| Antarctica - Nuggies On Ice |
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| These pages are a sort of diary to record what it is like to spend a year living and working in Antarctica. I will be living at New Zealand's Scott Base, which is situated on Ross Island in the Ross Dependency. At 78 degrees south that's a little more chilly than most places. My name is Keith and I will be the Communications Technician at Scott Base. This will be my fourth year on the Ice so I will be used to most of what goes on in this part of Antarctica. What I hope to do over the next year or so, is to give an insight into what it is like to spend a year on the Ice. I will be living and working on the base, with the occassional trip to remote sites for work. There will also be opportunities for what we call "fam trips" - our American friends call them "boondoggles". After arriving on the Ice in early October, within 3 weeks there will be 24-hour daylight. The sun will not set again until late February. Then, in April, the sun will set for the last time until it rises again in late August. We will have 4 months of polar night. Finally I will leave during the next October, just as 24-hour daylight starts again. For a long time the seasons seem to stand still, but the transition between day and night, or night and day, will seem to fly by, as the amount of daylight will change by 20 minutes per day. |
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| Where I Will Be Living and Working |
| Now a little about the area I will be living in. Ross Island is a volcanic island on the western side of the Ross Sea. Scott Base and the neighbouring American base, McMurdo Station, are situated on Hut Point Peninsula, which is the south-western extremity of Ross Island. The map (right, above) of the south-western part of Ross Island shows the location of Scott Base and McMurdo Station. We are only 35 kilometres from Mt.Erebus, the only constantly active volcano in Antarctica. This area also has considerable historic heritage. Both Captain Robert Scott and Ernest Shackleton built huts in this area and made their attempts at reaching the South Pole from Ross Island. The picture below the map is a view of Ross Island taken from the air over McMurdo Sound. Top left is Mt.Erebus, top right is Mt.Terror (an extinct volcano), bottom right is Hut Point Peninsula (where Scott Base and McMurdo Station are situated) and the jagged ice floe moving out from the centre to the bottom left is the Erebus Glacier ice tongue. The next picture is of Scott Base, our home for the next year. The picture is taken from above the sea ice to the south. This picture was taken in late summer as the sea ice was starting to break up. In the background is Crater Hill, an extinct volcano. As you might have guessed, Ross Island is completely volcanic in origin. Just over the hill is the thriving American metropolis of McMurdo Station - a den of iniquity known to the locals as Mactown. McMurdo is the largest base in Antarctica and also serves as the supply point for the American Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. The picture on the right is taken from the top of Crater Hill looking down on McMurdo. Out of picture to the left is Observation Hill, on top of which is a memorial cross to Scott and his party, who perished |
| returning from the South Pole in 1912. To the right is Winterquarters Bay and Hut Point. At Hut Point is Scott's Discovery Hut, which dates from 1902, and a memorial cross to Seaman Vince, who was the first person to lose his life in the exploration of the Ross Sea area. On the sea ice at the top of the picture can be seen the road leading to the sea ice runway, where our aircraft land. So, on with the show. I hope to keep you entertained with what is going on down here. If there is anything that you want to know further, please send me an e-mail message and I will see what I can do. |
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