May fly today... maybe

The flight situation is fluid here. Two flights bound for the Australian Casey Station boomeranged yesterday (turned around after deciding the weather was too bad to land). They rescheduled the Casey flights for today because we have a bunch of hungry Australians hanging around with nothing to do (the general consensus was we needed them off base before the bars opened on Tuesday night - otherwise there might not be any booze left for the rest of the season), bumping our flight to WAIS down the road.

This morning one Casey flight was cancelled due to plane trouble (the air mechanics came by the shop asking to borrow some ply wood for the repair - this has not engendered a great deal of confidence in flying today for our team)... (we are grateful they didn't ask for duck tape).... (then again ... if they had ... perhaps the plane would be back up and running!), and the other has been cancelled due to weather at Casey Station. So the remaining operational C130 has now been rescheduled to fly to the South Pole twice today. (Same priority - lots of bored South Pole workers hanging around McMurdo trying to keep busy, eating food, and threatening the liquor supply).

But, if weather forecasts hold up (bad weather is predicted for later in the day at South Pole), they may only get one flight out and the second will be cancelled, then ... if all of these ducks fall in a row, at least one plane is operational, and weather is good here and at WAIS, my team may fly late today.

If that all works out - then do not expect any posts till the 25th of November. That date is extremely fluid so do not worry if I don't pop up then. We may be out till mid December. We may come home sooner. I will do my best to email those concerned when I return.

Best wishes to everyone! I will miss the emails but I may be able to get a handful of calls out. Stress on the 'may' part of that sentence. This harsh environment leaves comfort, luxury, and the best laid plans, at the whim of weather and equipment.

P.S. - Found this link, especially for Caitlin, and it should put a more human face on my destination. The following is a gallery of artwork done by an artist sent to WAIS in 2009/2010 by the National Science Foundation.

http://annamckee.com/blog/galleries/

Halloween

The three hockey players!

  Last night was the annual McMurdo Halloween Party. We had people dressed as giant salmon, several Waldos, zombies, witches, Hunter S Thompsons, super heroes, a man carried in a cage by a gorilla, the local ice cream machine, many other characters warming up the dance floor, and three hockey players (I made myself a hockey stick at the shop before the party). Much of the station was out till the early morning and crashed just before breakfast. The breakfast galley and computer labs, often buzzling with activity early in the morning, were still quiet at nine this morning. Sowly people crawled out of thier holes and rejoined the world somewhere around noon.



My Full Costume



 

Creepy frozen and sunburned pig head on the side of the Carp Shop

Topography

It is wonderful to live in a place with land features again.The mountains this morning are spectacular after the last few days of snow.

 Its hard to describe... but that was something I missed back in Houston. There were no waves and no mountains.

There will not be waves here till January...  when the ice melts, but they are coming.

  Had a sick day yesterday. I knew something was wearing on me and had been going to bed between 7:30 - 8:00 all week... but I was sniffling in the meeting yesterday morning and they sent me back to my room. I feel like I am around the bend now.

Lots of love to my family, especially Mr. Oso and Lucy,


T

Planes, Skidoos, and Helicopters... hurrah!

Today was a fun day. Did a little prep up in the shop for our big trip coming up and then after lunch we headed to skidoo training. They showed us all the parts they want us to inspect before firing it up. Taught us their strategy for cold starting it in fifty below. Then they let us loose on the transition area of the ice between Ross Island and McMurdo bay. We shot around a little course, slalomed through some flags both forward and in reverse, and generally had a great time considering we were at work.

As the training came to a close a C-17 roared over us real low full of the first wave of scientists, as well as room for some "Polies", or workers and scientists from the South Pole, coming home from the winterover. The USAP finally got their first flight in and out of South Pole today. The return flight flew over us this afternoon while we zoomed around on our skidoos. The polies came in on a modified DC-3, as I understand it, that is called a "Bassler:. The plane was built in the forties but still flies the Antarctic Skies. It has a wider range of safe operating temperatures than the C-130s, or the C-17.

To maintain the theme of today the helicopters were very busy today as well. I hope when I return from the WAIS that I will get a chance to jump on one of those machines.

The group!

The Carp Shop 2012-13

I finished my bench/cabinet project and delivered my work today. The lady who requested the work wrote me to say thanks-

"I can’t tell you how much I LOVE the workbench!  I know it doesn’t seem like much, but it makes a huge difference to us with space, and it also classes up the joint.  Now I hate all the metals shelves even more!" - Joni.

View of WAIS Divide



This is a very recent satellite photo of where I will shortly be working
(photo -  Brad Herried at the Polar Geospatial Center, www.waisdivide.unh.edu)

    WAIS stands for West Antarctic Ice Sheet and is used to describe a glacier that is bordered by the Amundsen Sea and the Ross Ice Shelf. WAIS Divide is a drilling rig, airstrip, and field camp, that cores ice samples for the United States Antarctic Program. It is about five hours away from McMurdo Station on a C-130 Hercules. I think it houses between 20 to thirty full time staff and scientists. Within the last month temperatures were getting down to -50 F.
.
    Those little dark spots are storage containers full of the tents and modular buildings that will make up the camp. They need to disassemble the camp every year for two reasons. The first is that permanent structures very quickly get buried under the snow during the winter. The second is that winter storms whip and tear at anything left outside. These containers that you see are stored above a tall berm of snow. This helps prevent them from being totally buried. The drilling "Arch", as they call it, is the only permanent building on the site, is thirty feet tall and was completed in 2007,  and as of last year it was already buried under another thirty feet of snow. The carps had to replace the floor last year because it was buckling from the pressure of the snow was pushing in on the sides of the building. Also the area inside the "arch" around the drilling arm has to be cleared and last year the carps spent many hours with a chain saw trimming the ice away from the mechanism.

    Our put-in crew is hoping to throw the camp together in as short as three weeks. Our travel plans, and the time required to put it together, are at the whim of the Antarctic weather. The WAIS Divide drill team hit the bottom of the glacier last year but will continue working this year by both drilling replicate samples at an angle from the main bore hole and lowering scientific equipment down the bore hole to take measurements at different elevations. This year the airstrip will also be working as a jumping point to the deepest field camp, PIG, that had remained inaccessible last year.

    There won't be too much science going on while I am there. Once the camp is done we will be high tailing it out of there and heading back to McMurdo. We will be sleeping in tents for our stay and facilities will be extremely limited. We have some very sturdy Sierra Nevada tents. I practiced putting my tent together last week after work. I am concerned if we land in bad weather that we may find ourselves throwing up our tents in low visibility and extreme wind.  Showers will be out of a bucket, or fresh wipes, but we expect to eat well. The field camp chefs have a reputation for putting together excellent meals.

  I have two sleeping bags, one mummy bag rated to -40 F, and an old fashioned large rectangle sleeping bag to go over it. Underneath me I will have two foam pads, a large silver air bubble pad that is an awful like the sun shade reflectors you put in your front window shield in the heat, and a thermarest blow up mattress. They recommend we fill up two bottles with hot water before going to bed and then stowing them away by your feet when you sleep.

    We will bring two boots, one set for after work stored by a heater in our Polar Haven break tent, and the other we will store at night in the break tent... warm and drying. Once we get the galley and other essential building put together we will have refuge from the cold during the day. We wont be able to sleep in the buildings as we build them because it is, from high up, important that the department maintain the reputation of being able to go anywhere, any time, and do any thing, in the Antarctic wilds without heated structures. The put in crew last year spent three days huddled in their tents waiting for a blizzard to pass over. Visibility was so poor they couldn't see four feet.

My crew is hoping to deploy on the 29th of this month.

Field Camp Schedules

The plan is to head out to WAIS Divide in a week and a half to build the camp for America's largest ice core drilling site.

http://www.waisdivide.unh.edu/


We are scheduled to be there for three weeks. I will write when I know more.

Shop carpentry requires you to think differently

Trying to put together a countertop with some shelves and cabinets underneath it for the IT department. Materials weren't approved for the project so I have to mill everything out of scrap. It requires very different thinking. I am getting good experiance with the shop tools. Making lots of mistakes... pretty steep learning curve. It is fun and there is a lot of experiance to draw on from the other guys and gals in the shop.

Trying to hide fasteners is a new one for me. That isn't much of an issue in formwork. But milling down the materials also allows you to cut everything down real straight and all the edges very square. The tools of the shop make it allot easier to set up jigs so that everything is the same length. Much nicer to put together than stud grade lumber.

Also... when you go to attach something you need to have everything set up so that you can put it all together before the wood glue sets up. Not the time to run around the shop looking for something.

Small town

The view of the Capitals

Lazy sunday. Slept in. Ate a big breakfast. Played in the carpenter shop. Listened to some tunes. And soaked up some heat in the Sauna.


A little Sunday wood project...

 A friend of mine needed a little shelf for the bathroom. A place for shampoo and a towel. And I needed experience on the table saw, sliding miter, router, belt sander, etcetera.... so I combined the two problems and voila! All corners beveled and rounded, and sanded, and beautiful. : )

Starting to work a little between trainings

Work table/ Checkers board

Spent the last few days actually doing a little carpentry. I helped floor the lunch room and galley for the LDB (Long Duration Balloon) launch site for the folks at NASA. That was an excellent gig because the rest of the crew had to deadman (strap down) the building in some really extreme wind and snow outside. I switched out with people if their goggles fogged or froze up - but was able to mostly stay inside.

Custom logo created by the Carp Shop that is sported on most of our equipment

Read on the right-  "Return to 191 or Die"

We did our walk around in the shop and they explained how to use all of our equipment safely. We have some really serious industrial strength planers, joiners, tables saws, routers, band saws, and drill presses in the shop. New guys in the shop are on probation with the tools and have to be supervised till everyone is comfortable with the equipment. I am happy to work under this system.

They had a band play at a lounge last night. These guys had a great sense of humor and a good time was had by all. They were set up instrumentally as a rock band but played rap. The dance floor was packed. That was the most humid place on the continent last night and steam rolled out of the door into the cold every time someone came in or out. Quite a few Kiwis came over to party with the Americans.



The unassuming building 108 - aka Gallaghers



A flurry of light and motion on the dance floor inside

How to survive in Antarctica with a shovel, a whisperlite stove, and chocolate milk...

  We took off on Wednesday morning for our "Happy Camper" hazing... ehem... I mean training. It was a beautiful morning. We had the pleasure of cruising past the Kiwi base ((New Zealand's base). Funny that their choice of color happens to work well with their nickname.

Kiwi Base is the kiwi green set of buildings behind the sign

  We arrived at our campsite on the Ross Ice Shelf. The Ross ice shelf is a freshwater glacier that is sliding off Mt. Erebus and colliding with the sea ice in McMurdo Bay. This creates great pressure ridges that look like white hurricane strength waves that are frozen in time. There they introduced us to the survival bags that are stored on all vehicles, air and land. There are different tents depending on the area the vehicle is deployed. All contain a little whisper lite stove ( a tough back packing stove that can run on any kind of fuel), white gas (for the stove), lots of chocolate, and freeze dried food like substances. The Scott tents, whose design has not changed much in the last century, can be set up anywhere on the continent and will stand up to any weather. The little mountain tents, on the other hand, need to be hid behind a four foot ice wall to protect them from the vicious southern winds.

Working together to set up a Scott tent

After the ice wall was set up, and all the different tents we might encounter were set up, our instructors high tailed it off the ice and headed for warmer digs. Our little group of campers were left behind. Dave Malpas, a fellow carpenter, volunteered with me to be camp leaders and were left a radio so we could check in periodically. We had two EMTs in our group from the McMurdo Firefighters, and they volunteered to take care of us if we got hurt, and two more gentlemen volunteered to get the kitchen up and running. We were left with only a little water and had to start melting snow right away to provide water for the rest of our stay on the ice.

Best dudes ever!!

Once everyone was settled, and all major roles were covered, those of us that were feeling more adventurous went off with our shovels and started digging. It seems to be an unspoken rule that folk from the Carpenter staff are expected to sleep in either a snow trench or a snow cave. I opted for the cave even though it was more difficult working down and sideways rather than from above.

My snow cave entrance

Inside my snow cave

At first I tried to sleep with my head at the far end of the cave from the entrance. I thought it would be easier because the midnight sun wouldn't reach my eyes. But the moment I closed my eyes I freaked out. I realized that if my little snow cave collapsed, with my arms at my side in my mummy bag, than I wouldn't have a chance of escaping. So I had to turn around in my cave, in my sleeping bag, no small feat. In the end I unzipped the bag, and got turned around, and got my zipper stuck.

Normally this is not a big deal, but de-layered, at midnight, at -20 Celsius, in a cave, in a Glacier, this is not good. I have resolved to make sleeping bags with fist sized zipper pulls when I return stateside. So I would wrestle the metal zipper up five inches, than shove my freezing hands down to my groin, and warm my fingers, than work the zipper another five inches, than thrust my hands back in my long johns, then zipper up another five inches........ you get the idea. I suffered frost nip on my index finger and thumb (nip means it burns for a couple days... not a serious injury. Frost nip is minor, frost bite can be really bad, and frost burn can occur if you touch something metal at -50 or something). One of the keys to staying warm is remaining hydrated. Unfortunately that means you have to go to the washroom more often. Our instructors recommended that we use a pee bottle in our sleeping bags if we have to go to the bathroom. I wasn't willing to risk a spill. The view, in the wee hours of the night when I got up to pee, was spectacular.

The view, as a groundhog would see it, from my snow cave at 3:00 AM
My fellow campers tents are silhouetted in front of the snow wall.

The unobstructed view. The sun dips under the mountains but it never really gets dark, just a little dusk and dawn.

When I got up and took those pictures all my mid layers, which were staying warm in the sleeping bag, and which were wet from sweat when I dug out my cave, fell out of the bag without my noticing. When I found my sweater and fleece pants in the morning they were frozen solid.

I wasn't a very happy camper that morning. It was early when Dave woke me, I was cold, out of smokes, we only had fake coffee, and my fingers burned like hell each time I touched something cold. But Dave got the stove running, and I got a little oat meal and hot chocolate in me, and we all worked together to tear down the snow wall, fill in our caves and trenches, and put all our gear away.

When we were all done I looked up the glacier and saw Mt. Erebus in all its glory.

Me and my buddy Mt. Erebus

Mt. Erebus steaming away, the southern most active volcano.

Our instructors finally returned from their warm hut. We ran through scenarios and learned how to set up HF and VHF radios, with those fifty foot directional antennas, learned where the repeater stations were, the radio lingo and etiquette, and were picked up by a giant Delta for a ride back home. The Delta is a little terrifying because the air in the brakes is just barely enough for the large hill between the Ross ice shelf and home. Our driver had to nose up on the snow bank and let the air build up before going all the way down the hill.

Our ride home is in the giant Delta

By the time they came to pick us up I was a happy camper again. They call it 'happy camper training' because they say that it is impossible to be happy when you are cold. Warm campers are happy campers. And the whole point of the exercise was to teach us how to be warm campers... happy campers.

The trick to surviving out here is to stay hydrated, eat constantly, work as a team, and keep busy and working. Moving people are warm people.Constantly check in on the people around you. Are they answering questions coherently? Are they angry? Do they have any skin exposed? If they do is it white (bad) or red (good).

When we got home I cleaned my gear, hung most of my stuff up to thaw and dry, and went to bed .

Cold morning, nice afternoon... tommorrow camping....

The view from the 'Carp Shop' of McMurdo below and the Royal Society Mountains in the Distance

 



Entrance to the 'Carp Shop'

Rough weather this morning so the practical portion of our sea ice training was postponed. I am almost fully tooled up for field work. We still have many courses before I can work without restriction. It warmed up this afternoon , and more importanty the sun poked through. Tomorrow a couple of us are scheduled for overnight survival training out on the ice. The call it "Happy Camper" training.

: )

Home sweet home for four and a half months

The view from the backdoor of my dorm



Zooming in on Scott's base of operation for his historic south pole journey



I don't think today is a good day for biking

Home sweet home, all 6' X 12' of it

A visit to Crary Lab

Sea lice the size of a small rat. You may, and I did, pet it.  Photo courtesy of our Chaplain - Jake Marvel.

The Albert P. Crary Science and Engineering Research Center is the major research facility down here in McMurdo. It is named after the first man to set foot on both the North and South Poles. I had the day off today so I joined a tour of the lab.

I braved gusts of wind that threatened to knock me over and visibility of less than 30 ft to get to the lab. When I arrived many of my fellow travelers from Christchurch were there. The first exhibit in the lab displays a stuffed Skua (a large two foot long seagull looking bird) and a stuffed penguin. Examination of the Penguin reveals that their little feathers are almost small enough that they look like fur. They have a rare trait among birds in that they have solid bones that allow them to dive.

We proceeded down the main hall and were treated to seal skulls. It turns out that over their lifetime seals that dive under the ice slowly wear down their teeth drilling their way out. When their teeth finally wear out... that's it... they are toast.

They also had jars with fish specimen in them. Many fish in Antarctica have no hemoglobin because it would freeze in the sub zero water under the ice in McMurdo bay. This results in a pale white look because their blood is clear. Creepy.

Our guide, I will have to ask his name if I catch him around season, showed us fossils of plants that are common to Asia, South America, and Africa. They have also found dinosaur bones that indicate that at one time Antarctica was a lush tropical zone. This all points to the hypothesis that much of the worlds land mass was one early in the planets history.

Every year space scientists comb the continent for meteorites. They look here because black meteorites stick out against the "white canvas" of snow.

Our guide is a vulcanologist and became very excited when we finally reached his topic of expertise. Mt Erebus is one of only two phonolite volcanoes in the world. The other is in Kenya. Mt. Erebus was named after the early antarctic explorer James Ross' ship. One of the unique properties of a phonolite volcano is that it creates beautiful black crystals (the crystals form over huge lengths of time) because of the mix of chemicals in the "feldspar" that is in the magma. Feldspar is a mix of minerals that make up continents according to our guide. Another property of Mt. Erebus that makes the volcano rare is that it is one of only six or seven volcanoes that sport a pool of exposed melted lava inside their crator.

We concluded our tour with a visit to the aquatic lab in the basement. To our amazement the scientists down there have prepared a sub aquatic petting zoo for their guests. Inside were a collection of sea spiders, sea slugs, a giant (HUGE) sea lice the size of small rat, some shrimp, and a few small fish. I washed my hands, plunged them into the sub zero water, and let the orange sea spiders who are about 5 inches wide and three inches tall, crawl all over me. The gigantic sea lice hid... but I gave him a poke... for Texas.

The Crary touch tank - photo courtesy of our Chaplain - Jake Marvel

Our guide said that Antarctica boasts a wide range of sub aquatic creatures, such as that sea lice, that are many times larger than their warmer cousins. They are not sure if it is the lack of predators, or the large amount of oxygen in cold water, that is responsible for this trait.

I forgot my camera but asked some tour mates if they would send some pictures. If they do I will post them up.

A day for reflection, relaxation, and a little indoor exploration

It is strange to hear "squeak, squish, crunch" when you walk in the snow. When you step out of the dorms you have to carefully peak at the ledge of the stoop to check for what is called "a happy", or in regular English, a big ole' pile of snow that is waiting for you to cross under it so that it brighten your day.

I heard distant crunching sounds in the middle of the night and I wonder if it was the sea ice moving and flexing. The wind whistles quietly while I sleep. On a clear day you can look over the sea, and it looks like a sea, but it doesn't move. Most of the sea in this area is covered by 6 to 12 feet of ice. They are building an ice pier in the bay. Check out YouTube if you want to see how that works (there are time lapse videos). They pour water in layers and build the ice thicker to create a pier for the whole season. Last year they lost the pier and it floated away. Apparently they have a team where it ended up trying to chip out the cables that were frozen into it.

Tomorrow I have a class on the sea ice, that will run the full day, to learn how to tell if the ice is safe to drive or work on. We will be drilling and surveying cracks to determine how much weight the ice around us can support. Our airport is on the sea ice right now. We landed just off the shore of McMurdo Station not far from the Kiwi base.

The people are wonderful here. Everyone is jazzed to have arrived. Allot of return icemen and women came on the flight with me. Like any airport there were many joyous reunions between friends, lovers, and married couples when we arrived. There are some generational "icers" here as well. There are enough new people so that we all still feel welcome and have new neighbors that are going through the same transition as ourselves. The long term icers have been welcoming and helpful with directions and advice. We are from all over the states. Some are here for the paycheck. Many more would take any pay, or any job, to be here.

The food is excellent and I expect to gain a few pounds. They offer a full breakfast every morning, hot lunch every afternoon, and many options for dinner and desert.

It is cold and visibility is extremely poor today. The wind pulls and billows through the station coating everything, even the vertical walls, with a thin layer of snow and ice, carving little snow dunes around the corners of each building. I am hiding in a cafe that is built like a small airplane hanger. It is called a Quonset Hut. Someone is playing electronic music that sounds very much inspired by Pink Floyd's Ummagumma. There are less than a dozen of us hiding in here, most of us on facebook or email, a few playing cards. Most buildings, like this one, have their windows covered or don't have windows at all. It is strange- like living in a basement.

I send love to my family, and warm greetings to friends,

T



First view of Antarctica from the plane!



Getting off the Airbus, specially configured only for passengers and fuel




Lining up to get on Ivan the Terra Bus



 

Arrived in McMurdo Station

I am: here, excited, unpacking, looking for food, hungry, and tired.

We report to the Carpenter Shop first thing in the morning.

Last planned full day in CHCH

Woke up early. Impossible to find a coffee before ten in the morning here. I was able to walk around a bit before heading to orientation.

I noticed that all of the roofing here is done with either clay or metal cladding. Allot of modern houses with sharp angled roofs. This neighborhood  off of Papui street is very green and there is the occasional 60 foot high tree with paper smooth bark. I do not know its name. Many of the homes are missing their chimneys due to the earth quake.

Our orientation and clothing disbursement was pretty routine. I scored some heavy duty FDX "Frankenstein" boots. The name fits. Every one is excited and the veterans had plenty of advice and were happy to answer all the "newbies" questions. Our group that deploys tomorrow has allot of carpenter apprentices and only a handful of people hired on as full carpenters. I was glad to learn that the other carpenters come from a vary wide variety of backgrounds. We have some wood worker types, some contractor types, some indoor reno types. When you get us all together we will have a pretty wide range of experiences and ideas to draw on.

I was lucky, it took me a while to find a good fit in the cold weather boots. I missed the shuttle carrying the larger part of the group and caught a ride on one taking a gentleman out to his house on the beach. The driver asked if I wouldn't mind taking the long road and I obliged. We looped around the city to avoid traffic and went past the public beaches. The coast reminded me of north west Florida. The water was deep blue and dunes mostly hid the sea from the road. The dunes were covered spiky brush and palm trees. As we looped back through the city the driver went through some of the wetland parks and more agricultural areas for my benefit. The views of the orchards and wooded areas were framed by the Southern Alps. The mountains themselves are brownish green and have little, if any, snow capping them this close to the city.

We are off early tomorrow  My wake up call is for three thirty, we get picked up at four thirty, repack our gear at the USAP center with the expedition bags, and then wait for our flight. I was hoping for the Hercules but have been assigned to the Airbus. All things considered that is probably a more comfortable, and shorter, flight.

Next post, barring bad weather, will be from the ice!

All is well in Christ Church NewZealand

The weather is cool and damp here in Christ Church. I will not get much of a chance to explore the city as I am attending training all day today and flying out, weather permitting, early tomorrow.

The first living creatures I saw from the plane were sheep. That made me laugh. I had a distant view from my aisle seat of the south island's snow capped mountains.

Christ Church has suffered two major recent earthquakes and many aftershocks. Our hotel is only half open and the front is cordoned off and under reconstruction. Construction workers are everywhere in the city.

On Papanui street, close to the hotel, there are many Asian restaurants. A few of us Antarctic bound travelers got together last night for some Thai food. The hot food and good company helped to resuscitate me after many hours of travel.

New Zealand is very expensive. A small cup of coffee at a gas station runs $2.50, a pack of cigarettes will cost you $20.00, and a plain hot breakfast is over $15.00.

I hope to explore more of New Zealand, especially the national parks here on the South Island, on my return trip from Antarctica.

Arrived in LA, board Sydney flight soon

Packed and ready to go!

Oso and Lucy are staying- but the two bags are going and hopefully have all I need for four and a half months on the ice.

My journey begins today

To my friends and family;

In two hours I begin my journey to Antarctica. My bags are packed... more or less. My mind is prepared... less than more.

I leave behind a warm and wonderful friend, my family, my dog, and our cat. All, except the two furry animals, have been unbelievably helpful in my preparations.

I fly from Houston, to LA, to Sydney Australia, to Christchurch New Zealand, then finally on to McMurdo Station Antarctica.

My Kindle is stuffed with music and things to read during the journey (it keeps complaining that internal memory is low). I am armed with a notebook and a pen. I have more winter gear than I know what to do with. I think, I hope, that I am ready.

I have been hired to swing a hammer in the coldest, driest, windiest, most remote place on the earth. This blog is one of many written by people who go to work and study in the land of the penguins. It is for those of my family and friends who are interested in my travels.

I hadn't thought too much of my personal experience with the cold while preparing for this trip and signing my life away. But last night, at two in the morning, I remembered a poem that my grandfather, Neil Thompson, read for me during a camping trip in Canada many years ago.
 
So.... I will leave you with that poem to ponder while I embark on my journey. I hope that a Texan fares better in the frozen wastes than the unfortunate Sam McGee of Tennessee.


The Cremation of Sam McGee
 
By Robert W. Service

"There are strange things done in the midnight sun

By the men who moil for gold;

The Arctic trails have their secret tales

That would make your blood run cold;

The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,

But the queerest they ever did see

Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge

I cremated Sam McGee.

Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.

Why he left his home in the South to roam 'round the Pole, God only knows.

He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell;

Though he'd often say in his homely way that "he'd sooner live in hell."

On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.

Talk of your cold! through the parka's fold it stabbed like a driven nail.

If our eyes we'd close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn't see;

It wasn't much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee.

And that very night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow,

And the dogs were fed, and the stars o'erhead were dancing heel and toe,

He turned to me, and "Cap," says he, "I'll cash in this trip, I guess;

And if I do, I'm asking that you won't refuse my last request."

Well, he seemed so low that I couldn't say no; then he says with a sort of moan:

"It's the cursèd cold, and it's got right hold till I'm chilled clean through to the bone.

Yet 'tain't being dead—it's my awful dread of the icy grave that pains;

So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you'll cremate my last remains."

A pal's last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail;

And we started on at the streak of dawn; but God! he looked ghastly pale.

He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee;

And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee.

There wasn't a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven,

With a corpse half hid that I couldn't get rid, because of a promise given;

It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: "You may tax your brawn and brains,

But you promised true, and it's up to you to cremate those last remains."

Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code.

In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load.

In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring,

Howled out their woes to the homeless snows— O God! how I loathed the thing.

And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow;

And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low;

The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in;

And I'd often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin.

Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay;

It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the "Alice May."

And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum;

Then "Here," said I, with a sudden cry, "is my cre-ma-tor-eum."

Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire;

Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher;

The flames just soared, and the furnace roared—such a blaze you seldom see;

And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee.

Then I made a hike, for I didn't like to hear him sizzle so;

And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow.

It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don't know why;

And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky.

I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear;

But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near;

I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: "I'll just take a peep inside.

I guess he's cooked, and it's time I looked"; ... then the door I opened wide.

And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;

And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: "Please close that door.

It's fine in here, but I greatly fear you'll let in the cold and storm—

Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it's the first time I've been warm."

There are strange things done in the midnight sun

By the men who moil for gold;

The Arctic trails have their secret tales

That would make your blood run cold;

The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,

But the queerest they ever did see

Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge

I cremated Sam McGee. "