T at the Bottom of the World: Antarctica: Day 57

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Day 57 - December 6th '11

December 6^th – Day 57

My friend Joe is a Scott Hut tour guide. He has a key so that he can show people inside to the past. 100 years of history in one small building. It’s a 1 mile roundtrip walk

The hut was amazing. It was originally a prefab building designed in Australia to keep the interior cooler inside than the searing heat of the Outback. Unfortunately for Scott, it worked all too well exactly like that. It kept the inside even colder than the outside. When in Antarctica, that’s not a good thing.

I was in awe that I was looking at things from a period of time that had been written about, studied, journaled and immortalized in history.

There was a mummified seal that has laid outside the hut for over 100 years, intended for food and fuel for fire. Inside there were remains of a seal carcass on a makeshift hearth. Sheep/mutton carcasses to be thrown to the dogs in the yard, still hung in the attached shed. Pants still hung to dry; boxes of dog biscuits and cans of food sat stacked and shelved throughout. At one point during a winter spent in Antarctica, snow had filled most of the hut from an open window. When the explorers made it to the hut, they only dug out a space big enough for the three of them and the hearth. They practically starved to death except for an occasional seal or penguin, while all the while, canned food were stacked 2 feet behind them buried in snow.

The walls were covered with black soot from burning seal blubber inside and hay was still in the doorway for the ponies that used to be stabled there. Very cool!