you become a Stewie to go to Antarctica.”

 

I make work sound like a large part of your time in Antarctica, and it is, but there are still plenty of socializing, events, and outdoor activities to do.

 

The Living Situation

You live in dorms, so you’ll have roommates. If you’re one of the earlier arrivals, you’ll likely get put in building 155, which is attached to the galley. There are pros and cons with that. One the one hand, you don’t have to dress up to walk to work or the galley, but then you also can find yourself cooped up in the same building for quite a while. I had heard about one person from a previous season that didn’t go outside for months. Certainly possible, but then I don’t see why you’d want to go to Antarctica if you’re not going to interface with the actual environment at all.

Probably the biggest drawback to living in 155 is that you have big rooms….which fit four, sometimes five, people in them. The other detached dorms are typically limited to two or three people.

In my case, there were four of us, and we all had a different schedule. One person typically started work at 5 a.m., another at 7 a.m., I started around 11 a.m., and then we had a “midrat” who started I think around 10 p.m. So somebody was always sleeping in our room, which made cleaning and vacuuming a rare thing, let alone having the room to yourself. I was the only one who ever vacuumed in my room, and only one of two who ever took out the trash. Additionally, one of the guys who started earlier would snooze his alarm every ten minutes for 30 or 40 minutes. That’s roommates for you… I started sleeping with an eye guard and earplugs all the time.

But you can decorate a little, and if you hang up a sheet from the ceiling around your area (don’t tell the firefighters about that though!), you can get some privacy.

If you’re in the other buildings, you always have to walk outside, which is a con, and I heard the water pressure in the showers wasn’t great. But I would take it all to have only one or two roommates.

They’re also building a huge new dorm building, which should alleviate some of the cramming issues they’ve been having. Maybe some day I’ll go back and check it out.

Recreation in Antarctica

You work a lot, with only one day off. But even on the days you work, it’s actually comparable to a normal eight-hour day of work. What I mean by that is that for my 8-hour work day now, after work, I still need to cook, wash dishes, and clean, and that’s easily an hour of work, if not more. You don’t have to worry about that down there, though, so once your shift finishes, you’re free to do whatever you want. So you could kind of look at it as only working one extra hour than a normal work day would occupy in your day. If you factor in an hour-long commute, it’s a wash.

So what all is there to do there? It is what you make it.

Something that made it really feel impactful was hearing the Sunday lectures. Most Sundays, a team of scientists would do a presentation on what they were doing down there. It really helped bring it all back into focus, highlighting what everyone was down there to facilitate. There are obviously glaciologists and biologists studying penguins and seals. But there are also seismologists (Mt. Elbert is on the same Ross Island where McMurdo is), ice core drillers, mechanical engineers studying glacial movement sensors that were deployed from helicopters, some astronomy-related research (South Pole has the big satellite, but there are quite a few operations at McMurdo as well), meteorologists, and the Long-Duration Balloon program that launches stratospheric balloons that stay up for weeks or months at a time (this was one of my favorites), among others.

We also got to visit the Crary Lab, which is the main science building. They have lots of offices, but they also have a room with live animals from the ocean in a touch tank. Divers will bring them in, and then they’re monitored for whatever the scientists are studying before being released back into the ocean. The tank was pretty neat, but so incredibly cold! (Got to keep the temperature what they’re used to, after all.) My hands were numb within a minute.

We get all the food from several different warehouses. There was a crisis on the station where we ran out of individual butter packets, and then we ran out of pizza cheese. I honestly didn’t see the issue, but the amount of whining was paramount. Everyone kept asking why the warehouse workers couldn’t just pull it out, but the ingredients were “buried.” And you don’t really appreciate how hard it would be to get to some stuff until you get to tour the warehouse and see just how much crates of food are stacked on top of each other. If something needed is at the bottom, you’re not getting it.

What I wanted to do the most was go outside—be present in the harsh landscape that was Antarctica.

There is a decent, if limited, hiking network. They have some predefined routes that they need to scope out every season, as crevasses that can and have swallowed and killed people can form every year. Some of the professionals will go out at the beginning of every season and probe and flag down the hiking routes. Once the routes are open, you are allowed to hike them. Annoyingly, on most of the routes you have to go with a partner and check out a radio. I get the safety angle, but especially for the food services employees who had a random day off instead of the Sunday that the rest of the station had, it could be tricky finding a hiking partner. If hiking isn’t your thing, you can get skis or bikes from gear issue. I kept meaning to, but I just never got around to it. Maybe next time…

Anyway, some of the hikes follow:

For a better view: https://data.pgc.umn.edu/maps/antarctica/pgc/11/pdf/Ross%20Island%20Trail%20System.pdf 

Observation Hill and the Everest challenge. Observation Hill is a small hill that overlooks the town. When the first explorers were here, they would routinely send someone up top to, well, observe and see if they could spot an incoming relief ship. The hill is 754 feet (230 m) high, and if you go up it 39 times, then it’s the same elevation gain as going up Everest once. It depends on exactly when you arrive and are expected to leave, but I think I needed to do about 2.5 summits per week to reach that goal. I made a regular thing of going Wednesday evenings at least once. But sometimes I’d be too tired or had something else going on. So sometimes on my days off, I’d have to catch up and do five or six summits. Each summit would take me about half an hour, maybe 20 minutes if I was booking it.

In the end, I did manage to finish, and I got the prize, this sticker.

Cape Armitage Loop trail. I went out on the ice once. Unfortunately, the wind was howling that day. We went on the hike anyway, but I was freezing afterward. If the weather would have been better, it would have been a wonderful opportunity to cross-country ski.

Castle Rock. The coolest hike was out to Castle Rock, which I did a few times. You can either do the full loop, which is almost 10 miles, or just go to the rock and back, which is a little shorter.

There are a couple emergency shelter “apples” along the way, which served as great rest spots. They protected you from the wind, and they had emergency supplies inside, but they were for actual emergencies and not to be opened unless in a situation that warranted it.

The rock itself was an easy climb that spiraled up around the right side. There is a rope on the top third or so that can aid in ascending/descending. People talked it up as really technical, but it’s not.  The view from up top was spectacular, and it were moments like that that reminded me of the amazing opportunity I had to be just going on a hike in Antarctica.

 

One can visit Discovery hut, at Hut Point, a 10-minute walk from McMurdo. It was built in 1902 by the crew of the Discovery Expedition, led by Robert Falcon Scott. They had a lot of hardtack and some very meager looking equipment. Since Antarctic (and Arctic) expedition was still a relatively new thing at the turn of the 20^th century, it was explained to us that the explorers of the time essentially had the same level of resources available to them as if we were put in a modern-day Wal-Mart and told to get everything an expedition needed to places where it can get well into the negative temperatures (Fahrenheit or Celsius) with winds that can reach up to 100MPH, or 160KPH. I find it surprising that they did as well as they did.

We also got to tour the original building at Scott Base, which is the kiwi base. Hillary’s Hut was established in 1957, and it was striking how much more modern it looked compared to Discovery Hut, despite being only 55 years newer (which is a good amount) but, at the same time, almost 70 years old from today. Clearly the industrialization around the two World Wars did a lot to bring us to a standard that doesn’t feel like it has advanced nearly as much in the time since then. The base is named after Sir Edmund Hillary, who led the original expedition and construction of the base. And yes, that’s the same Sir Edmund Hillary that first ascended Everest (of which, I did the challenge too, so we’re basically the same, you know!). His chair is still in the hut, so I got to have my two-degrees of connection to him by sitting in his chair, where he and I both reminisced about Everest-related accomplishments.

 

Another sight to see on the island are the pressure ridges. These form in spring as the sea ice starts to soften and break up, and then the ice behind it, being pushed by glacial movement, crushes ice against the shore. These areas had to be investigated to make sure they were safe to walk on, since it’s essentially a fault line, and they were only safely navigable for a few weeks.

 

There are “golf balls” around the station. If you have ever seen those and wondered what’s inside, then do I have a tour for you! These serve a few different projects, but ultimately it’s all about sending data back and forth to satellites via the satellite dishes inside. There are some imaging satellites that regularly go vertically around the planet (which gather the Google Maps images), and they communicate with dishes at McMurdo and Svalbard, Norway. The outer sphere is obviously there to protect the dish itself from the elements, but it’s very thin, so a signal can still get through.

To lean into atmospheric science, one can also help launch the weather balloons, which are done twice a day. I got to help calibrate the sensor for one before filling up the balloon and releasing it.

Every year, the Polar Star icebreaker comes in and smashes a bunch of the sea ice. It still takes some time before it’s cleared out, and then a container ship comes in to resupply the station and haul out trash. But before that can happen, they have to build a temporary pier by lowering parts and some small tugboats off the container ship.

Once the pier is complete, the station gets its busiest ever as more personal are flown in to start a 24/7 operation of taking everything off the boat and to where it should be stored on station and then loading up all our trash so it can be properly disposed of back in the States.

We were able to tour the container ship once things started to quiet down.

After the container ship is done, there was a fuel ship, which I believe only comes every other year, but it did come when I was there. That’s a pretty quick operation.

After that, the Polar Star got to dock, and we were able to tour that.

And after that, we got the opportunity to take a ride on one of the tugboats that had helped build the pier.

 

Some departments will host tours, which is cool to see aspects of how life works down there. There’s something to be said about how open the whole town is. You get to learn who is actually stocking and cooking your food, supplying your water, cleaning the hallways, etc. Whereas in normal life, all that stuff happens, but it’s all behind closed doors by faceless “others.” You get a good perspective on what everyone is doing and how involved it gets.

This is the power production plant. There are a few windmills out on the hills. They are a nice supplement, but most of the power comes from a couple huge diesel generators. I forget the exact number I was told, but I think it was something like 3,000 gallons every day that they go through! It’s a little frustrating, but that’s the energy source they use. There used to be a small portable nuclear reactor on the hillside above the town, but that was removed a long time ago. It makes sense why there are so many huge fuel tanks around town now.

Next door to the energy plant is the water production plant. It uses a reverse osmosis system that provides fresh, drinkable water to the entire station.

And after everyone drinks that water, it needs to go somewhere. Enter the waste treatment facility. There is a small team that monitors the waste and adds cultures as necessary. Most of it is broken down, and the liquids are released back into the water via a long, underwater pipe, while the solids are collected, incinerated, and boxed up to be taken off continent by the yearly container ship. The Antarctic Treaty only dictates that all waste be “blended” before being put back into the ocean, so it was refreshing to see (and smell) that the station was going above and beyond to limit its environmental impact in that regard.

We got to visit the Arrival Heights Laboratory. They shoot powerful lidar lasers into the sky, which diffract based on what particles in the air, revealing insights into the composition of the atmosphere.

But viewing the station isn’t all that McMurdo has to offer. There are also a lot of events that happen throughout each week and the year.

Gallagher’s Pub hosts regular karaoke nights, live music, and other events. It was always fun to check that out, and there were some talented musicians there, who are just the other people on station! The bar doesn’t actually serve alcohol anymore, since alcohol is only provided at the store based on a strict point system, so it was kind of awkward to have to bring a bunch of beer in your pockets or carry a six-pack holder until you got through all the beers that you wanted to bring from your room.

Halloween was fun. During the day shift, we dressed like Sims. I found a Darth Vader mask in Skua, so I made the shoulders, cape, chest plate, and lightsaber in the craft room. Then we partied in the big gym.

For Thanksgiving and Christmas, we decorated the galley and had a nice meal. They were busy, long days, but still pretty fun. A lot of people complained about the food down there, and I get that people don’t care for only frozen, canned, or dehydrated food, with the occasional fresh veggies and fruit as flights came in, but I thought the cooks did a pretty damn good job. No complaints from me.

 

On Christmas day, there was an inter-department softball league in the afternoon.

We celebrated New Year’s with Icestock, a music festival done by the musically gifted on the station. It was a great time! We started earlier in the day and kept playing until late the next morning, of course with the sun up the entire time.

We had a Renaissance Faire, where I dressed up as a “Galley Knight.”

There were a few parties and events that other departments hosted. I’m just going to post a few photos from various ones.

It’s a tradition for the stewies to host the Stewie Prom near the end of the deployment, which we also did.

They do some specific outings, like room with a view, where we got to drive snowmobiles a bit closer to Mt. Elbert than we would otherwise be able to go. We went up in elevation a little bit, but it made a huge difference in how cold it was. I was thankful I had packed my snow pants in a duffel bag, just in case. Thanks for bringing me, Matt!

There was also a Night on the Ice,  I think it was called, where we walked out a ways onto the ice shelf and played around making some shelters and holes before having some hot chocolate.

We also did a grueling half-kilometer marathon!

After a while, the ice broke up and the animals started coming in.

We saw hordes of Weddell seals. They liked to lounge on the ice, and you could occasionally see streaks where mothers had given birth and the babies would crawl into the nearby hole.

The Adelie penguins liked to hang out around Hut Point. They were cute and would waddle around, grabbing rocks and dropping them to make their nests.

We also had “Karl,” who took up residence next to the Coffee House.

There are also Emperor penguins, but they kept avoiding me. They usually hang out at the Willy Field (one of the two airports), but the one day I went there on my day off, they had wandered off elsewhere. And that was the day that a huge flock of Adelie penguins, which normally hang out on the coast, actually wandered through McMurdo. The penguins were messing with me!

There are also orcas and minke whales in the bay once the ice breaks up. I managed to see some of their sprays in the distance, but never saw them up close. But other lucky people saw some orcas very close to the coast, hunting seals.

There are board games on station, but I will say that most of them are on the more basic/common side. If you know what boardgamegeek is and have an account, you might be disappointed with the selection here. But there are some newer games, including dozens of copies of Cards Against Humanity and Settlers of Catan. I wish I would have brought some of my smaller games, like the Tiny Epic series or Race for the Galaxy. Regardless, we would play regularly in the galley, where I ended up making a nemesis board game player friend. A few of us also played Dungeons and Dragons a bit.

And a couple people even got married down there!

Inspired by a similar movie festival I had attended a couple years prior, I hosted several movie nights, with overarching themes. And of course we finished with The Thing.

Since I was doing something almost every evening, I felt like I was super busy the entire time. I came with a plethora of games, books, and shows downloaded, and also with the intention of writing a lot. I did read and write a fair amount, but I barely touched TV or video games. I was just always doing something. Or I was exhausted. They had Starlink the season I was there, and it’s my understanding that that was the only season they had unrestricted data. People going back the next season are being limited to something like 100mb a week, which is not much, whereas people were previously streaming movies on the regular.

Some people’s jobs let them go elsewhere on the continent: pilots, some construction and support crew for remote camps, etc. The program states that they try to get everyone who is “stuck” at the station permanently the opportunity to visit someplace else at least once. This would usually entail going in a plane for a day to help dig up some fuel caches or something like that. It’s still work, but something to break up the monotony and get a little adventurous. However, morale trips, or “Boondoggles” were rare, and some people had been here for multiple years before getting their first one. They used to fly people around a lot more, and I was told there were some almost-empty flights (sometimes only one passenger in a plane that could comfortably fit eight or ten). But they just didn’t prioritize it, even when there was room available. It was only in the last month or so that they started shuffling people around it seemed. I unfortunately never got to go on one. That being said, there are still plenty activities to do around McMurdo to make it all worthwhile.

Redeploying and Coming Home

As you get closer to the end of your deployment, they will figure out the timetable for who goes home on which flight. After almost half a year of being down there, almost everybody was ready to head home. But they can’t send everyone at once. I ended up being on one of the flights in the middle of the pack, I want to say the third out of six.

Finally it was our day to leave, and it got delayed due to bad weather. Of course. If you get stuck there, you might end up having to work a few extra days, so just prepare yourself for that eventuality. After a couple days, it seemed like it was going to work out, after our flight had been delayed all morning. So we went to the airfield, and we had a fun time playing hackey sack in the field. And then we heard a droning from the horizon, and there our plane came out of the clouds! It was already getting later in the day, so we arrived in Christchurch at something like 3 a.m. We dropped off out stuff and took some shuttles to our hotels.

The program only gives you one night in a hotel when you get back, but since we arrived after midnight, the first partial night doesn’t count, so I got about 1.5 nights in CHC.

Before flying back, you inform them of how long you want to stay in New Zealand, as one of the perks is the ability to travel around for a few weeks, or even a few months if you really want. I opted to hang out for a couple weeks and visit my family down there.

Since we flew in and out of Christchurch on the south island, most people would prefer to travel north, up through the north island to Auckland and fly out from there. Unfortunately, the program doesn’t really allow that, and they will only fly you in and out of Christchurch. Lame. But there are ways around that. I ended up simply just going onto United’s website and changing my flight, also adding on a flight from Christchurch to Wellington and then Wellington to Auckland, and since it cost less, I didn’t have to pay anything. However, I did lose my free second bag, but since I was travelling relatively light, I could fit everything in my one, large backpack. USAP admin said not to do that, but I did it anyway, and I didn’t have any problems.

So after visiting my family, I flew home, happy to see my wife and friends again.

Final Thoughts

A lot of people return for another season on the ice. I would like to keep the option open. It would be much easier for one without a partner and/or without rent/mortgage back home, both of which I have. It was tricky, but we made it work. I also have a normal job that I am not eager to leave anytime soon, and it was hard on my team for the half a year that I was absent. But maybe some day in the future I’ll set my eyes south again…

I am super excited that I had the opportunity, privilege, and support to make my dream of visiting and working in Antarctica happen. There are a lot of other smaller events, silly shenanigans, and just fun random moments that I haven’t discussed in this post, but the memories will last forever.