Francis Sheil during downtime between meals takes a break to knit.

A native of Lawrence Kansas, Francis Sheil found his way to Antarctica in 2007. He was an executive chef at a small restaurant with travel aspirations. A friend of his worked in the program here and, after a few phone calls, he found himself at the bottom of the world, only planning to work that one season. However, a decade later, Francis is still here having served at South Pole, Palmer Station, WAIS Divide Camp, and Summit Camp in Greenland prior to arriving in Shackleton in this his first year here.

Francis is part of the core crew here in Shackleton. He arrived on the second flight of the season during the first week of September and is scheduled to remain until mid-February when camp is completely disassembled and everyone has been flown out. After the last of the science teams leaves Shackleton (that’s us ANSMET folks and one other group), disassembly of camp will commence, starting with the galley. As a result, our chef extraordinaire will be forced to relinquish his kitchen with all its luxurious (by Antarctica camp standards especially) amenities such as the snow melter (no floaties like in Cooking with James!), reserve water tanks, water heater, and dish sanitizer. Once disassembly of the galley begins, Francis will cook for the remaining crew using a camp stove from the “comforts” of a large Arctic Oven tent. Perhaps not surprisingly, our master of the culinary arts has been preparing for this all season, with several meals prepared in advance and frozen as preparation is easier in the galley kitchen.
Between Francis and sou chef Kristin, we flock to the galley for three meals a day Tue-Sat plus lunch and dinner Sun-Mon. During our time here we’ve had some fantastic dishes including chicken curry, several from-scratch soups, lots of veggie options and almost always some kind of dessert (homemade cakes are a huge hit when ice cream isn’t around). It is amazing the range of flavours and dishes they come up with the limited variety and quality of frozen ingredients at their disposal. Francis also sent some goodies out to us in the field for Christmas – there was nearly a civil war on our hands over the Christmas cookies he baked for us, so good!
Cooking in the Antarctic is tricky, as we’ve tried to capture with our Cooking with James episodes. Cooking for 40-some people is especially challenging. For one, all ingredients are frozen and in limited supply. Cooking at altitude makes it trickier too. To their credit, Francis and Kristin provide as much variety as possible and offer options for those with dietary restrictions as best they can.
You’ll find during their downtime that people often relax/work in the galley. Part of that is because Francis has a pretty impressive music library that is often playing in the background (like it is now). When he is not working, you can find Francis knitting in the galley with said music in the background, reading, or taking in a movie from his laptop.
A special thank you to Francis for all his efforts and the tasty creations he’s conjured up in the remote corner of the world that is this temporary camp on a glacier in Antarctica. Francis is one of many whose work behind the scenes supports the science we do here with ANSMET. Stay tuned as we hope to bring you more “Behind the Scenes” profiles in the future as we make our way back to civilization.
Written by Scott at Shackleton Glacier Camp on 2018-01-15 at 14:00 local. Posted on 2018-01-16 at 08:00.