In near total darkness, a gift of lights

It’s almost noon and the sun is hardly 10 degrees off the horizon. As the weeks of sunset are coming to a close, we find ourselves in a near-constant twilight. Our days at Marble Point Air Facility are numbered.

The end of the season in the field camps is a hectic time for us and for the pilots. Supplies need to be shifted from camp to camp and carried back to McMurdo Station. Some things are winterized and will be carried out in the fall, when an annual traverse makes its way the 50 miles across the sea ice from McMurdo – at that time of year the way will be passable. All else, though, must be made up into sling loads, weighed, and hauled off by helicopter.

I take my last two-minute shower before we drain the water out of our pipes – during our final days here we will use water from jugs. Unlike at the main stations, no one will be here to keep things running during the winter. In a few days, the living room I sit in now will be 25 degrees below zero.

“Please, just don’t let anything break in the next five days,” Mack prays, checking on the generators twice as often as usual. We are the last camp to close, and we joke about how we would feed and entertain ourselves should we somehow get stranded here for the winter. We count our days and hope for good flying conditions.

Mack wakes me in the middle of the night on our last Saturday here. “Wake up, Meg! There are auroras outside.”

Auroras, known also as aurora australis or the southern lights, are the southern equivalent of the aurora borealis: beautiful, rare light displays seen only in the polar night skies. Mesmerizing and dynamic, these multicolored, glowing lights appear to dance in the sky. The illuminations are produced when the solar wind, a stream of electrons and protons coming from the sun, collides with the gases in the Earth’s upper atmosphere. The Earth’s magnetic field then channels the resulting electrical discharges toward the poles.

I pull on my parka and hat but forget my boots in my sleepy hurry. Minutes later, I am standing outside in my stocking feet, staring up at the large, white arcs that streak across the sky. The lights pulse in and out, lengthening and disappearing, a slow-motion show above us, illuminating our camp.

Auroras come in many forms, appearing as pillars, streaks, wisps and haloes of vibrating color. Sometimes they take the shape of pale curtains that appear to float on a breeze of light. During the periods of high activity common near the equinoxes, a single auroral storm can produce 1 trillion watts of electricity with a current of 1 million amps.

Here at Marble Point we are so far from the nearest glow of civilization that our view is entirely unhindered. The stars open up above us, seemingly innumerable, framing the steady pulse of auroras. Watching the display, I’m overwhelmed by the chance to see this rare sight. And, as the luminous streaks move in and out across the sky, it’s easy for me to understand the many legends these phenomena once inspired. In the northern polar regions, whole tribes have been known to fall silent in their presence; it was forbidden even to celebrate or sing about the auroras, because they were believed to be so powerful.

In the morning, the sun struggles above the horizon, stopping no higher than a hand’s breadth above the icebergs. We have a lot to do and little light left to do it in. As soon as the sun peeks out above the mountains, the helicopters start flying. I serve everything I have for lunch to the midday crowd. I can leave no canned food or glass jars behind when we leave, as they would explode in the midwinter cold. Everyone is pulling out the last of their equipment before the winter. Scientists and meteorology technicians crowd into the kitchen, stowing sensors and hard drives and cleaning out my pantry at the same time. The comms technicians leave with all of our communications gear. On our last morning, Mack has to climb up onto our roof with a handheld VHF radio to find out what time the helicopter will come to pick us up.

We have boarded up all of the windows and turned the generator off when we hear the helicopter coming over the ridge for us, the last souls left in the Dry Valleys. The loud sound of its blades belies its small appearance as it approaches, backlit by pink and orange. We lift off, leaving Marble Point behind. Now the auroras will be the only guardians of these field camps.

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