Nowadays, the Pole winterovers go to some sort of "ropes course" which involves lots of bonding and teamwork. And nowadays they have a couple weeks of serious firefighting and medical training that is just a bit more extensive than the 1-hour lecture we all had in the McMurdo firehouse. Here's the list of attendees which I received from Gary Bennett, who'd wintered at Palmer in 1975 and was returning to the ice to work at the RIGGS field camp.
And at right--another view behind the scenes in the H&N admin office. At left is Elaine Houser; next to her in the white shirt is Mike Pavlak, who'd be the admin coordinator in the Chalet in 1976-77 and later succeed me as Pole manager in 1978. Alas, Elaine and Mike are no longer with us. ![]() Hmmm. At left, there's Bill Vincent, who was to be our w/o cook. He opted not to winter, but he stayed around for the summer. Del Harper (left) our original comms coordinator who never made it south of McM (long story). ![]() Some of you may remember Andy. He didn't winter. In early October many of us ice folks headed south. Our flight was a military charter flight (a civilian airliner) that departed from Point Mugu, the Naval air base near Port Hueneme. After the long flight we ended up in Christchurch. | |
![]() A more distant view of the CDC (no, they didn't call it that then) looking west. ![]() Me and some of my fellow travelers on my flight just before we left Christchurch for McMurdo in October 1976. I'm second from left in the back row. No other (eventual) Pole w/o's in this group, but there are a few familiar faces...including Andy Banks (standing, far right) and Les Rohde (sitting, far right). To my right is Larry Duckett, the first civilian cook at Pole during the 1975 winter--he was one of our summer cooks (and a great resource of information about the station). |