When you think about a trip to Antarctica, you probably imagine a lot of snow and ice, some penguins trotting around. But Antarctica has some traces of a fascinating history. The very first explorers came to the continent in the 19th century and piece by piece brought the islands of Antarctica onto the map. Many explorers, researchers, armies, sealers, whalers and expeditioners have followed. I read a great book about two women who crossed the continent on foot, with their skis and sleds, in the early 2000s. They slept in tents and carried all their food and supplies across the continent. But Antarctica also houses a few buildings where people have stayed or still stay, at least part of the year. Some of these are no longer in use and still look like the day the occupants left.
On my trip to Antarctica I got to visit Port Lockroy, a site managed by the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust. During the summer months a team of volunteers does research on the penguins, maintains a museum and runs a post office. Yes! Sending a postcard from Antarctica was actually cheaper than sending mail from Argentina! One of the volunteers came onboard our ship to tell about her experiences. What a job! What a life! At the start of summer the team was dropped off, to be picked up 4 months later. Meanwhile they sort of depend on the kindness and mercy of the ships passing through. They don’t have a boat of their own and the island’s facilities are basic. So for showers, or fresh food, they depend on the tourist ships. The island also doesn’t have a doctor, so all of the volunteers have done survival first aid and have to manage any situation that may happen on the island.
It was a cloudy day with 3 degrees celsius. A wind and something between rain and thick snowflakes made it feel a lot colder. Because the island is so small, some people were going on a zodiac tour, while others visited the museum. Later we would swap. I was happy to get to visit the museum first. We climbed onto the snow at the landing site. Even the penguins looked depressed by the weather. But we were all excited. We’d written our postcards the night before, bought our stamps and left them behind. Later we learned a tourist ship would probably take our cards, just like our ship took the last load. They would go to the Falkland islands, from where they’d be distributed all over the world.
The museum at Port Lockroy was something special. The British came here in 1944 during operation Tabarin to gather information during the war, deter the Germans to come here and to lay claim to the land. Many countries wanted to have a claim in Antarctica and in order to have that, they built some sort of permanent structure. However the Antarctic treaty of 1959 states that none of these claims are currently recognized. From 1945 till 1962 researchers were active here, mostly operating the weather station. For example, they did research about the ionosphere, a layer in the atmosphere that sits 100km above the earth’s surface. It was used to bounce radio waves around the earth. The research later also showed some effects of climate change. In the years after the crew left, the building just sat there, with all its contents as they left it. When it was picked up by the Antarctic Heritage Trust, it was turned into a museum and now it’s like stepping foot into the past. There are old tins of food. There are paintings done by the men that were stationed here under harsh condition. Even the equipment is still there.
When the base was abandoned by humans, Gentoo penguins moved in. They found shelter underneath the buildings and started building their nests of little pebbles. They still return to breed every year, in spite of the tourists that now pass by their nests. I left the penguins and the base behind to take a freezing ride in the zodiac. This was the worst weather we’d encountered. We saw a leopard seal, chilling on an iceberg as if the weather didn’t bother him at all. He didn’t move a bit. Perhaps he was resting after a hunt. Although I preferred the days with clear blue sky, going around icebergs, pushing through a cold bath of ice cubes, while it’s snowing did give a more rounded experience of Antarctica. It’s the height of summer here and we think we’ve got it bad. But really, what about those people that brave the Antarctic winters to do research? What about those women that pushed their sleds over ice and crevasses day after day to finish before winter arrived? Or even those volunteers, who sit there isolated for 4 months on this tiny island. Not many people have seen this place, but some people have dared to venture where nobody else will go.
Some came for the challenge, some for the knowledge, some for the money. I came to satisfy my curiosity and throw myself into an unfamiliar world. Should people visit this relatively untouched part of the world? I don’t know. It showed me how much beauty there is in the uninhabited. I saw how a place can be so quiet and yet so wild and raw. I saw a piece of the world I’d only seen in documentaries. I saw how special our planet is. But although we tried to travel without leaving much of a trace, every visit has an impact. We disinfected our boots and pants, but we may still have carried disease like bird flew across sites. We were only allowed to land at certain sites, in groups of max. 100 people and had to stick to certain walking routes, but our footsteps may still have an impact on the nature and wildlife. Our ship had a big carbon footprint. This has an impact on all those beautiful glaciers and ice shelves we were admiring. How many tourists, if any, should a place like this accommodate? I don’t have the answers, but I hope whoever gets there, will appreciate where they are and see it as more than a tick on a bucket list.
