Having never been to an Antarctic field camp I wasn't quite sure what to expect, and I had purposely avoided asking what it was going to be like just so I would be surprised. After clearing the Herc that brought all of us I was a teeny bit more than surprised at what I found. Onset-D, located at a latitude of about S80.75 and a longitude of about W125.75 -- or more accurately known as Almost The Middle Of The Middle Of Nowhere -- was nothing more than one long Jamesway, a short Jamesway, a two mile long skiway, some Ski-Doos, a couple of Tucker SnoCats, and some tents. The camp was 'created' to support this project's two years of work in the area. At the end of the 2002-2003 season the camp was completely dismantled.
A Jamesway is a wood and canvas Quonset hut. They were built for use in the Korean War. The one at Onset-D was first set up somewhere in the world on February 4, 1953. The main Jamesway was the center of camp activity. The second smaller one was for aircrews to stay in, and was used as a part-time garage, workshop, and storage area.
Life for the five camp staff folks was pretty quiet before we arrived, but
with the addition of twelve of us, two other guys that came for a few days
to do some work, and then the addition of five drillers for this project the
place got a bit crowded.
The camp staff of Spore, Al, Doug, Ben and Flora took pretty good care of
us during the week or so that we were there getting ready for our upcoming
expedition. I felt a bit bad for them, though. Most of their equipment --
out here where hardware and repair shops were on every street corner -- was
pretty old and seemed to require constant fixing. They also seemed to be provided
with nowhere decent to work on the equipment. Above are pictures of where
Al had to work on a broken Ski-Doo: outdoors, under a tarp, heated by a large
air heater, with pieces of plywood around to keep the wind off. You don't
think Raytheon was more worried about profits than they were about situations
like this, do you?? It didn't seem right to me.
The two guys that flew out with us to Onset-D were there to put together a satellite communication system that gave the camp an Internet connection for a few hours each day through one of the GOES satellites. It was kind of unreliable, but way better than nothing, especially for the camp staff.
2018-03-05