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Travels in Antarctica: One person can change your life forever

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By Frosty Wooldridge 

 

 

 

          “Let us follow the narrow sledge tracks that the little black dots of dogs and men have drawn across the endless white surface down there in the South—like a railroad of exploration into the heart of the unknown.  The wind in its everlasting flight sweeps over these tracks in the desert of snow.  Soon all will be blotted out.  But the rails of science are laid; our knowledge is richer than before.  And the light of the achievement shines for all time.”

 

                                                              THE SOUTH POLE, 1912

                                                               Roald Admundsen, Nansen

 

 

         

Not long after Thanksgiving, Christmas slipped up on McMurdo Station.  Packages arrived in the post office for lucky receivers.  Decorations adorned the walls and halls of the barracks.  The women got mushy and gooey with the sentimentality.  The rednecks drank more beer than ever.  Many people gained extra weight from all the fantastic and unlimited food.

          The Sunday science lecture covered: Geological Expeditions to the Ford Ranges and Western Marie Byrd Land.  From each lecture, we gained greater understanding of the immensity of the ice continent.  For me it was both enlightening and frustrating.  I wanted to go out there into the field and ‘see’ more of Antarctica.  I wanted to feel her guts and gumption.  One of my friends, Robert, a radio tech man returned and described visiting the Shackleton Glacier.  He described it as, “The greatest day of my life.”

          I had taken several two-hour hikes out to Castle Rock, which was a large volcanic rock overlooking McMurdo Sound.  Several ‘tomato huts’ stood along the way for emergency protection if a storm blew up.  We followed the flags all the way out and all the way back in.  No one could break from the flag route under threat of being tossed off the ice.  The kid in me wanted to break free from the rules and just explore.  But the adult in me forced me to abide by the protocol.  Besides, falling into a crevasse could kill me.

          A few days before Christmas, the Sunday science series presented: ‘Leggo My Ago’ or ‘Speaking to the Auroral Gods—All You Wanted To Know About Auroras’.  AGO’s were Automated Geophysical Observatories that were placed on the ice at certain locations to collect data on specific research projects.  For those who were on science grants in Antarctica, it was one heck of an amazing experience to go out into the field via helicopter, camp out, live in the wildest of extremes and enjoy interesting research.  I would have given my eyeteeth to be on some of those trips.

          Robert flew to the top of the crater of Mount Erebus, our smoking volcano, and collected some Erebus crystals.  He presented several to me one day while I vacuumed the lounge on the floor where he lived.

          “Thanks, man,” I said in excited gratitude.

          “Don’t mention it,” he said.

          On Christmas day, I attended church at the Chapel of the Snows.  I loved to sit in a quiet sanctuary for moments of peace and Zen thought.

          The dining room went all out with a gargantuan feast.  Like a damned fool, I volunteered for KP again and got stuck in the pots and pans.

          That night, several bands played in the vehicle maintenance shed where parachute canopies covered the dance floor and once again, the women wore dresses.  I danced with a lot of the women who had been in my dance classes because their male partners were too bashful.

          The rest of the week sailed by until I visited the Coffee House and struck up a conversation with a man who would profoundly change my life in Antarctica.



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