Week 8: F 15 December 2017, 20:49. Cape Shirreff, Livingston Island, Antarctica

In celebrating the holiday, last night we toasted our midnight suns with a hearty “Skol!” and feasted on fårikål, lefsa, kringle, and pepperkaken. God had provided the proper weather overnight and into the day; we awoke to lightly howling wind and a coating of snow blown against the northeast-facing doors of camp. Small snowdrifts had built up at the bases of doors, bringing a smile to my face as I greeted my campmates with a heartfelt “Happy South Pole Day!”

On the 14th of December 1911, Roald Amundsen and crew arrived at the South Pole, having successfully travelled the distance by skis and dogsled. On the 14th of December 2017, we celebrated their achievements and threw some insults at the British. Robert Scott didn’t make it to the Pole until January 1912, and his planning was so poor that his polar crew died during their return trek.

Since the weather had delivered Antarctic conditions, Nai made a proposition that I couldn’t ignore. “Skis?!” she whispered excitedly to me as we made our preparations to leave camp. Having been virtually unable to ski since late November, the idea was tempting – so enticing that I couldn’t turn my back on it. “Embrace your inner Norwegian!” encouraged Doug as I swapped my XtraTufs for ski boots, donned my ski mask, and headed out the door.

While there was enough snow to ski, it wasn’t necessarily going to be the most prime skiing of the year. I had to ski around Pehuenche rather than on the rocky downhill between it and Aymara, and I was a little wind-beaten when I arrived at the Skua Shack. Still, skiing for a probable last time was a treat.

The Skua Shack’s anemometer registered a high wind speed of 52 knots, which meant that the wind was really – no, really – whipping on top of ridge 29. In retrospect I probably should have skipped checking my chinstrap colony up there. While walking amongst the penguins I leaned heavily on my trekking pole for support against the wind; the chinnies had every right to look concerned about my balance. The wind was so powerful that I couldn’t safely or neatly record data while visually noting which mate was attending the nests in each plot. I needed to repeat the data in my head and take a mental image before carefully moving away from the penguins to a spot that just barely put me in some lee. Once there I sat down with my back to the wind and was able to record what I’d seen.

My ski trip back to camp was challenging, as I battled a crosswind that threatened to blow me over for the first half of the journey and then became a headwind for the second half. I couldn’t be too upset, though, since Amundsen had met with much worse during his months of travel. Besides, headwinds build character.

Back in camp Doug began making fårikål, a lamb and cabbage stew mentioned as the national dish of Norway. Nai tackled the kringle, which we decided is like a big pie crust-textured cookie shaped in the number 8, and pepperkaken, pepper cookies. That left me with trying my hand at lefsa, Norway’s potato flatbread. We’d intended to have iceberg lettuce “& things,” but our lettuce is so sad these days and our salad ingredients so limited, that we decided to just appreciate the icebergs visible through the windows.

Our proposed sledding was replaced with hot showers for 3 crew members. Somehow sledding in -1C and 30 knot winds wasn’t the most enticing after spending the day working outside. I read some passages from “The Last Place on Earth” about Amundsen’s arrival at the Pole, and we declared it a successful holiday. Thanks, Roald Amundsen and Norwegian explorers!