Station, Sweet Station

Many liberal arts students in their last semesters of college – particularly those of the more artistic disciplines – joke that their first post-grad residence will likely be a cardboard box on the street. It’s my first year out of school and I find myself living in, of all things, a canvas Quonset hut. Doubtless my Hispanic Studies major is not to blame. I think this one’s all on me.

About half of the residents at Amundsen-Scott South Pole station live in the Jamesways, outbuildings of canvas Quonset huts. There are about 10 wood-and-canvas, hyper-insulated rooms in each Jamesway. These rooms each measure about 6-by-8 feet – room enough for a bed, a dresser and a small shelf. On the outside, Jamesways look a bit like partially snowed-over covered wagons. From the inside, each room resembles a cross between a blanket fort and an ice-fishing shack. “Cozy” is the most applicable description. In temperatures such as these, smaller means warmer. A dresser drawer, turned sideways, serves as a desk chair, and my United States Antarctic Program parka hangs on the wall.

Perhaps the most striking feature of the Jamesways is that they do not, in fact, connect to anything. Not even to the bathrooms. The bathhouse is situated in the middle of the 14 Jamesway buildings. Stepping outside to get to them requires putting on at least the heavy parka, mittens and boots. Depending on which Jamesway you reside in, the toilets may be only yards away – but at 2 a.m., those can be very cold yards. This has resulted in a revival of the “chamber pot” fashion, a la the Colonial period. I took an empty coffee can from the galley for those nights when it simply isn’t worth layering on my Extreme Cold Weather gear.

However, if you are brave and energetic enough to gear up and go outside to the bathrooms in the middle of the night, heated flush toilets await you – no hardships or cold outhouses there. Likewise, the showers are hot, so all four minutes that you get to spend in them a week are a real luxury.

Even farther away than the bathroom is, well, just about everything else at Amundsen-Scott. The main station, including the galley, is a five-minute walk from the Jamesways. In my first week at the South Pole, the wind-chill averaged about 70 degrees below zero. When I get up in the morning, I layer on two sets of long underwear, insulated Carhart overalls, a fleece jacket, my parka, boots, neck gaiter, hat, tinted goggles (which protect me both from the cold and from snowblindness), glove liners and heavy mittens.

That done, I am free to leave my “bedroom,” head off to brush my teeth and go to breakfast.

Breakfast, though, is usually worth it. I’m not sure if the galley cooks especially well in order to entice us to leave our Jamesways in the mornings, or if the food simply tastes that much better after a five-minute walk through a 70 below wind. Either way, it works. And good thing, too: They say that if you work outside, you can burn up to 5,000 or 6,000 calories a day just keeping warm. Mealtimes are very social with everyone in the station coming through the cafeteria-style buffet line of impossibly good food.

South Pole station, because of its tremendous isolation, needs to be able to run independently. Within Amundsen-Scott we have a fire department, water, fuel, electricity, food, waste management, recreation, even retail in the form of our small station store – everything necessary to be a fully functioning, self-sustaining community.

Because of the vast array of these needs, “Poleys” come from all walks of life. Eating together in the galley you will find scientists, carpenters, mechanics, doctors, technicians – even the odd woman from Maine. Many have deep roots here. Some people have been returning annually to Amundsen-Scott for decades, creating a steady community of Antarctic “lifers.” When the planes land at the beginning of the season, reunions of old friends are commonplace.

As for me, after a week here, does the station feel like “home” yet? Well, it’s an odd home that you walk back to at night in full Antarctic summer sunlight while wearing 25 pounds of gear. But I have always been partial to ice-fishing shacks and blanket forts, so for now I will simply say, “Station, Sweet Station.”

Meg Adams, who grew up in Holden and graduated from John Bapst High School in Bangor, will share her Antarctic experiences with readers each Friday. For more about her adventure, additional information about Antarctica and to e-mail question to her, go to the BDN Web site: bangordailynews.com