Scott Base Visit

5/17/2007

Other than 'Radio Darts' on Friday nights, the New Zealand Scott Base allows McMurdo personnel to come over and socialize once a month or by special invitation. They are renovating their dining facility and bar so they have a temporary setup in their new Hillary Field Center.

Back when they had a bar, there was this sign on the door in Japanese. Whenever somebody (mostly American) came into the bar with their hat on they would ring the bell and proclaim to the guest that he had to buy a round of drinks. When the puzzled guest said he didn't know about about this rule, the Kiwis would point to the Japanese words and say, "Well it's written on the door!". Ah, well they didn't get that past me, because they never had someone who could translate it. In fact it doesn't say what they thought it meant at all, but literally means "Tell everyone someone's wearing boots."


This winter one of the projects the New Zealand base is working on, along with the Antarctic Heritage Trust is performing some restoration work on Shakleton's hut at Cape Royds. There are four conservators down here trying to preserve what little artifacts are left, and it's quite an amazing thing to see 100 year old boots along with canned food. You can read about the conservators work at London's Natural History Museum's website.

Seth, Pete, and Chris with Phillipa & Jason in back

Here's Phillipa, who works on restoring documents. She's currently working on a newspaper from 1911 along with the labels from all the canned food. You can read her blog - 'Six Months in a Fleecy Coat'.