New Zealand Program : Class on Ice: Surviving in the Antarctic

Every year a group of people gathers in the winter snow of New Zealand’s Southern Alps where, like a species of migrating birds, they get ready to fly south for the Antarctic summer.

The men and women, some fit, some fat, range from post office clerks to mountaineers, academics to drill riggers. They all want to live and work in the Antarctic--the most isolated, coldest, windiest, driest continent on earth.

Some are novices. Others have had years of experience in “going down to the ice.”

To get there, they have to pass an Antarctic survival training course run by the New Zealand Antarctic Research Program (NZARP).

Learning to Survive

The program is an eight-day mix of lectures and practical work aimed at ensuring that the trainees can cope with basic dangers on the ice-bound southern continent.

“This is the place where we try to replace the glamour of the concept of going down to the ice with a small taste of the reality of it,” said Bob Thomson, head of the Antarctic division of New Zealand’s Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR). “It’s the last chance we have to weed out obvious misfits, and the final opportunity for those who have been selected to decide they don’t want to go.”

Two people have died in the 29 years of New Zealand operations on the ice. One was crushed in a vehicle accident and another fell through the ice and drowned.

Spartan, Snowbound Camp

This year, Thomson year brought about 200 people to a spartan, snowbound army camp in the high Mackenzie Basin in New Zealand’s main mountain region.

They crawled on their hands and knees through rooms filled with dense smoke, slept in snow caves and learned such skills as climbing out of crevasses.

The Americans take more than a thousand scientists and support staff down to their main base at McMurdo Sound every summer and forbid many to leave the immediate confines of the base.

But the smaller New Zealand program tries to make its kitchen staff almost as self-sufficient as its field parties.

Fires a Big Danger

Everyone who stays at New Zealand’s Scott Base is expected to help with the chores and duties.

At Lake Tekapo they get their first taste of “mouse” duties--washing dishes, scrubbing floors, and making vital half-hourly patrols through the night to guard against fire, oddly the Antarctic’s biggest danger.

A fire at a major base camp or in a tent can leave people suddenly homeless in an environment in which they were never meant to live. During the training course its dangers are stressed more than the perils of the snow and ice.

One of the main aims of the course is to show recruits that snow can be a life-saver too.

Igloos Built

Helicoptered to a mountain top in a howling wind and driving sleet, the trainees found they could quickly build igloos by piling snow into a mound that they then hollow out. The igloos keep out wind and weather better than a tent.

“This place (Lake Tekapo) is probably as close to being in the Antarctic as anywhere in New Zealand and while some of the people here are experts already, others have never seen snow and ice in their lives,” Thomson said.

But the biggest problem for some recruits will simply be how to live with people they have met for the first time in an artificial and restricted environment where they can be cut off from families and friends for up to a year.

Enormous Stress

Tony Taylor, professor of clinical psychology at Wellington’s Victoria University, has screened members of New Zealand’s Antarctic program for 21 years and is about to publish a book on the enormous mental stresses that can affect people spending long periods on the ice.

Every year he tests candidates, especially those picked to spend the whole winter cut off from the outside world.

“This gives people a chance to see how they react to stress, to see if they are going to be compatible with the others and can build a team,” said Taylor. “It doesn’t guarantee there won’t be problems, but it helps.”