A Walk Around the World

When one first gets to the Pole, one wants to immediately see the Pole.  But where you get off the airplane on the two-mile skiway is not the Pole.  Nor is the Amundsen-Scott Station the Pole. Both are near the Pole, and at the tail end of the summer season I can see the Pole bathed in sunlight at any time day or night from my berthing window.  But none of these is the same as being the Pole.   You’ve made that 14,000 mile journey from your suburban North Florida home, leaving the BGFE and the last Busy Bee far behind, and you’re desperate to finish the journey.  If you don’t get there, and soon, you feel frustrated and empty, emotionally spent after all the effort spent getting here.  It’s as if you were with Captain Scott and, having manhauled sledges over glaciers and crevasses and the Antarctic plateau for nearly 800 miles and days without end, your leader simply stopped when he saw Amundsen’s flag flying mere yards away and said, “Well, lads, that’s close enough for me.  Let’s go home.”

Before setting foot at the Pole, it’s helpful to know upon which Pole you tread.  The Geographic South Pole is the southernmost point on the planet, at 90 S and 45 E.  It is currently located about 300 yards from the station; I can see if through my berthing window as I write.  It’s marked by a small medallion on a thin metal post and a small sign containing quotes from both Roald Amundsen and Robert Falcon Scott, flanked by the Stars and Stripes and a black-and-white Antarctic banner.  There are two small pup tents pitched nearby in case anyone wants to sleep outside to say they spent a night at the pole.  Given that even a bright summer day averages a balmy -20’s, this counts as what I might call silly behavior.  Yet if years working in medicine have taught me anything, it’s that silly behavior is forever.

(For what it’s worth, day and night have little meaning here.  Even on late summer, there’s 24 hours of daylight, and the only way to tell time by the skies is to figure out if the sun is to the left or the right of a particular marker.  During the winter, there’s no way to tell unless you’re particularly good at following the rotation of the constellations in the clear, inky skies above.  During the “shoulder weeks” between total light and total darkness, it’s eternal twilight.  So the concepts of a “daytime high” or a “nighttime low” temperature don’t really have any significance.  It simply is what it is.)

Being at Geographic South Pole is not only breathtaking and awe-inspiring, it’s just fun. One of the tricks I like best is knowing that I can walk around the world in about ten seconds.  (It could be faster, but I’m wearing boots and about twenty pounds of cold-weather gear.)  If the earth’s diameter is 25,000 miles at the equator, and I go around the world in a sixth of a minute, that means I’m walking at a speed of roughly 4,200 miles per second.  This is clearly faster than a speeding bullet, so not only am I a Polie, I can also claim Kryptonian status. 

One other thing that’s fun to know is that every year, the Geographic Pole appears to move farther away from the station proper.  It doesn’t really do so…the bottom of the world remains the same fixed point.  But the station is built on about two miles of ice overlying the continent, and every year the ice moves about thirty feet towards to sea.  That means to someone standing on the station, the Geographic Pole seems to be in motion.  One of the traditions here is that every year on January 1, the summer crew passes a medallion designed by the prior winter crew hand-to-hand to the Geographic Pole, to be mounted on a stanchion marking the true location of the pole for the next annum.

The Ceremonial South Pole, which is the one you usually see in pictures, is about 200 yards directly in front of the station. We see it from inside as well, straight ahead through the galley windows.  The Ceremonial Pole is a candy-striped refugee from a small-town barber shop topped by a smooth mirrored ball that, if sectioned into smaller segments, would not be out of place at Studio 54.  The Ceremonial Pole is embraced by a half-circle of flags of the twelve nations who originally signed the Antarctic Treaty in 1959.  Today, over 55 nations have joined the compact.  As opposed to the Geographic Pole, the Ceremonial Pole is simply a marker stuck in the ice; and as both it and the station moves with the glacier, it remains fixed in place. The Ceremonial Pole is where celebrities swoop in for an hour or so along with their camera crews to demonstrate their personal valor or express their heartfelt concerns about global warming.  It’s also where tourists who come to the Pole get their picture taken before scurrying back to their glamping pods a half-mile away.  These “glory shots” are subject to the derision of the Polies themselves.  I look forward to being here long enough to join in the sniping.

(Tourism at the South Pole?  Yes indeed.  For the bargain price of $60,000, tour operators such as Polar Quest offer the well-to-do the opportunity to fly the pole and visit for a day. Their aircraft can land on the skiway, but are generally not allowed in the station.  In the event of an overnight stay...more $$$, to be sure...the tourists themselves repose at a small temporary camp about a half mile from us.  So near the Ceremonial Pole there’s a small unheated shack called the “Visitor’s Center, featuring a few wall posters about Antarctic exploration with some rubber stamps and desiccated ink pads so you can try to stamp your passport to prove you were here.  There’s also an unheated latrine a few yards away.   Festooned on the outside with Valentine’s Day hearts, we call it “The Love Shack.”

The Pole you can’t walk to from here is the Magnetic South Pole.  It’s located at the point on the earth’s southern hemisphere where the planet’s geomagnetic field lines converge.  The Magnetic Pole shifts due to changes in the magnetic field; it’s currently located off the continent just above the Antarctic Circle, nearly 1900 miles from the Geographic Pole. 

The idea of a Magnetic Pole is something I always presumed to be true, but didn’t really understand it as anything more than a fun fact to be filed away for Trivia Night.  But during my time in Christchurch, I ran across a small shack called the Magnetic Observatory within the civic Botanical Gardens.  On display just outside the door of the unassuming green hut was a compass with geographic north fixed to the base, but the floating needle pointed somewhat akilter to the magnetic pole instead (like the Southern Magnetic Pole, the northern version is also offset to its’ geographic counterpart.)  When you hold a compass level at the Geographic South Pole, it does the same thing but in a more pronounced and somewhat frenzied way as it tries to figure out just what’s what and where’s where.

As you might guess, directions are complicated here.  It’s easy to say that everything is north, but that doesn’t help you find anything if everywhere is the same direction.  And how do you distinguish northwest from northeast?  To get around this problem, navigation around Antarctica is done through use of a grid.  Heading towards McMurdo Station is Grid North; the other cardinal directions follow accordingly. 

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But back to the pole, and the need to get there as soon as you can.  After getting your bags to your room (a “berth,” as it’s all nautical here), you feel this sudden obsession to get back out and bring your journey to its’ fated destination.  It’s a fairly quick walk, and because the sun is out, the sky is clear, and it’s a tropical day in paradise (- 27 F outside temperature, – 53 F wind chill), you’ll only need a pair of long underwear, a flannel shirt, a pair of jeans , thick work overalls, the Big Red parka, a woolen hat, sock liners, thick Merino socks, white “bunny boots,” glove liners, and heavy insulated work gloves.  A mere twenty pounds of extra material that comes along for the ride.

But how does it feel to be at the South Pole?  Standing at the marker are moments to treasure, to be sure, but the feelings don’t wash over you like an awe-inspiring mountain view or the sense of rhythmic calm emanating from the vast expanse of ocean.  There’s an initial sense of simply wanting to check things off the list.  Geographic Pole?  Done. Ceremonial Pole?  Check.   What follows, and what’s all the more memorable for me, is related to the contrast between the bright eternal sunlight and the physical sensations of cold and altitude that lets me know I’m someplace different and unique.  That chill on your cheekbones as the wind sneaks past your neck gaiter and balaclava and rises up your face.  The heaviness of the ECW gear and boots as your gait adapts to the extra weight; the sensation of different textures of snow and ice under your feet as you try to find the most efficient route to walk.  The unexpected shortness of breath and increased fatigue; anguish at the thought of climbing steps after your outside stroll.  The surprising lack of discomfort from the cold once properly clad and in motion, and the wet feeling on your back from your sweat condensing on your skin under your thermals.  The sudden crispiness of your eyebrows and hair as they are coated with gathering frost.

The view itself looking out from the station is a flat expanse of ice and snow, with footprints and vehicle tracks  competing for space between building of various states of age and repair; some new and sleek, some looking like recycled portable classrooms, others no more than painted wooden shacks littering the horizon.  It’s not really what you expect, so to some degree you need to talk yourself into the marvel of it all.  “Can you believe you’re at the Pole?  The South Frickin’ Pole?”

It's only when your walks get longer, and you get some distance from the station and it’s surrounds and cast your eyes northward, that you start to get a sense of the immense vastness and emptiness of the place.  You start to realize that the way you experience the Pole is not by physically being here, but emotionally by who and what you miss.  And you recognize that the true miracle of the Pole is not that you’re there, but that anything created by a semi-tropical biped is here at all.

Like most tourists, the first time you’re out and about you’ll be tempted to take pictures of everything. Avoid this temptation, because you’ll soon find that in order to take a picture you have to take your heavy gloves off, and despite what they tell you the little fingertip pads don’t really work well on the subzero screen of a cellphone.  So in order to take a picture, you wind up taking off your glove liner as well, which is an open invitation to the Wonderful World of Frostbite.  Maybe take a picture or two today, then another on your next walkabout tomorrow.  It’ll still be there.  The Pole’s not going anywhere.

(The “It’ll still be there” concept comes from the BGFE, which explains why she can sleep until noon when we travel abroad without fear of missing the opportunity to see something important.  The theory worked pretty well until Notre Dame burned down.)

The other thing you notice, even on your first trip outside, is that you can’t walk as you usually do.  I’m usually a pretty fast walker, likely because I was a really short kid and I had to walk fast to keep up with my friends.  (This is a better excuse than saying I’m a squirrel-like ball of nerves.)  But with all the gear, the uneven surfaces, and the effects of altitude, you wind up taking longer to get everywhere, with short plodding steps rather than grand strides.  And as you’re walking, you’ll notice the shortness of breath, and it will worry you until you reach your destination, at which point it will worry you even more as you wonder how you’ll ever get back.

As you acclimate, your journeys become more frequent and longer in duration.  The first day it was just to the Geographic and Ceremonial Poles; the following day’s jaunt started with the same route, but with an extension towards the flightline and cargo depot.  Then more walks as the days go by, to the South Pole Telescope, the Atmospheric Research Building, the Microwave Telescope; perhaps wandering out to pick up some oxygen supplies left by flight crew stuck for two days in small blue huts near the skiway.  Once the station closes and the summer folks clear out, I’m set for snowmobile training.  Now that’s a way to get around.