Travels in Antarctica: $1,000 for a gallon of fuel

By Frosty Wooldridge 

“Reluctantly Macklin got a 12 gauge shotgun from Wild’s tent; then he led Sirius off toward a distant pressure ridge. When he found a suitable spot he stopped and stood over the little dog.  Sirius was an eager, friendly puppy and he kept jumping up, wagging his tail and trying to lick Macklin’s hand.  Macklin kept pushing him away until finally he got up enough nerve to put the shotgun to Sirius’ head.  He pulled the trigger.”

                                                                          Lansing, Endurance, 1915

          By the middle of October, everything at the station synchronized.  From NFG’s (new f—–g guys) on the ice, we were all veterans.  Departments and personnel ran smoothly. 

          The typical day ran 10 hours (1-hour lunch) on and 13 hours off.  There were day shifts and graveyard shifts.  The sun stuck at 12:00 noon giving us 24 hours of sunlight, seven days a week.  In my room, two beds and two portable closets along with a desk made up my furniture.  Two windows, because I was on a corner of the building overlooking McMurdo Sound—had to be blacked out with towels.  My room was across from the laundry and 30 paces from the community bathroom where there were two showers, four lavatories, two toilets and two urinals.  We were instructed to take only three-minute showers, but most guys took 10-minute showers.  Most of the time, the men on my floor rinsed out the lavatory for the next guy, but sometimes, they left their spit, body hairs and trash in the sink.  Other men were extremely rude by not flushing the toilet.  I cursed many a man’s mother for not training her child away from such a disgusting habit.

          True to the lecture on weird things to expect in Antarctica, I walked to the bathroom many a morning forgetting my towel or travel kit or clean underwear.  Several times, I walked around without zipping up my fly.  It was embarrassing to be told about it at dinner one time. After that, I continually checked to see if I was zipped up.  Short-term memory loss was said to be normal.   My normal body temperature dropped to 97.  The cold seemed to cause greater thirst all the time.  I ate more food.  With the sun in the middle of the sky all day, I never figured out which way was up or down, north or south, east or west.  Being at the bottom of the world meant that I was at the bottom, but no way to figure it out.

If I could give a picture of McMurdo, it was like a prison yard with no walls.  It was an ugly place surrounded by beauty.  The metal buildings were painted brown, black or green.  Crary Science lab looked like a stainless steel cocoon.    My barracks fell in line with five others.  Directly across from us was ‘Hotel California’ another barracks for guests and visiting scientists. Behind me was the ice pier for docking the refueling and supply ships.  Near the water, a big diesel engine house ran 24 hours per day to provide electricity.  Above the town, a dozen giant tanks stored millions of gallons of fuel oil.  The Galley stood in the middle of town.  Surrounding it, the post office, laundry, waste disposal, machine shop, garage, woodworking, fire station, search and rescue, gymnasium Quonset and many other buildings, some 85 plus in all, had been built around the area.  A greenhouse stood at the edge of town.  We even had a playhouse where plays and other entertainment were presented.  The church stood at the edge of town near the water and overlooked the Sound.  No other church in the world had such a view from its windows. 

          How big was McMurdo?  You could walk from one end to the other in less than ten minutes.  There were tracked vehicles, pick up trucks, vans, Ivan the terra bus, snowmobiles and fire trucks parked at specific buildings—and hooked up to electrical heating devices to keep their engines warm at all times.  Big five-ton fork lifts, graders, bulldozers and assorted top loaders kept busy each day at their various tasks.  An ice road led to the ice runway airport about eight miles from shore. 

          Water, sewage and heating pipes networked above ground all over McMurdo and connected all the buildings.   They were heated and wrapped in insulation much like an electric blanket.   Wooden bridges carried people over them as they walked from building to building.

          At one end of town, a helicopter airport and mechanic shop housed choppers for quick trips to science stations scattered all over Antarctica. They serviced places like Siple Dome, Cape Roberts, Leggo stations, Marble Point, the dry valleys and many more places.

          Alongside all the buildings were five by five by five foot recycling boxes that took: cardboard, glass, metal, aluminum, plastics, hazardous waste, skua (miscellaneous junk), food waste, bio waste, and dorm products.

          The ice airport was the lifeblood of the station.  At first, when the ice was 10 feet thick, the C-141 Starlifters with wheels, landed and took off from the ice.  Later, as the ice became soft in the mid polar summer, the runway was moved to the Ross Ice Shelf glacier.  At that point, only C-131 Hercules turbo props could take off and land because they had skis instead of wheels.

          The runway served McMurdo and the South Pole station.  It brought in food, supplies for projects, people and fuel.  It was estimated that it cost taxpayers more than $1,000.00 per gallon to fly fuel to power the generators at the South Pole.  Why?  Because the planes carried only 1,400 gallons per flight.  They traveled from New Zealand for ten hours at $10,000.00 per hour operational costs; from there, they flew another five hours to the Pole at $10,000.00 per hour and back again to McMurdo, and then, back to New Zealand.  I learned that they loaded up on fuels from the storage tanks, but when they added up those $10,000.00 per hour fees–a gallon of fuel became VERY expensive.

          Nonetheless, a whole ‘other’ world of people lived and worked on the ice runway.  Massive hot air blowers, five ton forklifts, refueling trucks, snow plows, cafeteria, flight tower, bathrooms, mechanic shop, supply parts and much more was at the command of those who ran the airport.

          Finally everyone ends up at the Galley.  I turned the massive lever to let myself into the building.  After walking down a long hallway, I hung up my parka along with 900 other red and brown coats.  That was another problem—I forgot where I hung it a half dozen times—so I started hanging it in the same place away from all the other coats.  I was determined NOT to lose my mind from frustrations of not remembering where I left it.

          A line formed along the sidewall of the carpeted cafeteria.  In the middle, rows of long tables awaited hungry workers.  Fantastic pictures of Antarctic explorers and other Antarctic art graced the walls.  A second and third dining area was available through different doors.  Juice machines, hot chocolate and other condiments awaited thirsty people.

          Every morning, I ate granola cereal with five fruits from cans, toast, orange juice and plenty of water.  The water was pulled from the Sound and turned into fresh water by a process known as “reverse osmosis.”  If a plane had come in with “freshies,” I’d grab a banana, orange and apple.  Most everyone chowed down on scrambled eggs, pancakes, waffles, French toast, bacon, sausage, hash browns, toast and coffee.

          It might be noted that the freezer building adjacent to the Galley had enough food frozen inside to keep feeding the whole station for two years in an emergency.  Some of the food inside had been frozen for over 15 years.  Plenty of jokes circulated about the food we ate.

          After breakfast, everyone scurried off to his or her daily duties.  The coat racks changed from full to empty in a matter of minutes.

          I reported to my supervisor and was assigned to my housekeeping route.  At first, they assigned us with different people in teams of two, but in time, after a few conflicts, they allowed us compatible work companions.  I vacuumed carpets, swept entrances, picked up all recycling, restocked shelves, moved furniture and cleaned bathrooms, lounges, vacated rooms and bars. 

The job nearly drove Jack and me crazy, but after he started working the night shift, he was happy as a clam because he’d only work five hours.  Our supervisor, on the other hand, checked up regularly on all of us during the day shift.  It was like being an operator in a hotel elevator for nine hours a day, six days a week.  No intellectual stimulation whatsoever.  But I kept reminding myself that I was in Antarctica.

          To counter my boredom, I ate in 15 minutes and grabbed my book.  Shackleton wrote, “We are so thin that our bones ache as we lie on the hard snow in our sleeping bags, from which a great deal of hair has gone. Tonight, we stewed some of the scraps of Grisi, the horse we had to kill, and the dish tasted delicious.  Unfortunately, Marshall got dysentery from the meat and is struggling to march each day.  Too cold to write more.”

          Reading such accounts of personal misery kept my perspective balanced.

          Back for the afternoon, I finished up my run.  One of the good things about being housekeepers, we got to see various operations from the ice runway to the machine shops, and on to the Crary Science lab.  I saw fish experiments, 65 million year old core samples of the ocean floor, wind research models, global warming models, air pollution research, seal studies, penguin research and glacial movement programs.   I cleaned the helicopter maintenance shed, officer’s quarters, bars, Hut 10 and many other areas that I might not have noticed had I not been in Housekeeping.

          At the end of the workday, we mobbed the Galley again.

          In the evenings, I taught dance classes once a week in the gym.  I worked out in the weight room and running track five times a week.  I organized the Antarctica Writer’s Club and held weekly meetings where we critiqued each other’s work.  Along with my friend Brenda, we enjoyed a reader’s club where we discussed various books that we read.

On Sundays, we hiked or skied out to Castle Rock, which was a five-hour round trip.  We also rode bicycles out to the ice runway.  Movies were shown on the weekends and there was always cable TV where I got my first taste of the vagaries and vulgarities of Jerry Springer.  When I discovered that he had the top rated talk show on TV, I knew that America had begun its final descent into depravity, ignorance and lasciviousness. 

          Fighting the relentless freezing weather, I retired to my bed early each night.  Unfortunately, because I was at the bottom of the world, there were differing forces working on my body.  I never slept soundly.  Possible reasons included the fact that, at the bottom of the world, there was no centrifugal force like there is when you live on the outside middle of the planet.  Also, gamma rays and other magnetic phenomenon wrecked havoc with body rhythms.  The sun shined 24 hours per day.  The roar of the diesel engines that generated electricity kept a constant vibration in the air.

          Nonetheless, I lived in an amazing place.