After a week of life down at the bottom of the world I feel like I’m getting adjusted. I’m learning on the fly at work, which is a real challenge, but so far I’ve managed to retain a good chunk of what I’ve been taught. I’ll go more into that in another post, as I will about life, society and everything else that’s happening here. But that is all for later.

Stepping off the plane was amazing, and now that I’ve been here to see the reaction of other people as they arrive, I feel like I appreciate it more. When we disembarked, we were in the middle of nowhere. There were a few vehicles around, a cargo crate or two and a mass of people in exodus, but out across the horizon there was a vast open expanse. I imagine it would be kind of like standing in Tucson if it were still uninhabited desert, with vast expanses of land ending at distant mountains, but even more barren. The plane literally lands on the sea. Of course, it is frozen over and 6 or 7 feet thick, but there is such openness. We are isolated out in the middle of nowhere.

You can tell from the vehicles they have at the runway that they don’t screw around when it comes to driving in Antarctica. If it moves, it has a ton of clearance, and is made for moving through soft ground.

 The veterans of shuttles say that there will still be a lot of getting stuck as the season progresses. The temperature when I arrive is a breezy, balmy 20 degrees, but in the days to come it will get stuck around the single digits, and dive as low as -13 degrees with a wind chill of -38. It won’t stay that way though. With 24 hours of light brings enough energy to heat up to freezing or above, and even if the ambient temperature is below freezing, the sun’s rays will melt the snow and make driving messy.

But that is all for later. For now, the world is a bitterly frozen one, but still breathtaking to behold. And getting over the initial moments of taking in this place, I can see in the distance my home for the next few months. Far, far across the ice and tucked away on the side of a mountain is this settlement which belongs in some hobbyist’s basement, surrounded by model train sets. It certainly seems too quaint to be an outpost on the edge of civilization.

The drive from the airport to town is perhaps 15 minutes. The welcome talk is an hour. And then, we’re released. To be honest I have no idea where to go or what to do, but following everyone else seems like the correct survival strategy. We head to 155, the heart of the living quarters, to pick up bedsheets. My room is somewhere in the building too, along with the dining hall, library, general store.

But that is all for later. For now, I have to go get my bags, which are being unloaded in the same building where I will start working the following day. Once again, the lemming approach seems prudent, and I make my way there with little difficulty. Turning back, I can see out over the town, across the frozen sea and to the distant mountains of the continent itself.

 With my bags in my room and unpacked enough to make it another 24 hours, I have just enough time to explore a little bit before it’s time for bed. I find myself on the far side of the base where they are building the ice pier. Layer upon layer of water is sprayed onto the surface, allowed to freeze, and sculped into one, massive block of ice. Three months from now, an icebreaker – the one whose near-absence could have cost me my job –  will come plowing through the ice, and the cargo ship that follows will pull to the far side of the pier. For a week, cargo will be unloaded onto this pier of frozen water and trucked into town constantly, 24 hours a day, until it’s all delivered. For now, a lone loader or two prowls the perimeter, making sure the ‘construction’ is proceeding apace.

 Days later, I make my way to an overlook of the town. This is my home for a while. A bleak and beautiful place.

Town from above