Christine (lying down on the job!) and Jim (with the counter in his right hand) photographing a meteorite during collection.

Vinciane, Brian, and Shannon showing their Christmas Eve cheer

Christmas Eve was a productive day here at Davis-Ward.  Although the conditions were somewhat marginal in the morning, the last 2.5 days in our tents provided extra motivation for braving the winds and cloudy conditions.  Even with those drawbacks — the poor lighting makes it harder to distinguish meteorites and the wind is unpleasant! — we found and collected 19 meteorites and flagged a dozen or so more for future collecting.  By about 3pm, we were satisfied with our haul and ready to retreat from the elements.  Here’s one of our finds:

Back in camp, after evening chores — refueling and covering the skidoos, chipping ice for dinner, passing the day’s meteorite photos off to Jim — we ate dinner and then had our standard evening gathering.  We’d elected earlier to exchange Christmas presents on Christmas Eve, following the tradition in both Christine’s and Vinciane’s families, and keeping the non-too-spacious party tent as spacious as possible for Christmas dinner tomorrow evening.  Thoughtful gifts were given and gratefully received, with lots of humor and sincerity both.  We also enjoyed our usual reading from the diaries of Shackleton, Amundsen, and Scott.

-posted by Shannon and Devon, Davis-Ward, Dec 24