Soul Food: My Home at the South Pole

Living at the South Pole has sunken in and it is wonderful. I feel quite at home in this harshest  of harsh environments. Soul food, is daily life. 

Last monday marked my first full day at work. It was a mellow day after a station tour that took us into the underground ice utility tunnels and we spruced up the non-smoking lounge.

Our work has to be mellow for at least a few days so we can acclimatize to the high altitude, which has been hovering around 10,400ft the last few days. The extremely dry air is something else that continually effects you. There is a constant need to be drinking water. Which, by the way is some of the purest and ancient water you could drink. All being made from frozen ice. 

The ice is melted with hot fluid from the large diesel engines that heat and power the station. Ice is melted down forming a long cylindrical shaft that once empty will be turned into a human waste repository. This has been the method for storing human waste for a long time if not always, but there are plans for a waste treatment facility sometime in the future. 

Frostbite is something we all deal with here. It can be difficult to be covered up all the time. on Wednesday after shoveling snow all day clearing out drilling equipment for the Ice Cube project, I had a white spot on my nose. There was little that could be done, but after work when taking photos my nose froze to my camera and tore off the skin. So double bonus! But, I am pleased with the photos so it was worth it. 

The week has been a hard week of shoveling snow off and around various buildings and equipment. The weather has been fluctuating from the balmy negative 13 degrees to negative 43 or colder. Today has been windy with wind speeds up to 25 knots. This makes being outside a bitterly cold experience. 

Sundays are most peoples day off. So the station has a much more relaxed atmosphere and there is a lot of movie watching and game playing going on. Most people end up sleeping a lot as well. Something about being down here just wears you out a little.