In December, the height of the austral summer, the South Pole base fills up to its summertime capacity of 140 scientists, administrators and workers.
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Most are berthed in the summer camp, rows of canvas-sided, quonset-shaped, heated Jamesway tents from the Korean War era set up a few hundred yards from the domed American science station.
The Jamesways are grouped around more-modern prefab buildings containing toilets and showers (limit: two two-minute showers a week to conserve precious fuel needed to melt ice for water).
Vacancies at the summer camp are coveted. With sunlight and summer temperatures averaging 30 to 60 degrees below zero, working outdoors is bearable.
Dozens of seasonal contract workers (about one-third of them women), from electricians, plumbers, cooks and carpenters to medical doctors, are hired through a private Denver firm, Antarctic Support Associates.
Scientists whose work relies on summer daylight beaver away to get their work done before the end of January. Astronomers come down with crews to install new instruments or repair and revamp what’s there, readying it for the winter-over scientists who will run it for them.
Except for some vegetables being hydroponically grown in an experimental lab in the dome, humans (and the occasional disease-bearing microbes they carry) are the only living things at the station.
The galley under the unheated dome is the central crossroad of the station. Mealtimes are extremely important to life and ritual at the South Pole. In the summer, they are crowded and noisy affairs surrounding huge and hearty buffets.
The cooks are eminently popular personages, carefully selected each year to assure expertly prepared, imaginative meals as a morale booster for people stuck in a harsh and sterile environment.
In the summer, fresh food comes in on the almost-daily Hercules flights from New Zealand, transshipped from the main American base at McMurdo Sound 600 miles away.
Even when fresh produce isn’t coming in, there is no lack of supplies. Outside the kitchen door the cooks simply choose among the tons of food stacked in tins and boxes in the open air inside the unheated dome, deeply frozen and thousands of miles from the nearest mouse.
Everything that’s in the camp came by air, and, eventually, when it becomes trash, everything goes out by air too.
On Feb. 21, the last cargo plane of the season revved its engines and took off from the station, fleeing the encroaching twilight gloom of the coming winter.
The ski-equipped plane departed with the last of the summer crew, leaving behind 26 people on the winter-over crew: seven scientists and 19 support staff. Until late October, when the sun again rises high enough to allow flights to the pole to resume, they are beyond the reach of rescue.
In the winter, all of them are cocooned inside the dome. Should any of them become seriously ill or injured, their fate will rest with the lone physician among them.