Hello Everyone,
Today is Sunday - so I took some of the day off to explore and sample McMurdo Station just a bit.
First on the list was to check out the Fire House - Open House. Once a year they open the Fire House here at McMurdo for folks to visit and see the equipment that is used here. Much of it is just like you see at your local fire station, but there's some extra gear for the Antarctic. This year they had more hands on event - including actually learning to put out a fire with a chemical fire extinguisher, and trying out the fire hose, just to get an idea of how hard they are work with when at full pressure. To top off the day, you got to have a bowl of the Chief's 5 alarm chili. Not bad overall.
Next was to visit
Scott's Hut - just on the edge of the Station. Today, got to see the inside.
This hut is the 3rd oldest building in Antarctica it dates back to earily
this century when the British Royal Navy started to
explore the Antarctic. Most notable, was Capt. Robert F. Scott, who first
built this hut, and Earnst Shackleton. Both used this hut for staging
expenditions. The hut itself is designed after an Australian outback hut
that was supposed to keep it cool in the heat of the outback: Not the
brightest idea, as when it was -30 outside, it only got to -6 inside.
They actually used the hut to even have plays during some of the expeditions.
The inside has many food stores still intacted, as well as seal blubber
- used to heat the
inside of the hut. There are names of the 1915 expedition carved on the
wall. It is an impressive location that served to help discover this continent
and explore it.
Finally, each Sunday night the whole station meets in the Galley to lecture from one of the grantees. Tonight, one of the grantees who is from the artist and writers program that NSF supports spoke. NSF does support a small handfull of the visiting writers and artists. This talk was given by a professor of English at the University of Alaska, hoping to write in the tradition of Barry Lopez (He book Arctic Dreams is fairly well know). Much of her work is in creative and process ends of writing.
That's all from here!
Take care,
Matthew