Annalise and Henriette of the Berg Field Center standing in front of the BFC Christmas tree, which, if you look closely, you’ll find is a green Scott tent with cargo and tent box “presents”.
As of today (Thursday 14 December), there are 823 people living and working at McMurdo Station. The number of people on site is updated each day and can be found on a board next to the lodging office. One of the most interesting things about McMurdo Station are all the hardworking people and the great variety of their jobs. There are numerous contractors involved in running, building, and maintaining the mini town that is McMurdo. We met a heavy equipment operator brought to the continent for only a couple of weeks because their highly specialized skills are needed for a particular job. We’ve met shuttle drivers (including the driver of the bouncy Ivan the Terrabus) that are stationed here for up to half a year – their job is to get people where they need to go when they need to get there. They are constantly busy. Of course, it’s never a bad idea to ask the cooks what their favorite meal of the day is. Today’s blog shows some of our McMurdo neighbors and how they have helped us.
Stephanie of the Polar Geospatial Center hard at work generating maps needed by groups working in Antarctica.
The story of the first of our McMurdo friends begins, believe it or not, at the departure gate in the United States before we boarded the plane to New Zealand. Waiting for the plane only a short two weeks ago, Robert and Jon met Stephanie from the Polar Geospatial Center located at the University of Minnesota (Go Gophers!). Perhaps unsurprisingly, it turns out it’s not too difficult to pick out the people departing on a flight to New Zealand whose destination is Antarctica. When we realized we had the same destination, we excitedly began talking with Stephanie and it turns out that her team had – only hours before – been providing Brian with the high-resolution maps he needed to help plan some reconnaissance fieldwork. It is indeed a small world! Now, Stephanie works in the office across from the ANSMET office helping with mapping needs for teams involved in all varieties of science and logistics work.
This week we spent a lot of time at the Berg Field Center, or BFC, where we get, inspect, and organize our gear before going into the field. The folks at the BFC are here to ensure our tents are in great condition and switch them out if there is a problem. They make sure that we have functional sleeping bags, sleeping pads, pillows, water bottles, thermos, ice axes, pee bottles, handwarmers, food, sleds, etc. Without them, a field party wouldn’t make it far. Today, the folks at the BFC helped us with our group’s “food pull”, where each tent group inventoried and packed all the food we’ll need in the field (See top picture).
Angela (left) and Kelcie (right) are two of the hardworking people at the Scico (Science Cargo) building. If you have an item in the field, Kelcie accounted for it and Angela loaded it!
When we returned from the shakedown yesterday, we entered the tents, tent boxes and kitchen boxes into the cargo system for eventual loading onto a plane as we deploy to our field site at Davis-Ward. Each individual item needs to be weighed, measured, labeled, and tagged with all that information. This all happens at the Science Cargo building. After that, Kelcie and Angela took over, entering the information into the cargo system and loading it into a transport box.
Making advanced carburetor theory approachable is Tony’s expertise. NOTE from Ralph: Yes, that’s one of ANSMET’s snowmobiles behind Tony. Tony and ANSMET go way, way back. He’s once again helping us look for a new generation of snowmobiles to meet our needs. The existing Skandics are all individually a “Ship of Theseus”, pushing 20 years old with almost every part replaced 10 times over.
This evening, we attended an advanced snowmobile repair and troubleshooting session with Tony. We became familiar with Ski-Doo components and their possible issues. We learned how to diagnose fuel or spark problems and change the transmission belt in the field. We also learned how to repair a broken suspension and properly tension the track. After two hours with Tony, we’re all feeling like we are prepared for anything a misbehaving snowmobile can dish out.
– Jon Friedrich, with images from Minako.