Dressed in our cleanest wrinkled clothes, we made our way to the new station a quarter mile from camp. The easy walking made my legs uncertain and wobbly. For a month and a half, in soft snow, I’d been compensating in advance for a fall I expected with each step. Now with firm snow beneath my feet, I still compensated in advance. Phantom pressures in the small of my back mimicked tractor vibrations. My brain surged forward looking for more trail to bust.
Across the snow-packed spacious campus, I passed over my tunnel and wondered what shape it was in now. The blue cargo office to my left had been located somewhere else a few years ago. To my right, stacks of refrigeratorsized cardboard boxes full of construction debris lay in long, neatly arranged rows. Future traverses would probably haul them back to McMurdo. The famous geodesic dome covering the 1970s station hadn’t been torn down yet. It lay up ahead, nearly hidden by snowdrifts, and dwarfed by the immense elevated station.
The new two-and-a-half-story structure perched fifteen feet above the snow on massive steel pedestals. A temporary exterior wooden staircase led from the ground level to the first floor. Inside, other floors led to other stairs and down long hallways. Ultimately all paths led to the galley.
The galley was a high-ceilinged, airy room. Dining tables crossed its egalitarian space. Broad picture windows graced the long wall on the room’s upwind side. From the sheltered comforts of the plush galley, one looked directly down on the Pole monument, planted at exactly 90 degrees South. The long wall opposite the picture windows held the buffet line where the galley staff laid out wonderful meals.
Our crew drifted into the galley on their own schedules and spread out to different seating. I found Scotty Jackson, my hometown neighbor who’d placed the welcome sign on the station’s outskirts. Scotty was a bit older than me, my height, and wore a long black ponytail. He’d been a sheriff’s deputy in my hometown for a number of years. Scotty was always calm in a crisis. I was about to confide my reactions to his sign when Megan Whitmore, a heavy equipment operator, joined us.
Megan was the first Antarctican I ever met. In 1993, I stepped off the plane at Denver’s Stapleton Airport and wandered to a designated rendezvous prescribed to new hires. Finding no signage, no sign of anything that spoke of Antarctica to me, my eyes fell upon a diminutive female sporting a thick, auburn braid. She wore a combination of hiking and traveling clothes, and sat on a duffle bag. A backpack sat on the ground beside her. I had a duffle bag, too. Taking the chance, I asked, “Antarctica?”
She answered simply, “Yep.”
When Megan joined us this evening, our dinner conversation turned to things new at Pole. A person could now get off the airplane, brave the cold walk to the new station, take up quarters, change into a t-shirt and jeans, and spend their entire season in its warm confines. Such wasn’t the life chosen by most of the Polies, though. Scotty’s job with cargo and Megan’s job with heavy equipment required outside work. But the simple fact that one could come to Pole now and never venture outside portended a lifestyle change, a cushy environment for administrators and their ilk. Their numbers would grow.
After dinner, Scotty had business to attend to. So I asked Megan if she’d tour me around the elevated station, killing time before the evening’s lecture.
Megan led me out of the galley and graciously walked me around the new building. On the galley level and down a central hallway she showed me a large community room equipped with a dozen personal computer stations. Farther down the hall we found a designated music room that had been commandeered as a smoker’s room. Somewhere through what had become a maze of hallways and stairs, we entered a spacious gymnasium, equipped for half-court basketball. In another wing of the station, Megan led me through a high-ceilinged lounge, down another hallway, and into a dormitory section. Here she showed me her room. Like every other space in this new station, her room had a window … so different from the dark, windowless spaces of the older navy constructions. Megan’s room had a telephone and a personal computer line.
For all the luxuries she showed me, what struck me most was not the contrast of today’s conveniences to the dearth of them in days past. The legendary hardships of the earliest explorers to reach here, less than a century ago, belonged to another age. Nor was the contrast with the tamer life in the Jamesway Summer Camp particularly stark. We had seen this coming. Rather, the sheer volume of materials and supplies that went into building and furnishing this massive station, the realization that every bit of it had been flown in by LC-130 aircraft, awed me by the logistical audacity of it. Our proof-of-concept delivery was puny by comparison.
Megan led back to the galley where we parted company, she to find a seat and I to find Scotty-Bob Smith, captain of the South Pole plumbers. The large room was already filling up with people. At the far end of the room, recessed into the back wall, a saloon provided standing room for numbers of people. Along the sidewall, where the buffet line ran, folks took standing room there, too. Our crew sat scattered about the room, and I was glad they were there. I needed their support.
Scotty-Bob approached me, extending his hand in greeting. This was the first time we’d run into each other since our arrival. During the off season he and Jerry Marty hinted that an evening lecture on the traverse would be welcome, if we got to South Pole. I gave Scotty-Bob a disc then, containing a slide show covering the first three years of our project. He’d carry it to Pole by plane and set up the projection and audio systems in advance. In exchange, he gave me a shoebox to deliver back to him.
“This is the largest crowd we’ve ever seen, for any lecture.” Scotty-Bob beamed through his whiskers. The smiling plumber was always up-beat, volunteering his time boosting station morale. “The community is really, really interested in your traverse.”
“Well, it’s all of ours, but we’ve a good story to tell, and some neat pictures to show. Do we have a way of blocking the light coming through the windows?” I asked. It was 7:30 at night on December 23rd at South Pole. Broad daylight streamed into the room.
“Yep. We’ll get the blinds drawn.”
After a thoughtful introduction from B. K. welcoming us once again to the station, I found the energy to turn on.
“Thank you, B. K. And thanks to all of you who have welcomed us to your holiday celebrations.” I gazed around the full room. “We’ve been four years getting here. Tonight, let me tell you what that was like. Let me show you where we’ve been.”
Entertaining pictures of mule trains, camel caravans, and ship convoys couched our project in the context of hauling cargo over trackless wastes. Text slides described our mission as “proof-of-concept,” and introduced the idea of matching machine mobility to the peculiarities of the Antarctic terrain. Turning from concepts to progress, pictures showed finding and filling crevasses at the Shear Zone in Year One, slogging through the Ross Ice Shelf swamp in Year Two, and winning our way across the Shoals only to be turned around at the top of the Leverett in Year Three. Interspersed maps depicted our advancing route to Pole. Missing, however, were any pictures of our Plateau crossing.
I described what happened along the trail this year, and what we found for terrain between the top of the Leverett and Pole. They learned of Sastrugi National Park, and the Plateau swamp outside their back door. When I described adjusting to loss of tractors and the mind-numbing shuttling, trail weariness settled over me again.
One astute young man asked, “What efficiencies does the traverse offer over LC-130s?”
“That, of course, is the big question we hope to answer. Unfortunately, we can’t answer it yet, because we haven’t finished. Early feasibility studies suggested traversing could deliver twice the payload for the same fuel consumption as an LC-130. I’ve steadfastly refused revising those early conclusions, because we don’t have solid data yet. But I don’t see any reason why that projected performance, or better, shouldn’t hold. Understand, this proof-of-concept project spent a lot of time finding the way here and breaking trail. Future traverses won’t have to do that. We’ve not just been pointing our tractors south, and we’ve yet to make a real snow road out of this trail we have found.”
The young man may have been asking about cost as well. I added, “As for dollar efficiencies, based on our lessons learned from this project we’ll get a handle on the operating costs. Likewise we’ll design the future traverse fleet. All that must wait until we’re done. As far as capital costs, three seven-tractor fleets complete with sleds might cost $25 million. One new LC-130 might cost $80 million. So the capital outlay encourages us to look at traversing.
“We’re not sure that three traverse fleets based out of McMurdo are the best way to go. It may be that a single plateau fleet housed at Pole and a single ice shelf fleet based at McMurdo is a better way. That’s about the best I can offer you now. If you like, I’d be happy discuss your very good question further. Why don’t you catch me at one of your meals here?”
The bright young man accepted my invitation, and in the days to come we would have that discussion.
“Is there another question?”
A few followed, and I met each with the best answer I could. But the last question struck an emotional chord: “Did you ever doubt you’d make it here?”
I stared pensively at the floor, replaying all the days from the beginning when NSF announced its full support for traverse development. When had there not been doubt?
With a deep sigh, I looked up. “There is always a way. We didn’t necessarily know what that way was. But if you’re willing to invest the time and the money, then you will find the way. For us, it has never been easy. Not with time. Not with money. Not with terrain. Our route was mostly unexplored until we explored it. And plan though we might, we never knew what we were getting into until we got there. In October of this year, still at McMurdo, it was a question: could we make it? It is a question no more. We are here.”
The community as one gave a prolonged, warming round of applause.
I added a post script: “We have brought 218,000 pounds of Christmas gifts to you, and we look forward to officially delivering those. Tonight we are proud to make our first delivery. Would Scotty-Bob please come to the front?”
Scotty-Bob worked his way around the tables and chairs and folks standing in the aisles. Looking beyond him to the audience, I announced with all the drama I could muster: “Ladies and gentlemen, the South Pole Traverse Proof-of-Concept Project proudly makes its first delivery.” I held aloft a cardboard shoebox for all to see, a box Scotty-Bob recognized.
“The mail!” I cried. The box contained several hundred commemorative envelopes, stamped and cacheted “Delivered via Surface Traverse from Mc-Murdo to South Pole.”
Scotty-Bob accepted the prize to deafening renewed applause. He and Jerry Marty later distributed those decorated envelopes to every person at South Pole Station.
I closed by introducing our crew by name, one at a time. From scattered locations around the room, each stood and acknowledged the community with a smile and a wave. We invited the community to come by our digs downwind of Summer Camp.
“Consider it open house, and you’re invited. If you’ve any more questions, do not hesitate to ask any member of this fine crew. They’ll have better and more interesting answers than I. For now, I’m talked out. Thank you for having us as your guests.”
Over Christmas Eve and Christmas we mixed happily with the Polies. Our open house found many takers at all hours. One evening Scotty Jackson dropped by with a bottle of Irish whiskey and shared it to the bottom with those who happened to be around. Another night a carpenter’s helper from New Hampshire serenaded us with a medley of her old-time banjo music.
Polies, equally proud of their facilities, guided us through their changing environs: the new elevated station, the new power plant, and the old station under the dome. Scotty Jackson toured me, Judy, and Greg through the tunnel network we’d dug under the station several years before.
I found Scotty on Christmas Eve at breakfast and asked if he’d like to join me in Fritzy. I needed to retrieve the sleds still back at the hold-back line. He was all for it. We’d meet at his cargo office in an hour. But Brad, who happened to be eating breakfast with us asked, “How’d you like me to bring in the milvan sled?”
“Brad, you don’t have to do anything today unless you want to. Scotty and I can get it.”
Brad said, “Well, I was sort of thinking I’d go out there in Red Rider …”
“Gotcha, Brad. Scotty and I won’t be out there for a while. You two have a good time and enjoy the views.”
“Thanks.” Brad left right away.
After dawdling over late coffee and rolls in the galley, I rendezvoused with Scotty and we strolled to the traverse camp.
“I missed seeing you when we came in. But I got to tell you, that sign you left in the berms … I completely lost it. I mean, I’ve been consumed with this traverse every minute of every day on the trail. I lay awake at night imagining what might happen, wondering what I’ve missed that might get somebody hurt. When we pulled into the station and I saw your sign … that was the first time it all got to me. I broke down.”
“I know how you feel, John,” Scotty confessed. “Sorry I couldn’t be there either. But when I put up that sign … I got all choked up, too.”
“Then I’m glad you weren’t there! ’Cause then everybody at Pole would have seen two grown men bawling their eyes out!”
We rounded the corner of the Summer Camp Jamesway lounge into a full view of our parked fleet. Red Rider was back. The milvan sled was parked next to our two tank sleds. Above the living module, our hometown Stars and Stripes stretched out atop our flagpole. At the same time, we both noticed there was no wind. Yet our flag posed stiffly unfurled atop the pole, against a clear blue sky.
“Imagine that,” Scotty laughed. It was frozen.
“Scotty, you ever run a Challenger tractor?” I asked, approaching Fritzy.
“Not yet.”
“Well, walk around it with me and I’ll show you the check out. I’ll take her out to the hold-back line. You can sit beside me in the helper seat.”
Fritzy’s engine temperature rose quickly to 100 degrees Celsius after starting. It was a warm day by Pole standards. We drove back out toward Marisat and turned right to cross the skiway. Since no airplanes came on Christmas Eve, we crossed unannounced. Then passing the flat rack sled, we pulled up to the five black panels and climbed out onto the snow.
“Scotty, these panels were our target coming into Pole. Take a look out there to the north, along our tracks. Can you see the green flags to the right of them?”
Scotty squinted a moment, then exclaimed: “Oh, yeah! I see them.”
“Standing here, and looking out there, I want you to understand. Starting at these black panels, a continuous line of green flags, planted no more than one quarter mile apart, leads all the way back to McMurdo, all 1,028 miles. You want to walk back to McMurdo? Those green flags lead the way.”
Scotty got it. He’d been working when I gave my lecture. So I told him of the terrain we encountered from the top of the Leverett, about the extent of the Plateau swamp, and about shuttling our loads. We had just one more load to shuttle. The flat rack sled.
“How about you run Fritzy and bring the last load, the last mile into the station?”
On Christmas Eve, at the second of three seatings, we joined in the station’s all-out dinner. The galley staff and a host of generous volunteers put on a culinary tour de force that would win raves from any gourmet. B. K. wore a black sleeveless dress, which was a killer combination for the slender, long-haired blond. She met us entering the room, and escorted us to a long table in the middle. Behind us sat a table from cargo. To their side sat fuels workers, fuelies. All these people worked hard with one another, day in and day out, and they still wanted to sit down to a holiday meal together.
We rose in orderly rounds to the buffet line. I halted before the meat selections. A long-standing promise to me had been kept. “Cookie” John, who’d been the head chef at South Pole for a number of years, promised me two years ago that he’d prepare a special meal for the traverse on our arrival, whenever that may be. Cookie asked me what I wanted. Without hesitation, I answered: beef wellington.
But Cookie John quit the Pole job six months ago. The day he walked out of the Denver office, he dropped by my cubicle to say so-long. He’d pass on my request, he’d said. Today, I stood before beef wellington in the buffet line, and softly spoke my thanks to Cookie John.
Jerry Marty caught up with us toward the end of the banquet and asked for assistance from the veterans among us. Pole tradition held that on Christmas Day a big Mantis crane moved out to the Pole marker, raised its boom to full extent, and hoisted the Stars and Stripes and the POW-MIA flags on its cable. Service veterans at Pole traditionally presided over that ceremony. Stretch, a Vietnam vet; Russ, who served in Korea; and Greg, our Iraqi Freedom marine, found Jerry later that evening. The next morning at breakfast we saw their handiwork through the galley windows.
After Christmas Day breakfast we entered our tractors in Pole’s annual “Round the World Race.” This was a colorful event in which runners, walkers, sledders, and skiers in zany costumes locomoted by their chosen means around the Pole monument. Three laps made a two and a half mile course. Mechanized entrants, such as our tractors and all manner of whimsical contraptions, took their laps outside the runners.
Liesl Schernthanner organized the start with the foot racers gathered around her. The ponytailed skier from Ketchum, Idaho pointed her megaphone over them. The contestants may have heard her instructions, but the hundred or so entrants were more interested in laughing and socializing. Liesl herself was seldom seen without a smile
I parked Fritzy to the side with the engine off and the side door open, listening as best I could. Liesl raised a starter’s pistol into the air, the unmistakable signal the race was about to begin. Runners and walkers faced the starting line. The snow absorbed all the bang out of the shot. Liesl’s gun poofed instead. The runners lurched forward with a cheer.
Fritzy crawled ahead. Dave Watson, a big lumbering miner who’d finished the tunnel with me and stayed on at Pole as a heavy equipment operator, rode with me. Judy ran behind me in the Elephant Man with a gang of joy riders. Brad brought Red Rider behind Judy. Somewhere in the crowd, John V. piloted the PistenBully, pulling a sled-load of Polies on a long rope tether. Tom and Greg both chose to run their laps with the ground-pounders. Stretch and Russ walked their laps.
In the chaotic fun that followed, the Round the World Race resembled more a comical scene from Mad Max. A fellow on the inside track took his laps on drywaller’s stilts. Earnest skiers and joggers weaved around him. A tractor passed us on the outside dragging a lounge couch on a makeshift sled. Aboard the couch, half a dozen beer-swilling partygoers laughed and waved to everyone they passed.
“Here come the plumbers!” Dave called out when a snowmobile pulling a sled load of toilets passed us. A well-bundled body sat on each toilet seat, and each mittened hand held a shiny beer can.
We passed Greg and Tom, slowing our pace to match theirs, honking encouragement with Fritzy’s snow-muffled beep-beep-beep.
Checkers with clipboards kept track of each entrant’s laps. The race took an hour to complete. Every face glowed with smiles and laughter the entire time. At the race’s end, all participants gathered in the spacious galley for cocoa and cookies.
December 26 was back to work for us, as for all the South Pole community. After another fine breakfast with them, we gathered in our own galley to divide our jobs for the day.
Russ and John V. would spend the next two days turning over with the Pole mechanics. Pole needed to know all about the D8 and the MT865 and what we did to repair Snow White. Jason explained Pole was shorthanded on mechanics, so Russ and John could help them out on their own projects.
“While you’re both around the shop, please locate the spare parts for Quadzilla. We’ll back-load them tomorrow.”
“Roger that,” Russ agreed.
Today, Stretch and Judy would move the bulldozer and the MT where Jason wanted them. Then they’d take Red Rider and a station loader to demonstrate the use of Snow White. Pole annually gathered drift snow from around the station and dozed it into enormous piles, some forty feet high. They pushed those piles well downwind of the station to get rid of the drift snow. These days, their push stretched to a half mile. That’s why the USAP designed and built Snow White in the first place. That’s why we brought it to them: to haul snow rather than push it. Stretch and Judy would finish their day hauling snow for Jason.
“Brad, you and Greg are with me. We’re going to meet some folks from Cargo and off-load the Flat Rack while they officially receive the stuff. If you don’t mind, Brad, start up Fritzy. I’ll be along shortly. Tom, hang back a bit. I’ve got a couple assignments for you I need to explain.”
To everybody I announced, “Meet back here at 1:00 p.m. We’ll gather up our tractors, take them to the Pole marker, and stand for the picture. Jerry Marty will make the ceremonial welcome. The National Geographic photographer will be there. Scotty Jackson will bring his camera, too. Plan your day around it. Otherwise, that’s all. Let’s go.”
Tom and I stayed back. As our mountaineer, Tom was our first-line emergency medical caregiver. I asked Tom to find out all he could about the medical facilities at Pole, and about their procedures for a medevac. I didn’t know what they were, but wanted that knowledge traveling with us.
“Anybody here you can to point me to, where I might start?” he asked.
“The station Doc, or B. K., or Liesl. But as far as I’m concerned, you’re on your own and you can go with this wherever you want. Let me know what new knowledge you come up with.”
“Okay. In a medevac, don’t most folks get flown out to McMurdo?”
“Yes, of course. But in a couple of days we’ll be down the trail. My sense is as long as we’re on the Plateau, any medevac will go first to Pole by Twin Otter, and then to McMurdo by LC-130. But picture us with an emergency in Sastrugi National Park.”
I shared my concern that a fixed-wing aircraft couldn’t find a safe landing in that region. As for preparing a landing surface in the rough stuff, our return traverse would be ill-equipped. We’d have only one twelve-foot blade on Red Rider and no D8.
“Maybe a Twin Otter pilot can give me some wisdom. What was the other assignment?”
“For some reason we don’t have two-way VHF comms with South Pole.”
That had been an unpleasant surprise … a two-year-old plan, then finding out we couldn’t talk to each other. I’d be occupied off-loading cargo. I needed Tom to get to the bottom of it and fix it. Two-way VHF comms with Pole was essential to our mission safety.
“I’ll start with South Pole Comms.” Tom took on the job. “Brad’s lady friend is on duty now. She may help.”
At 1:00 p.m. we stood by our tractors at the Pole monument. There were actually two monuments at Pole. The ceremonial monument looked like the cartoon barber pole surrounded by flags of the Antarctic Treaty Nations. Nearby the geographical monument was a small, decorative brass cap, set on a slender metal pole planted upright in the snow. Next to it, a sign proclaimed: “Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, 90° South.” We gathered at 90 degrees South. Downwind, the station edifices dwarfed us. Upwind, the plateau snows looked more familiar.
Jerry Marty spoke the official words of welcome for NSF. We took turns displaying our flags: the Silverton American Legion Post 14 flag, of course, then Greg’s U.S. Marines Corps flag, and finally a surprise flag. From my parka’s pocket I pulled out the Canadian Maple Leaf. Master sled-maker Herb Setz of Peace River, Alberta, sent it to me at my request. Herb made all our sleds and was deeply involved in our redesign as we sought to build the ideal fleet. He’d be pleased to get it back.
The photo session broke up. I quietly asked Jerry if we could meet the following morning. The risks associated with our return traverse, and how they might impact South Pole Station, needed to be well understood.
“Risks?”
“Yeah. We were nineteen days crossing the Plateau. If our return with three tractors is as rough as it was getting here with four—if anything goes wrong—you might be seeing more of us.”
Jerry checked his book. “Tomorrow at 0930? Cheese Palace?”
Jerry Marty’s office at South Pole Station was a heavily insulated, plywood building located close to Summer Camp. Jerry was a Green Bay Packers fan, a Cheese-Head. His digs had become known as the “Cheese Palace.”
Jerry’s Cheese Palace sat next to the fuel pits. On my way over, I checked the tank sled we’d positioned there. It’d not yet been filled. I entered Jerry’s place and found B. K. and Jason there with Jerry. The Geographic photographer was also there with his big camera. They were all seated at a long plywood table bolted to the office sidewall. Overhead lights reflected yellow off the unfinished plywood into the room. It was warm inside. I took off my parka and tossed it onto the pile of parkas shed by the others.
“I hope you don’t mind that Geographic is here,” Jerry remarked after the good-mornings went around. “We’re collecting footage for an NSF film we want to release for the International Polar Year. It’s a couple of years out. Your traverse is of interest for that.”
I greeted the Geographic photographer separately, then I turned back to Jerry. “I don’t mind. But you might mind. I’m going to acquaint you with some of our weaknesses … you might not want weaknesses on film. And I don’t want to mince words for the sake of a camera.”
Jerry concurred. The camera would stay off for now. “What do you have for us, John?”
“The first thing is right outside your door: our fuel tank sled. There’s a couple hundred gallons left in it. To fill it to capacity, we might need 2,500 to 3,000 gallons. If you can spare that much, naturally we’ll be grateful. If less, we need to know how much you actually do put in.”
Jason said, “We’ll fill it. I’ll get the fuelies to attend to that this morning.”
“Thank you. Aside from fuel, if things go bad for us that could also impact your operations here. You know that we hoped to come into Pole with six tractors and leave with four. Instead we came in with four tractors and a cripple. We’ll be leaving with three. Our fourth tractor is broke down on the Leverett. So even though we’re dropping a lot of weight here, three tractors going back will still be loaded heavy. If one of them breaks down, the two remaining ones won’t have a prayer of completing the Plateau crossing. And if that happens, we’d come back to Pole. That means wintering the fleet here, and the attendant drain on your resources.”
“Understood. Anything else?” Jerry showed no particular expression.
“If our road-building effort across the swamp doesn’t hold up for our return, then we’d certainly be forced again into shuttling. In that event, a return to South Pole for even more supplemental fuel is likely.”
“Is there another?” Jerry asked.
The catastrophic loss of one fuel tank sled, or its contents, on the Plateau section could again force our return to South Pole. We’d not seen such a loss yet, but we could make no guarantees for getting back across the sastrugi without damage. None of us, none among my crew and none at South Pole Station, wanted to see the traverse limping back to the station. Our nearest source of cached fuel lay at the base of the Leverett Glacier, 370 miles away.
“What do you hope for, John? That is, what are your chances?” B. K. asked.
“If we can get near that depot,” I answered, “then we’re home free. Any unexpected support we might need after that would come from McMurdo.”
Jerry opened his notebook, speaking aloud as he wrote. “Nearest fuel at Leverett base, 370 miles.”
“I’ll tell you what,” I offered. “We’re leaving tomorrow. I hope you won’t hear from me with troubles on the trail. But when we do get to the Leverett, I’ll drop you a line to say all is well.”
“That’s what we’ll hope to hear, then,” Jerry offered. “Anything else?”
“Jason, what do you say to topping off our tractors’ tanks at the end of shift today? You know we’ve been using them around the station quite a bit. It shouldn’t amount to too much.”
“We can do that, John.”
“That’s most generous. Thank you, once again.”
Our discussions now concluded, we re-created the meeting for Geographic.
The afternoon saw most of our crew at Summer Camp back-loading for the return traverse. I sat at the comms booth in the living module, finishing up Field Report #6, when our radio squawked.
“South Pole Traverse, South Pole Traverse, this is South Pole Comms.”
It was an unfamiliar male voice. Apparently, Tom had solved our comms problems.
“Go ahead South Pole Comms, this is South Pole Traverse,” I responded.
“South Pole Traverse, I need Magsig, Vaitonis, Van Vlack, and Wright to come to the South Pole Comms office immediately and sign some papers.”
We’d just come from lunch in that same big building. Now we were back at work.
Magsig, Vaitonis, Van Vlack … the papers Dave brought out on the Twin Otter? Naw, can’t be … and now me?
“Is this a joke?” I asked earnestly over the radio, while looking out the comms booth window. Stretch was craning gear into the flat rack. Russ and John V. were probably in the heavy equipment shop.
The voice came back: “I assure you this is no joke. Please send your men right away.”
Looking queerly at the microphone, I asked back, “Right. Who is this?”
The voice gave a name I do not remember, then added: “I am the contractor’s human resources representative for South Pole Station.”
Enough! “And we are four, and scattered about your station. You are one. You may bring these papers to our camp yourself. Traverse clear.”
I turned off the radio, now that it was working.
The papers arrived later that afternoon, brought by our friend Jason. They were identical to those we’d signed on the Ross Ice Shelf. The three signers had not initialed each page of the document.
Jason also brought a single page for me to sign. It was the last page of a document titled “Pre-Season Performance Expectations.” That document normally contained several pages. The one page contained no text, no discussion, no expectations, no space to initial … just a line to sign and date.