MID-WINTER AT SCOTT BASE

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28929, 24 June 1959, Page 22

MID-WINTER AT SCOTT BASE

Sun Moving Back Again [By L. R. HEWITT, N.Z.P.A. Correspondent with the N.Z, Antarctic Expedition.] SCOTT BASE, June 23. Somewhere beyond the snow skyline of Mount Terror the sun is moving back again. This morning, down by the dog spans, after the longest night of the year, we looked back across the hillside and over the lights of the base to a faint light glow that marks the site of our sun. High above us a single strand of ice-particled cirrus was the only cloud in the sky. A near full moon slanted light beams down from over Mount Discovery across the sea ice on McMurdo Sound. This mid-winter night alone would be worth coming 2000 miles to see. Only a light wind stirred the fur on our hooded anoraks, and flashlights that have been the order of the day and night for weeks now remained unused in our pockets.

After a series of six-day working weeks, all personnel downed tools and instruments on Saturday morning to prepare for midwinter dinner and receive American guests from adjoining McMurdo Base, two miles the other side of Observation Hill. The celebration of mid-winter night in the Antarctic is as traditional as the celebration of Christmas at home, wherever that might be. The kitchen became the focus of interest, the mess hall was brightened with decorations, and the notice boards were blotted out with sheaths of wellwishing cablegrams from all over the world. Singing and speeches, official and otherwise, went on till a late hour.

Sunday was very much a day of rest, except for those who walked over the hill to the chapel at McMurdo. Last night the United States base had the New Zealanders over there for a bright night of American celebration, all in fancy dress.

Sunday highlights were the special broadcast in the weekly Antarctic programme from the Minister in Charge of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research and the radiotelephone hook-up with the Antarctic division in Wellington. Now that is all behind us, and it is work again until the next major event, the warmth of the sun shining down on the base at the end of August. But with it all it is a good life. And nowhere else would the long snow slopes to Erebus border the tradesman’s entrance nor would our front lawn be the start of a route to the Pole.