South Pole

I wangled my way into the second cook’s job at South Pole and was there from Halloween ‘86 to Valentine’s Day ‘87. I think I got those years right, or maybe it was the ‘87-’88 season. Of course it was the most amazing place I have ever been.

I believe it was Barry Lopez who described the South Pole as “beyond wilderness,” and he was certainly right. To have wilderness, you have to have life. Wild life. At the Pole, there is no life without the support systems people have provided. No plants, no wild animals, nothing. Not for very long, anyway. That is a very sobering thought when you are there.

But it is beautiful, surreal, unbelievable. If you are lucky enough to get to go, it is certainly worth it.

US Admiral Richard Byrd, with the assistance of his first pilot Bernt Balchen, became the first person to fly over the South Pole on November 29, 1929. However, it was not until 31st October 1956 that men once again set foot at the Pole, when a party led by Admiral George Dufek of the US Navy landed there in a R4D Skytrain (Douglas DC-3) aircraft. The US Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station was established by air over 1956–1957 for the International Geophysical Year, and has been continuously staffed since then by research and support personnel.       

The first humans to reach the Geographic South Pole were Norwegian Roald Amundsen and his party on December 14, 1911. Amundsen named his camp Polheim and the entire plateau surrounding the Pole Haakon VII’s Vidde in honour of King Haakon VII of Norway. Amundsen’s competitor Robert Falcon Scott reached the Pole a month later. On the return trip Scott and his four companions all died of hunger and extreme cold. In 1914 British explorer Ernest Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition set out with the goal of crossing Antarctica via the South Pole but ended in failure.       

to see my compass go nuts, for instance.

I think the movie further inspired my love of Penguins and this would be an incredible extreme journey that I’m sure would change me forever.