Home on the Range

All three of us are packed up and ready to fly to the field now, and we've been in McMurdo Station for 2 weeks (1 week of weather delays). We are settling into just being here, rather than rushing as fast as we can to complete briefings, travel and equipment arrangements, and tests of the system that we are going to install on the ice-shelf. As we do, I'm getting a better sense of what it would be like to live here. Most people come for the warm half of the year and return to some other life the other half. A few brave souls stay through winter. Here are some of my thoughts on the simpler life "on the range" here.

Living here, day-to-day, is quite nice for a number of reasons:
  1) Generally you never have to drive. There is a taxi service around the station, and there is a shuttle to the airfield and another to the New Zealand Antarctic Station (which shares Ross Island with us). There's no where to go other than that, on foot, or by air.
  2) Generally you never have to think about money. Everything is paid for. The only places that take money that I've found so far are the bars and the stores (e.g. toothbrushes, T shirts, beer, and souvenirs).
  3) Generally you never have to use a telephone. True I carry a beeper in case someone needs to reach me as head of our small team. True it's often more convenient to call another building rather than walking over to it. But there's no cell service, and while I'm so far away I'm not using a VOIP phone like Skype or calling card like Net2Phone to reach the states.
  4) Generally you don't have to think about or arrange for meals. That is: no food shopping, no cooking, no cleanup. The cafeteria provides several main courses at every meal, and is open after hours with some things pike PBJ, granola and drinks. There are microwaves in the lab and dorm in case you want to make popcorn and such. I don't think there are any kitchens anywhere though.

Now you might argue that these things are quite fun to do and it's a shame to remove them from daily life; especially cooking. But if one is focused on a particular endeavor, in pursuit of a specific vision, then everything else fades into pleasant and unpleasant background activity. For those of you who don't know, I'm coming from a Zen Buddhist monastic background here, where one might spend a week at a silent retreat, with almost every action prescribed...from how to walk, when to drink tea, etc. The freedom that that simplicity provides, allows one to really really focus on the present moment to the point of epiphany.

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Thursday here was a normal work day since they celebrate Thanksgiving on Saturday for convenience. The normal work week is 6-days long with Sunday off. The New Zealand Station is called Scott Station and all the buildings are lime green. Normally folks are only allowed to visit their store, but Thursday was America night, and folks went over to enjoy their bar and shuttles ran late into the day-lit night. It was windy and snowing and overcast; these photos don't really capture the snow blowing in the wind. Their base is all interconnected so everyone can stay warm inside. It has a little bit of a yacht-club feel to it and I noticed their showers are much nicer too. I lost a game of darts but won a game of pool and we met a cool guy who will be driving fuel to the South Pole station (it takes a month to drive there from here and is much more efficient than flying the fuel in). Someone came in and bought drinks for everyone for the night. Joulien said it was the best night he's had so far.