Working and Living at McMurdo Station

This past “summer” I spent four and a half months living and working at McMurdo Station, Antarctica! I worked as a food steward in the galley, which mostly included stocking food and feeding everyone who lived on station. McMurdo is the largest research station in Antarctica, and during the summer season it operates as a very small, weird town. There are dorms, gyms, bars, a store, a library, a radio station, and other things I did not picture existing in Antarctica. This post is mostly about everyday life at McMurdo.

The blue marker is Building 155, where I worked and lived, the green marker is Williams (Willy) Field, and the orange marker is Phoenix Field.

New Zealand

After landing in New Zealand in early October, I had some time to explore the Christchurch area. There was a storm in McMurdo, and they had to clear the airfield before any planes could land. We ended up being delayed for two weeks. Wow so unfortunate…

Beautiful hikes near Christchurch!

Learned to surf, watched a rugby game, and went to a completely empty beach!

The Christchurch Air Force Museum had the NZ1707 airplane, which was used during the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition in the 1950s. Imagine flying to Antarctica in that! We got our ECW (emergency cold weather) clothing from the Clothing Distribution Center, had our training sessions, and got our boarding pass!

Our flight got delayed again but that’s ok. We went in the Antarctic storm simulator instead.

Landing in Antarctica

We finally boarded the plane and landed in Antarctica! Much different plane than I am used to.

McMurdo Station looks a lot like an industrial town, which I actually thought was pretty cool. I especially like how the hospital looks (right picture).

I worked in Building 155, which is the center of McMurdo. This is also where my dorm was. Working in the galley had a lot of perks, specifically the unlimited access to food (and cookies). My friend Holly and I had an after-work challenge where we would drink an entire pitcher of Gatorade. Antarctica is the driest place in the world, so I think this was a healthy challenge. Some of the people who saw our sugar rush after would probably disagree.

Hobbies

I spent a lot of time in the gym training for the Antarctic marathon. Holly and I were also part of basketball club!

The band room was one of my favorite places on station. It was always super warm, and I usually brought hot chocolate. It was hidden in the Beverage Warehouse, which is the building in the left picture. My guitar skills got slightly less terrible.

The vinyl room was another spot I really enjoyed. There was a huge collection of old country records. My absolute favorite room on station was the radio room. I ended up spending a lot of time in there and even had my own show! I would play almost exclusively Reba McEntire, and sometimes I would play the same song multiple times in a row. I got many comments on this and surprisingly had some fans!

Holidays

For Halloween I dressed up as a mystery meat hot dog. I found the label in the galley! Thanksgiving was a lot of fun, and we had a huge feast. I don’t typically like Thanksgiving food but surprisingly enjoyed a lot of it!

There was even a Turkey Trot! We all ran as a group and crossed the finish line together. During the meal I was happy to see my origami turkey displayed.

Christmas was my favorite holiday on station. We made stockings, and my friend Sylvia and I had a country Christmas radio show.

All of the stewies on Christmas.

Lots of amazing dessert! We ended the night with the Polar Express and hot chocolate.

Willy Field

I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to work at Williams Field, commonly known as Willy Field, for a chunk of the season. This was a major highlight of my time in Antarctica. Willy Field is an airfield that sits on about 8ft of ice and 25ft of snow. I worked with Chef Christian (and Rachael for an hour before she left for the day), and we fed the military and workers there.

It felt like working in an apocalyptic diner!

One Willy secret was the airfield wifi. If you stood in certain spots, you could connect. Unfortunately, it only worked outside. As wifi at McMurdo was extremely limited, I occasionally had people visit me to leech off this secret connection (example with Holly in the left picture).

Willy had lots of mysteries, one of them being the microwave. It truly is superpowered. I was microwaving ramen one day and it practically exploded after 10 seconds.

The kitchen at Willy had amazing views of Mount Erebus, the southernmost active volcano on Earth. Christian almost always had the back door open so we had views all day. Definitely worth being slightly cold.

One of my favorite things at Willy was the super-secret stewie notebook. This is where we left notes for the stewies on other shifts.

The Antarctic isolation was definitely not making us crazy…

A bunch of US senators and important NSF people came to Willy one day! They were waiting for a flight, but it kept getting delayed. I ended up entertaining them for a while and had them sign the stewie notebook. Thankfully they didn’t flip through the notebook and read the previous entries. They might have been concerned for our sanity.

Casual ride to Willy. The drive is about 45 minutes from McMurdo.

Science and Stuff

While on station we had a lot of opportunities to interact with science/learn about the research going on down there. There were weekly lectures in the galley from different scientists about their research.

McMurdo museum day! We got to play the Oregon Trail on an ancient Mac, and learn about the history of the galley. Turns out not much has changed. We still use most of the exact same cookware from the 1950s, when McMurdo was founded. My friend Michelle and I did a deep dive and figured this out.

Competitions

Believe it or not there is a softball tournament! I was part of the galley team, Plain Chicken. We didn’t win, but we did pretty well. All that matters is there were plenty of hot dogs afterwards.

There was also a marathon! This was probably the hardest race I’ve ever done. The wind was brutal and the dry air made my lungs burn. It was a double out and back from Willy Field to Phoenix Field. I made some ramen afterwards at Willy and ate it on the way back to McMurdo.

My friend Kazner really wanted to do the 24-hour galley challenge. We both had Mondays off, and he convinced me to join him. The goal was to not leave the galley for 24 hours. Since the galley operates 24 hours a day, we had food and entertainment the entire time. He even brought his VR headset and had me try VR for the first time. The game he loaded was some shooting game and I was suddenly being violently shot at. We survived and our friend Katie made us medals.

Final Thoughts

McMurdo had much more of a social scene than I expected! There were lots of game nights, evenings spent trying to learn guitar, fun in the galley, games of tag in the galley freezers, and even social time in the sauna. In February, I landed back in Christchurch and my time in Antarctica was officially over. After being in 24-hour daylight with no plants or trees, being in Christchurch was quite odd! The darkness and smells of nature were super exciting.

Getting to live in Antarctica was a dream come true, especially after applying for multiple years. I met some amazing people who I hope to keep in touch with for a long time.