kiell and daniel

Third Grade Earth Science at the South Pole

kiell — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 01:32:04 +0000

A few days ago I did a live chat with two classes of 3rd graders in St. Paul who are learning about Antarctica. To prep for the Q&A, their teacher Mitchell told me, they played with mint-breath cold winds, made eyewear to ward 24 hour daylight rays, played sightless/wordless blizzard rescue, and made models of the Gamburtsev Mountains which they later covered with handmade snowflakes. They had some really good questions! Check ‘em out!

Shekina asks How was your breakfast?

me: Hi Shekina! I haven’t had breakfast today, but I normally have fresh eggs when they are available–they have to be flown in from New Zealand, a country near Australia. I think that makes them taste special.

Griffin: Have you ever fell through the ice?

me: I did fall through the ice once–I was shoveling near the small aircraft landing pad last year and I fell into a 12 foot hole. Luckily there is no water here at South Pole, so I landed on top of a buried building, not in the ocean.

Charlie: Have you ever gotten lost?

me: No, we stay pretty close to the station most of the time. I got a little lost the first time I tried to find my bedroom, but not scary lost.

Imani: What is your favorite thing to do there?

me: I like to play games, dance, make art and exercise on my days off–we have one day off a week, Sundays, and we have to spend it wisely. My favorite thing would be hard to choose!

Mandeq: Do you ever see animals at Pole?

me: Not normally, since we are 800 miles away from the coast and there is no food or water for animals here. When the over ice traverse came in (like a tractor road trip that brings us fuel) a BIRD came with them! It was so crazy to see a living animal here–they announced it over the intercom so everyone could look.

Gunnar: How cold is it there now?

me: Right now it is -23 F with a windchill of -47 F.

It will get down to -100 in the middle of winter (june)

Tyler and Qiana: Have you ever ridden/touched a polar bear?

me: I wish! That would be so cool. We don’t have polar bears in Antarctica, though, they live in the northern hemisphere.

Addie: have you ever gotten stuck in the snow?

me: Not STUCK stuck, but sometimes it can be really hard to walk in deep drifting off station–you would lose your boots if they weren’t tied on!

Melissa: Do you stay warm in your cold gear?

me: Yes, they give us plenty of warm clothing–jackets, snowpants, boots, long underwear, fleece pants, mittens, neck gaiters. Sometimes I get cold when I work outside for a long time, but not too cold normally.

Austin: Ever seen an iceberg?

me: I have seen sea ice from the plane into McMurdo station (on the coast) but I don’t think I’ve seen an iceberg.

Amir: What is the hardest thing to do there, in your opinion?

me: Good question.. I think the hardest thing we do (in terms of work) might be the jobs of the people who defuel the airplanes–they work outside all day every day, and the planes are really loud, they have to carry heavy fuel hoses around, and they smell like stinky fuel.

Anna: Whats the highest temperature since you’ve been there?

me: Actually, we hit a record this year–it got to TEN degrees above zero. It felt so warm!

Sasha: Is it ever warm in your room?

me: It depends on the room. This year my room is so warm I can’t even wear socks to bed. Last year, in another room, I had snow on my bed sometimes, because it would blow in through the cracks!!!!

Georgia : Is the Jamesway comfortable?

me: It can be. I like my room a lot this year. It can get a little stinky though, because we are only allowed to shower twice a week to save water, and lots of people don’t have doors, only curtains.

Mitchell: from the class – what are you doing today?

Mrs. Voglegesangs 3rd grade class says “Thank you”!!!!

switching to other class

me: Well, today I am going to unpack a bunch of frozen food that we have stored outside (everywhere is like a big freezer) and we are going to prepare food for the winter.

Thank you all!! Nice to meet you!

Mitchell: How do you prepare food for the winter if it’s already frozen?

me: Well, we are stocking it so they can access it. It stays outside in the summer, and we need to move it with tracked loaders because the containers are thousands of pounds each– we unpack it and keep it in inside frozen storage because the tractors freeze in the winter and we can’t use them.

Mitchell: back in the other class, Hello!

me: hello from south pole station!

Cedes: How cold has it been lately?

me: It’s been around -25 F the past few days, and the windchill is going down again, getting to about -50

Adam Me.: Seen any polar bears?

me: Unfortunately, no! Polar bears live in the Northern Hemisphere, they don’t come all the way down here. Maybe I’ll see one someday if I ever go to the north pole.

Emily: How long have you been at the South Pole?

me: I have spent eight months here total–four months last year, and almost four months this year–since October!

Eddie: What do you like about the South Pole?

me: I like a lot of things, but mostly I like the people who I work with, getting to be outside,and getting to see the sun 24 hours a day.

Josh Wo.: What jobs do you do there?

me: My job last year was shoveling–lots of shoveling!!–and cleaning up/removing dirty ice in the vehicle maintenance facility. This year I work with inventory–counting things, lots of them stored outside, and putting them away (I get to use forklifts and tracked loaders)

Kenisha: Do you like sleeping in the tents (Jamesways)?

me: Some times I like it a lot, other times it’s no fun to go outside in the sunlight and cold to brush my teeth before bed–it wakes you up!

Quiante: What types of animals live there?

me: None, actually! We live 800 miles away from the coast and Antarctica is technically a desert, so there is no food or water for animals. We have to melt ice for people to drink, and all our food comes on airplanes.

Charlotte: What is your favorite activity for fun?

me: I like dancing–we dance every weekend here!

Josh Wa.: When did you first go to Pole?

me: My first time was October of 2010. But the first person to ever get here was 100 years ago, a Norwegian named Roald Amundsen.

Celia: If you could, would you live there year round?

me: I want to spend a full year here sometime, and to see the winter and the 6 month night. I think it would be really cool. You can only be here for a year at a time though.

Charlie: Have you slept in a sleeping trench and have they ever caved in? (happy camper pictures)

me: I haven’t slept in a trench myself, but my friends have! No one has had theirs cave in, at least not this year.

Chloe: How many people live there?

me: In the summer (now) there are about 250 people–scientists and the people they need to support them, like me. In the winter, there are about 45 people.

Ella: Is it comfortable to wear all your snow gear?

me: It’s pretty bulky–it can be hard to get in and out of vehicles, go up stairs or work (like shoveling!) Lots of us bring our own jackets since they are more comfortable.

Connor: How long did it take to get there?

me: A few days– from Minneapolis we fly to New Zealand–about 20 hours of flights. From NZ to McMurdo is 5 hours, then to South Pole is 3 hours’ flight.

Sandy: What’s the biggest hill you’ve slid down?

me: Ob Hill in McMurdo is really tall, like a mini mountain! I climbed up that and slid down on my bottom. It was fun, and fast!

Grace K.: Is the bed you sleep on soft or hard?

me: Pretty soft, but sort of old. Like summer camp.

Tess: Do you get scared during the blizzards?

me: It can be sort of unnerving to not be able to see the station, but I have a radio on me so if I was ever lost I could call for help.

Kara: Is it hard to be out in the cold that long?

me: Yes, very. Working outside is a very challenging part of my job.

Alaysia: How do you break the ice?

me: Well, to get ships to McMurdo for food, they have a special ocean vessel called an icebreaker. For things on station, we use shovels and icepicks and other tools.

Zoe: Can you go skating there?

me: The ice we live on is like packed snow, so not really unfortunately.

Will: What kinds of food do you eat?

me: We eat normal food, like from a cafeteria–sometimes we get fresh vegetables, which is really exciting and we have a small greenhouse to grow our own veggies. But we have things like hamburgers and soup and cereal, or more exciting things sometimes, like Thai food.

Mitchell: Kiell, thank you for responding to our questions and spending time with us!

What about you? Do you have any questions for me?

Tagged: Antarctica, Home, Leonardo's Basement, Minnesota, Questions from Kids, School, South Pole

time to go

kiell — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 23:38:56 +0000

Yesterday at work, I was receiving and stocking housing materials including a box of 100 plastic footstools, and I couldn’t figure out how to reach the top shelf I needed to place them on.

The footstools.

That’s how I know it’s time to go.

I’ve been out sick for a few days, trying to get over an awful cold, but came out of my funk in time to see the South Pole International Film Festival (SPIFF) and partake in a few hot toddies. Have you seen the Antarctic Werner Herzog film Encounters at the End of the World? If you have, you should watch this film by Mikey of http://mikeygoingdown.tumblr.com/:

Hilarious.

Tagged: Antarctica, South Pole, South Pole International Film Festival, SPIFF, Werner Herzog

Why Do I Come Here?

kiell — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 17:49:04 +0000

Last month in anticipation of the centennial, Norwegian reporters roamed the station, trying to distill the South Pole Living Experience into a paragraph or two. While I was out inventorying the C-Berm, on my hands and knees in the ice, burrowing into snow drifts to count yellow-paint-peeling-in-the-sun CAT track grousers, one one of them approached me, wanted to ask me a few questions.

“Why do you come here?” he asked.

“Inventory?” I answered.

“No, like, why do you come here?”

At first I didn’t know, and I mumbled some half-assed speech about the people, about being with the people who come here, which he interpreted as, “So you like the night life?” …Well, not exactly, but I didn’t know how to explain it. He took my picture with a used 953 fuel tank and a box of bolts, and moved along.

But I’ve been thinking about the answer ever since.

I come here because of the interesting people, really. Not the night life, but to be with people who are living their lives however they want, and seeing whether they are happy with that, or not, and why.

Traveling, adventuring, falling in and out of love and getting frostbite and shoveling; biking a hundred miles a day in Maine and motorcycling across Southeast Asia, partying like maniacs in Brazil or Miami, and then driving their pickup truck all down South America through cities and jungles and drug lord territories, because they want to. Because they are here to study the cosmic microwave background and the birth of the universe and neutrinos and to capture the cleanest air in the world for science. Because people have little patchwork businesses at home that they sustain themselves with, carpentry and teaching yoga and fixing people’s cars; because people have been to every continent whether to fight in wars or to save people’s lives through volunteer medical work; because their kids are grown and they wanted to do something different.

I come here because it frames my whole life from a totally different perspective, because it makes me appreciate little things I can’t have, like baths and candles and grass and puppies, decent beer and coffee and a place to cook my own food, bodies of water and mountains and trees. It makes me appreciate things I don’t like, like a commute to and from work every day which is a time to be alone with my thoughts, and a time to separate my work life from my home life (rather than a few flights of stairs from my office to the galley where people ask me about work at breakfast, lunch, dinner and parties). It makes me appreciate my family and friends even more, because although the people here are living amazing lives and while I love some of them, I don’t choose them.

I come here because it gives me a chance to learn things in ways I couldn’t learn them at home; every little thing, like writing on a piece of paper, becomes a struggle of mittens and wind and cold, sluggish hands and paper like a kite. And because of more substantial hurdles, like trying to learn a language or playing a violin or running despite the altitude. Because I have the opportunity to defuel military planes and blow up buried buildings with dynamite and drive giant vehicles, things I might never fall into at home.

And, well, because it sounds interesting.

Even though sometimes while I’m here I question why I ever agreed to this insanity of a lifestyle, I came back this year because as soon as I left I missed Antarctica, and because when I thought I might not be able to come back because of the icebreaker situation this summer, I was devastated.

Because even though my lips are now so chapped and peeling that they feel like they’re growing hair, and even though my body is screaming for vegetables and warm sun and more sleep and long showers, I still want to be here, to be a part of this. I want to spend a winter here, to see the sun go down for six months and see the moon go up and stay down for two weeks at a time, to feel what 100 degrees below zero is like, to see the aurora australis in all of its shimmery splendor.

Why do I come here? I don’t exactly know, honestly. I came here in the first place because it fascinated me, and I came back because I liked it.

Tagged: Antarctica, Home, South Pole, Thoughts

“Great God! This is an Awful Place.”

kiell — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 17:42:48 +0000

Tuesday, a much quieter centennial than the one last month, we marked the 100 year anniversary of Robert Falcon Scott’s arrival here at South Pole. His team, a few days earlier having seen the first sure signs they were not the first to arrive at the Pole, came to the pole to discover a tent and a letter left by Amundsen over a month before.

What I find interesting about Scott’s expedition is the amount of energy they dedicated to scientific exploration—despite dwindling food and hope, they continued to drag with them geological samples: they died on the way home with rocks in their sleds in the name of science.

Tagged: Antarctica, Centennial, Robert Falcon Scott, South Pole

Being Here, Going Home

kiell — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 02:28:04 +0000

It’s been a whirlwind weekend, starting on Friday when a friend and I held a barn dance in the gym–not the best location for ambiance perhaps, but we thought since it was a work night it was best to have it on in the elevated station so station-dwelling folk would be more likely to attend. We did a grand march/snake dance through the galley, the science labs, the meteorology office and the lounges to try to recruit more dancers at the beginning (Ed the Fuelie Fiddler played Angeline the Baker and Yamina for us as we went, trailing behind and riling up spectators). We danced Od Lo Ahavti Dai, Savila Sa Bela Losa, Dudlebska Polka, Machar, Miserlou, Margaret’s Waltz, Pata Pata and a new dance I want to teach everyone, called Slap Leather (think cowboy boots), mostly to live music. We polka’d, waltzed and two stepped until the altitude caught our breath and it was time to go, and we mopped up the spilt beer and washed the accumulated gym dirt off our bare feet around 11 at night.

The following photo is from Daniel’s coworker, SysAdmin Carla Appel, whose blog is at http://carlaappel.blogspot.com/.

It was a sweet and powerful highlight of my season so far, and it made me feel happy to be here but so, so homesick at the same time.

Last night was the carp shop party, held in the carpentry jamesway, and we danced and stood around the wood-burning grill, trying to avoid the wicked wind, warming our hands and beverages and singeing our hair. In Antarctica, you need a beer koozy to keep your beer from freezing and to protect your hands. There were yard games like bocce ball and washers, and a cute little photo booth that the carpenters built, attached to the side of the jamesway. As we walked home, only a short distance, I think I might have gotten a bit of frostnip from the wind, which was dumb. Lesson learned: always wear a hat.

Unrelated, earlier this week we attended our redeployment meetings. Daniel and I are both set to leave South Pole on February 9th. We haven’t decided what we’re going to do, but the options for travel are more limited that they have been in past years. We can have a free layover in Honolulu or LA, or pay $100 each plus a visa for a layover in Sydney. There is no option for travel credit (putting the cost of your ticket towards a different ticket) which is what we did last year when we flew to Cape Town, which is too bad. We have discussed taking a side trip to visit Thailand again, or maybe some travel in Australia, but then we’ll go home. In the spring, we’re hoping to get back to Scandinavia, Iceland, Finland, Denmark and Norway if possible. And then, if we still have any money, we’ll travel in the US until it’s time for Family Camp in June and work in July.

We’ll see what happens after that, but we still don’t have a solid idea of what hiring will be like for next year. We’re getting little bits of information here and there, and we know that there are a lot of subcontractors to Lockheed so we will be applying with different companies. We do want to come back if it’s possible. What was just a one year lark of an idea seems to be becoming a little career… I like the change twice a year, as much as I miss home. I don’t expect we’ll do this forever, but it’s working for us now.

Tagged: Antarctica, Barn Dance, Dancing, Fiddle, Folk Music, Polka, South Pole, Waltz

Does this mean we’re in space?

kiell — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 17:43:32 +0000

Whoa…check out the physiological/barometric altitude (and the “temperature,” for that matter).

About those snow boulders from the last post… they were put there by Fleet Ops night shift (I think): they have to have been placed by loaders. Either that or aliens.

And when they get cleared, they get spread out downwind of station in the sector known as the End of the World. Snow gets bulldozed all season, piled up in all sorts of places, dumped into a big metal vessel called White Trash, and dumped where it won’t blow back. This is a never-ending process; Fleet Ops is here plowing all summer season long. I can hear them right now. Last week there were no less than four loud, geriatric tracked loaders clattering and rumbling and shivering outside my canvas wall as I tried to go to sleep one night. It’s hard here because the work has to be done, loud as it is, and there are people sleeping in shifts around the clock, both on station and in summer camp. But the boulders were just for fun!

Tagged: Antarctica, Ice, South Pole, Weather

Strange Ice

kiell — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 17:30:05 +0000

These weird stacked snow boulders appeared out by the RF satellite buildings over a grave shift one night.

They were big.

Almost big enough to hide a loader, but not quite.

I can still see you.

Tagged: Antarctica, Art, CAT equipment, Ice, Photography, Photos, snow, South Pole, Tracked Loader

And the winner is…

kiell — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 02:34:56 +0000

For our 10,000-reader hit giveaway, the winner is (drumroll…)

Kurt from Connecticut! (sorry about the crappy pictures, and that I haven’t showered for five days–it’s a harsh continent!) Kurt, send us your address at kiellanddaniel@gmail.com, and we’ll get your box in the mail. It may take a while; we’ve passed the airmail deadline by just a hot minute so I think it will go by sea vessel.

Congratulations, Kurt, and THANK YOU so much to everyone who reads this blog, it’s fun to share this experience with you all.

In other news, Daniel is the South Pole Scrabble Champion! He won a very, very close game against Mikey of http://mikeygoingdown.tumblr.com/ (this is an awesome blog–check it out). And, improving my 4th place score in the South Pole Spelling Bee from last year, I made second place in an equally close Bee this year. Hooray!

Stay tuned for the Barn Dance… a friend and I are planning a live music-ing, line-dancing, polka-ing extravaganza this Friday night (keep in mind, this is a work night for us, but all the Saturdays were claimed by other events that we couldn’t compete with)! We will teach and call line dances, polkas and waltzes, and it’s going to be awesome.

Tagged: Antarctica, Giveaway, Prize, Scrabble, South Pole, Spelling Bee

get your folk on.

kiell — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 17:44:42 +0000

LIKE

SADIE HAWKINS

but without

the

AWKWARD,

PLUS YOU CAN DRINK BEER.

SOUTH POLE BARN DANCE

Friday January 13, 8-10 pm

Tagged: Antarctica, Barn Dance, Dance, South Pole

South Pole Stuff Giveaway in Honor of a Momentous Occasion!

kiell — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 17:37:58 +0000

I’ve been noticing in the last few months a lot more readers who I’ve never met, from all over the world, in addition to our wonderful friends and family. And just yesterday morning the blog made it to 10,000 reader hits since its birth in 2010! Now, that’s not huge in the world of blogging, but it is to me, and I want to thank you with a gift for reading, commenting, and following us.

Here’s the prize:

A sweet South Pole Station pint glass and an Amundsen-Scott centennial patch to make any article of clothing infinitely cooler.

Close ups:

There are two parts to entering the contest.

First, you can either

a) subscribe to kiellanddaniel by email or RSS (you can see a link for that in the sidebar to your right)

b) share a link to your favorite post or our homepage, http://kiellanddaniel.wordpress.com, on your facebook profile, twitter, your own blog, whatever

c) send us a postcard at

Kiell K. or Daniel L., RPSC

South Pole Station

PSC 468 Box 400

APO AP 96598

Second, comment on this post telling us what entry you did, your name, and where you’re from. You can enter whether we know you or not, and if you enter multiple ways let us know and we’ll put your name in again… And then you could win a package postmarked from the South Pole, Antarctica!

Deadline is four days from this post (Sunday morning Auckland time)…see you soon!