McMurdo Station

This week I had the opportunity to see Herzog's new film, "Encounters at the End of the World" at a local film festival. To film this, Herzog went to McMurdo Station, the largest station in Antarctica, under the auspices of the National Science Foundation's Artist and Writer's Program. I was there under that same program, and boy, how it brought back memories! I knew several of the scientists that were in the movie, and recognized places, including the inside of one of our Wooville Camp huts, where Herzog interviewed a seal scientist describing the milk of a Weddell Seal. I would recommend this movie, as it is an interesting commentary on the station culture. Herzog warned NSF before they sent him that he wasn't going to be making another fluffy penguin movie, and he sure didn't! But it does make me nostalgic for the experience of working at the stations. Though I haven't been to McMurdo in ten years, it looms large in my memory. My recent six seasons on the peninsula side of Antarctica were spent aboard the Marco Polo cruise ship and although I thoroughly enjoyed that experience, it couldn't be more different from being based at a science station. In addition to the eccentric personalities Herzog brings forth, is some fantastic underwater footage from the underneath the sea ice.

Ice Camp

This was a view our ice camp from the helicopter. You can see Mount Erebus in the background, and it was steaming away, as it is still an active volcano. We were really away from everything except nature, and could hear the silence of the night, broken by the pinging of the ice on occasion when new cracks formed. I always wondered what happens to the tide when the ocean is frozen over. We certainly were not going up and down with the tide, though, because off to the right was land, to which this "fast ice" was attached. It did move though, we could tell, as cracks would form. Sometimes "pressure ridges" would form where ice broke and the two sides pushed together, raising up a whole line of broken ice, sometimes several feet high. For the most part it was flat. There is something wonderful about having such an expansive view of the landscape. What a sense of space out there!

White-out

It was during a white-out storm that I did these sketches of Sara Wheeler writing her book, "Terra Incognita" inside our ice camp hut. (You can see the white through the windows). She wrote about our experiences at Wooville, and as I reread them now, I relive the experience again. However, as "creative" non-fiction, it has its embellishments, but it does give an amusing, and well written picture. We were lucky that our project dates overlapped at McMurdo, as it takes a minimum of two people to set up a field camp. We got along very well, working all day, exploring out on the ice during good weather days. After work, we made a big deal of dinner, cooking up something from the mostly freeze dried supplies, a few fresh things that keep well, like garlic and onions. We collected ice to melt for water. It was a simple life, writing, painting, and living out in the wilderness, and brings back fond memories.

Big Razorback Island

From our camp I used to take the "Woomobile" out over the ice to do watercolors from the "heated cabin". That meant that the temperature was up from in the minus forties Fareinheit almost to the freezing point. Still, I managed with a thermos of boiling water to thaw the brushes. This was a watercolor I did on one such day, of "Big Razorback" Island, one of four islands poking out of the sea ice. Together, these "Delbridge Islands" form the rim of an ancient volcanic crater, mostly submerged. I could see the four islands were in a circle, somewhat like Deception Island on the Peninsula, but here one could drive into the middle of the crater, whereas at Deception, one could sail in. Unlike Deception, this crater was inactive, so no hot springs warmed this frigid landscape.

Wooville

I came across this watercolor that I did of our field camp on the frozen Ross Sea. This is the camp where a British writer and I were staying when the group of Emperor penguins came in for a visit one night. It consisted of two wooden huts on 6 feet of frozen sea. What an amazing experience that was! I was part of the National Science Foundation Artist and Writer's program doing paintings and drawings during the beautiful Antarctic spring season. Then, the 24 hour sunlight of summer had not yet started, and we had many hours of long twilight. The red vehicle on the left was our "Spryte" which is like a small bulldozer with tracks for going over the hummocky ice. It would crawl along at 10 mph and could get us to McMurdo Station in two hours if the weather was good. The middle hut we used for cooking on our Coleman stove, and the hut on the right we used for living and working, as it had two wooden bunks and two tables. Both were heated with an oil drip stove, so we were quite toasty, even when outside temperatures hovered around minus 50 degrees Farenheit (-45 C). The line of green flags marked the bamboo sticks that held up our radio antenna. Each morning at 9 AM we would call in to McMurdo Station to say that all was well at our field camp. All field camps had a specific call-in time, which was just a safety check. We could then turn off the radio and experience peace of the Antarctic wilderness. On a day like this one, we could bundle up and go out for a walk (with icepicks to check the sea ice), or go for a ride in the Spryte. On stormy days, we worked inside, as whiteout conditions would reduce visibility to zero. In some cases you could hardly see your boots through the blowing snow, and had to stand at a 45 angle to the wind just to stand up! There was no wandering on those days. We could just get to the other hut by following a 20 foot rope, so as not to get lost on the way over!

Ushuaia

Looking through all the watercolors I've done over the years, I sometimes come across ones that bring me back to the moment I did them.

One small one in particular caught my attention. I did it on one of those many days when the Marco Polo was docked in Ushuaia for a day and a half between Antarctic cruises. I was inspired by not the main part of town, but the outskirts, as seen from the dock, with its mountainous backdrop. I spent so many days there over the years, going for walks, enjoying the sight of green things ... trees and grass, and colorful lupine and poppies in gardens. As much as I love Antarctica, after immersion in that icy landscape, I appreciate all the more the lush green luxury of warmer climes.

Emperor pastel

This is one of six paintings I recently added to my website. These three penguins are parading toward the field camp on the frozen Ross Sea, where I once lived for 2 1/2 months, painting the landscape. Twenty-four Emperors ambled in from the edge of the sea ice straight toward our two wooden huts. The Antarctic springtime brought soft colors in this magical place where the sun never set. The sun just dipped toward the horizon, casting golden rays among the long shadows.

See more on www.luciadeleiris.com (Antarctic page)