A Southern Christmas 2001 - Day 8

 It is a pleasant surprise to see how many people have been reading these little posts. The last time I looked at the data, it showed that there have been more than 200 views and the number continues to grow and since one or two folk have asked me to keep going, I will. I require little encouragement.

As I state at the introduction to each day's entry, please start (HERE), if this is the first time you have visited this site.

The last entry of my journal had us arriving in Casey base, so as many a schoolboy saga would say, now read on… 

 

Sunday 23^rd December 2001

Casey Base, Australian Antarctic Territory

Finally, we are here, and nature has provided us with another bonzer day. If this is Antarctica, move over Gold Coast. The sun shone from a cloudless sky, with hardly a breath of wind all day - what was Scott’s problem?

A sobering moment came later today when we heard the three-day forecast. In short, make the most of this, the blizzard is due within the next couple of days.

Shortly before breakfast we dropped anchor in Newcomb Bay about a kilometre offshore from the characteristic red, orange, green and blue sheds which we had seen on so many photographs and films featuring Casey. The Base is just over 30 years old, having been established in 1969 when Wilkes, on the opposite side of the bay, was closed because of snow accumulation and poor site selection - but more on Wilkes later.

The Casey Station Leader is Paul Cullen. He has spent the past 13 months here and like almost all the fifty or so people on station, he will be returning to Hobart with us. Paul came on board and warmly welcomed us to the Antarctic continent. We had earlier all received an email explaining the rules of the Station, but it was clear from Paul’s personal address that his mission, before he leaves this place is to ensure that we all accomplish what we have set out to achieve by coming here.

Yann and I were on one of the first boats ashore and a small group of us were soon carefully descending a rope ladder from the ship’s side on to a barge and into waiting inflatable rubber boats (IRBs), also known as Zodiacs. We were to become better acquainted with those little IRBS over the next 24 hours.

We set foot at the busy landing wharf area which looks just like any working construction site that you might see anywhere in the world. Here we became acquainted with another form of transport with which we were to become familiar during our stay – the Hägglunds. The Hagg as it is more simply known, is a tracked all-terrain diesel-powered vehicle with an enclosed cabin connected to a tracked trailer cabin. The Hagg and the quad motorcycles have long since replaced dogs and sleds as the means of transport around Antarctic bases and all Antarcticans are appreciative of its value and reliability. Paul Cullen was our driver, and we were driven the half kilometre or so, up the hill through a narrow laneway of packed ice and snow to the heart of Casey, the Red Shed.

This is the home of the Caseyites – a two-story, steel-clad red building which houses the dining room, kitchen, lounge and bar of Casey and accommodates most of its winter and summer expeditioners. It is also the home of the library and the cinema (the Odeon) and is the place of congregation for all. Although modest and unprepossessing in outside appearance it provides a warm, lodge type atmosphere once inside. We stamped our way through the double entry doors, shaking packed snow from our feet as we walked in. Our heavy sheepskin lined Sorel boots and windproof Ventile outer garments were removed and left close to the exit door where we signed the fireboard, a critical requirement for everyone entering or leaving the Red Shed. This is how our hosts know who is in or out and where we are (particularly visitors); all of which is important in an environment where fire and blizzard will not forgive the careless.

Our mission today was to visit Wilkes station and after a welcoming cup of coffee and a quick lunch, we made our way to the stores shed to get survival packs needed for our short trip to Wilkes. All travellers who go off station must take a survival pack – even an hour’s journey could, in the case of an unexpected snowstorm require an overnight stay in poor conditions. The pack contains sleeping bag, bivi bag, essential rations and first aid kit.

Our host was Dr Martin Riddle, Program Director for Human Impact Studies at AAD and who has been in Casey for the summer. Martin is a marine biologist and is responsible for much of the work which is carried out at the Antarctica bases and surrounding waters. He is thus greatly involved in the work associated with the waste clean-up at Casey’s Thala Valley site and at Wilkes.

Wilkes Station was formally a US base, established in the International Geo-physical Year of 1957. It was handed over to Australia in 1959 who operated the station until the late 1960s after which the replacement site at Casey came into operation as Wilkes slowly became buried under its accumulation of snow and ice. The station is directly opposite Casey on the other side of the bay, about an hour’s Hagg ride away. Both stations are clearly visible from Aurora as she sits easily at anchor in the middle of the bay.

The clean-up at Casey’s Thala Valley site with its 3,000 tonnes of waste and contaminated soil which will be removed over the next three or four years via our donated purpose-built bins is a test for the ultimate clean-up at Wilkes. Wilkes has ten times more waste than there is at Casey and the landscape from one end to the other at

Wilkes is strewn with discarded fuel drums (some empty, some full), tin cans, containers, buildings and gas cylinders. It is only by using the information learned from the Thala Valley clean-up that a clean-up at Wilkes can be planned and executed.

There are at least 3,000 two hundred litre (44 gallon) drums at Wilkes which at one time contained diesel or fuel oil. Wilkes is a land-based Marie Celeste literally frozen in time, with stores and provision abandoned without prospect or expectation of recovery. Boxes strewn around the area contain antique tins of Golden Circle fruit salad, Holbrook’s sauce, and other unmistakably Australian provisions. Although we didn’t see any use by dates, all the products were marked in pounds and ounces, with many familiar names from the past such as Vesta soap.

Quite clearly, it is not just a simple case of marching in and picking the stuff up. The risk to the environment that wholesale collection of materials will cause has to be assessed, hence the requirement to understand the outcome of the Thala Valley process. Equally there are items where further delay will certainly cause damage as old cans of powder slowly rust away and are in danger of creating a condition where there will be nothing to collect but scraps of iron oxide and whatever was in these cans whether it is soap, caustic or worse will be absorbed into the environment. The risk with the oil drums is even more unambiguous. Leave them and they will surely and eventually deposit their crud on the landscape; disturb them without care, and it will happen anyway.

It could be argued that the Antarctic continent is vast and that the amount of pollution caused by human impact is minimal. However, when one considers that these bases are situated on one of the few partially ice-free areas on the continent, representing less than one-tenth of one percent of the land mass, and that this is the very reason why much of the flora and fauna need access to this region to breed and survive, then the argument becomes more difficult to sustain.

AAD and the Australian government are to be applauded for their efforts in developing an ambitious program to meet their Madrid Protocol commitments and for the first time Yann and I were able to fully understand the enormity of the task which Martin Riddle, Tony Press, Kim Pitt and the team at Kingston and Casey are facing. I’m so pleased that we can help in making this program happen.

As we walked through Wilkes on what was really a magnificent summer’s day in this ice paradise an occasional lone Adelie penguin would approach us, and cocking its head to one side and peering at us through a single eye, would curiously but fearlessly assess us. The penguins seem as interested in we creatures who, like them, walk upright and pose no immediate threat, as we are in them. Let’s hope they are right, and it stays that way.