It was sometime in mid-January when our Cape Shirreff population of 4 first heard about it. You know of what I speak; I don’t even have to name it. I was doing my usual glance through the New York Times Digest that Palmer Station emailed us daily when I saw a blurb about a new virus in China. While sharing limited tidbits from the Times with the others in camp,…
Week 9: Su 3 February 2019, 8:13. Cape Shirreff, Livingston Island, Antarctica Imagine you’re sunk in a Kelty camping chair – the kind you spread open and sit in around a campfire – in a 6-man American Antarctic camp. From the coziness of your navy blue fleece sleeping bag (blankie), you’re watching “The Big Bang Theory” with your crew. Being 22:30 in late January, you didn’t need to close the…
Week 9: Tr 21 December 2017, 19:15. Cape Shirreff, Livingston Island, Antarctica From “Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage” by Alfred Lansing — “Returning from a hunting trip, Orde-Lees, traveling on skis across the rotting surface of the ice, had just about reached camp when an evil, knoblike head burst out of the water just in front of him. He turned and fled, pushing as hard as he could with his ski…
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…
Week 3: F 10 November 2017, 23:54. Cape Shirreff, Livingston Island, Antarctica This past summer on Buldir I was entertained by factoids shared by Kevin and McKenzie from the book “The Last Place on Earth: Amundsen and Scott’s Race for the South Pole.” At the time, my working in Antarctica was still in the hopeful phase. However, I’ve been interested in the Antarctic for ages, and the information I was…
Week 1: F 27 October 2017, 22:38. Cape Shirreff, Livingston Island, Antarctica For months now I’ve been saying the phrase “It’ll feel more real when…” to talk about my then-pending Antarctic experience. The idea I’d really been given a position working with penguins and seals in Antarctica had always been a dream – not a reality. After briefly interviewing and then getting offered the position while working on Buldir this…
Sorry for the lack of posts, but having just under a month and a half of internet between remote gigs made other things the priority. After returning to Homer I spent about 10 days there wrapping up data and putting away field gear. I went up to Fairbanks to walk the lovely Equinox Marathon and have a week with my Dad at the tail end of his 3 weeks of…