Busy Christmas At Scott Base

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30937, 18 December 1965, Page 3

Busy Christmas At Scott Base

(Special Crspdt. N.Z.P.A.) SCOTT BASE, December 17. A traditional white Christinas will be held by New Zealanders at their Antarctic station at Scott Base. The festive mood is not yet evident about the base, although some decorations will be put in the mess during the next few days. A perhaps truer feeling of Christinas came over Scott Base last week when, during a heavy fall of snow, sone of the neo stood outside and sang Christinas carols. The Post Office slogan, “Post Early for Christmas,”

had to be taken seriously because the last scheduled flight to New Zealand was on December 10. It carried almost 2001 b of mail and parcels from Scott Base. However, an unscheduled flight left this morning with another 751 b of mail. Two field parties working close to Scott Base will come home for Christinas dinner to boost the number at the base for tiie meal to 24. Another 18 New Zealanders will celebrate their Christmas “out in the field” at various points about the Ross dependency. The farthest south field party is at the head of the Beardmore Glacier, 300 miles from tiie South Pole. Its members will drink toasts to the Governor-General (Sir Bernard Ferguson), and to the memory of the early Ant-

arctic explorers, Shackleton and Scott, who traversed the Beardmore on their way south. Today, the Victoria University geological party in the Dry Valley region was airlifted byhelicopter farther up the Taylor Valley. Two weeks later it will be lifted 20 miles farther north to the Victoria Valley. It is the only field party being shifted in the field by air support this summer. All eight field parties were progressing satisfactorily with their projects and enjoying clearer weather than about the base area, said the Scott Base leader, Mr M. M. Prebble, of Eastbourne.

Officially Christmas Day will be a holiday at Scott Base. However, there is work that must go on.

The scientists will have to spend some time in their laboratory, the maintenance staff have to keep a check on the diesel electric generators, and the chef, Mr Claude Davidson, of Auckland, has a full menu to prepare, including cocktails, roast turkey and Christmas pudding. During the day the radio officer, Mr Gerry Ternahan, of Belfast, Northern Ireland, and the postmaster-assistant radio officer, Mr Irwyn Smith, of Wainuiomata. will call up all the field parties to wish them a happy Christmas, then work the radio telephone to New Zealand to let all at Scott Base call their families. An inward call to Scott Base has been booked by the Governor-General, who will be at the Bay of Islands on Christmas Day.