Ah, the South Pole…I have been here for over a week now, ten days to be exact. I am amazed at how easily I am able to settle into a place. Ten days is not that long but somehow I almost feel at home, not quite, the going to a different building to get to the bathroom in the morning is still taking some getting used to. :-) I am living out in what is called summer camp, it is only used in the summer time because in the winter there are more than enough rooms in the station to accommodate the people who are living here. The “building” I am living in is called a jamesway. I’m not exactly sure why they are called that, they just are. I think there are eight or ten jamesways out here in summer camp. They are essentially a thick canvas stretched over a metal framework. Yep, that’s right, I’m living in a tent in the coldest environment on the planet. Each jamesway is divided up into twelve rooms, each separated by a plywood wall, and if you are lucky you have a door and maybe even a window(depending on who has lived in the room prior to you and how handy they were construction wise). If there was not a carpenter living in your room sometime in the past then you have a canvas curtain separating you from the hallway. I was very blessed to have my friend contact the person in charge of housing and she was able to request a particular room for me, not something that someone coming in for the first time hardly ever gets or even knows to do. That being the case, I got a room with both a door and a window! Yay!
It is pretty small, about eight by six, but its mine and I don’t have to worry about sharing it with anyone else. That’s one of the nice things about pole, no matter who you are or how little time you have been here you would never have to share a room with anyone. Now the longer you have been here the options for rooms increase, for each month you spend on the ice you get one point. Over time, once you have enough points, you are eligible for nicer rooms. Some of them are actually pretty decently sized, but you would have to have a LOT of ice time to be able to get into one of those rooms. I am very content with my little space. At Mac town, no one ever gets their own room, no matter how long they have been there, you would always have at least one roommate. No thanks.
Anyways, summer camp is about a quarter of a mile from the station, a nice little hike in the morning and back out again at night. I only make one trip each way per day, not that it’s really that far, but I have to put on all my gear to make the walk and that is just a pain. I would rather not do that more than I have to. Later on the season it may warm up enough for me to be able to cut down on the stuff that I have to wear and I may be more inclined to walk back and forth if I need to. However, since the first day I got here it has not been warmer than -45F, -65 with the wind chill, so its still a bit chilly to be wandering around without most of my gear on. Amazingly it’s not as cold feeling as I thought it would be, although when the wind is blowing really hard it does cut right through you. I went outside the other day, I think it was Wed, to watch the first Herc, LC130, of the season come in, I just grabbed my big red because I was not going to be out for very long. Well the top half of me was warm, but man, I think I made it like a minute before having to go back inside while waiting for the plane to land. It was brisk, to put it mildly.
Work has been good, for the first four days after I got here it was just the 16 people who came on our plane and the winter-overs, a mere 56 people. It was pretty astounding to go from over nine hundred people to less than sixty. I really enjoyed it though, so mellow and quiet around the station. It was really nice to just have a few people to get to know, I almost wish that we didn’t have so many more people coming. Four days after we got here, the second plane made it, our population went up by another 16, a very manageable increase. I felt really sorry for the people still stuck back a MM though, there were people who had come in with us who were still there, over two weeks at this point. The weather was giving us a run around though, if it was good here, it was bad back at Mac town. Early this week we started to hear rumors of a herc possibly coming in, more than a week before the first one was scheduled to come. They don’t normally have the hercs this early otherwise they would just send them because they can hold so much more than the little baslers. Sure enough, Wed afternoon we got our first herc of the season. It was bearing a whopping 40 passengers and some much needed fuel, sadly no luggage for us, we will still have to wait at least one more week for that. At this point the station feels overrun with people, I can’t believe we are still going to double our population, it was really weird to look out in the galley today and see most of the tables full. Thus far we have only been using a couple of the long table in the middle of the room, pretty much all the winter-overs are in hiding, they wait until the crowds have dispersed and then they creep out of their rooms. I don’t blame them though, if you spent nine months with only forty people and then the population tripled in just over a week I think most people would freak out too.
The station is nicer than I expected it to be, I was thinking it would be similar to McMurdo, which has been there a lot longer than this station. I think this one was started about seven years ago and finished in just the last few years. We have several really nice lounges, a sauna, a greenhouse where you can go if you feel like you need some moisture, a game room with pool and ping pong tables, a big gym for basketball and volleyball among other things, and a nice workout gym as well. The station is elevated off the ice, it is on pillars that can be raised as the snow level rises over the years. The problems with past stations here is that they slowly were buried under the snow and ice. The landscape is completely flat, we are on a big plateau, when the day is clear you can see for miles. The way that the wind blows the snow around, it has formed little peaks, so standing up in the galley looking out the windows you feel like you are on a ship looking out on a big frozen ocean. It’s a pretty amazing sight, I never thought something so seemingly plain could be so beautiful.
I know there is so much more to tell but I just can’t think of it at the moment. I know that it will be a great summer, I am feeling so blessed to be here. God is so good.
It is pretty small, about eight by six, but its mine and I don’t have to worry about sharing it with anyone else. That’s one of the nice things about pole, no matter who you are or how little time you have been here you would never have to share a room with anyone. Now the longer you have been here the options for rooms increase, for each month you spend on the ice you get one point. Over time, once you have enough points, you are eligible for nicer rooms. Some of them are actually pretty decently sized, but you would have to have a LOT of ice time to be able to get into one of those rooms. I am very content with my little space. At Mac town, no one ever gets their own room, no matter how long they have been there, you would always have at least one roommate. No thanks.
Anyways, summer camp is about a quarter of a mile from the station, a nice little hike in the morning and back out again at night. I only make one trip each way per day, not that it’s really that far, but I have to put on all my gear to make the walk and that is just a pain. I would rather not do that more than I have to. Later on the season it may warm up enough for me to be able to cut down on the stuff that I have to wear and I may be more inclined to walk back and forth if I need to. However, since the first day I got here it has not been warmer than -45F, -65 with the wind chill, so its still a bit chilly to be wandering around without most of my gear on. Amazingly it’s not as cold feeling as I thought it would be, although when the wind is blowing really hard it does cut right through you. I went outside the other day, I think it was Wed, to watch the first Herc, LC130, of the season come in, I just grabbed my big red because I was not going to be out for very long. Well the top half of me was warm, but man, I think I made it like a minute before having to go back inside while waiting for the plane to land. It was brisk, to put it mildly.
Work has been good, for the first four days after I got here it was just the 16 people who came on our plane and the winter-overs, a mere 56 people. It was pretty astounding to go from over nine hundred people to less than sixty. I really enjoyed it though, so mellow and quiet around the station. It was really nice to just have a few people to get to know, I almost wish that we didn’t have so many more people coming. Four days after we got here, the second plane made it, our population went up by another 16, a very manageable increase. I felt really sorry for the people still stuck back a MM though, there were people who had come in with us who were still there, over two weeks at this point. The weather was giving us a run around though, if it was good here, it was bad back at Mac town. Early this week we started to hear rumors of a herc possibly coming in, more than a week before the first one was scheduled to come. They don’t normally have the hercs this early otherwise they would just send them because they can hold so much more than the little baslers. Sure enough, Wed afternoon we got our first herc of the season. It was bearing a whopping 40 passengers and some much needed fuel, sadly no luggage for us, we will still have to wait at least one more week for that. At this point the station feels overrun with people, I can’t believe we are still going to double our population, it was really weird to look out in the galley today and see most of the tables full. Thus far we have only been using a couple of the long table in the middle of the room, pretty much all the winter-overs are in hiding, they wait until the crowds have dispersed and then they creep out of their rooms. I don’t blame them though, if you spent nine months with only forty people and then the population tripled in just over a week I think most people would freak out too.
The station is nicer than I expected it to be, I was thinking it would be similar to McMurdo, which has been there a lot longer than this station. I think this one was started about seven years ago and finished in just the last few years. We have several really nice lounges, a sauna, a greenhouse where you can go if you feel like you need some moisture, a game room with pool and ping pong tables, a big gym for basketball and volleyball among other things, and a nice workout gym as well. The station is elevated off the ice, it is on pillars that can be raised as the snow level rises over the years. The problems with past stations here is that they slowly were buried under the snow and ice. The landscape is completely flat, we are on a big plateau, when the day is clear you can see for miles. The way that the wind blows the snow around, it has formed little peaks, so standing up in the galley looking out the windows you feel like you are on a ship looking out on a big frozen ocean. It’s a pretty amazing sight, I never thought something so seemingly plain could be so beautiful.
I know there is so much more to tell but I just can’t think of it at the moment. I know that it will be a great summer, I am feeling so blessed to be here. God is so good.
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