Historic huts and explorers

The beginning of the 20th century was a great age of Arctic and Antarctic exploration.  I found the stories of these men extremely heroic.  They had to find funding for these exploration trips--no easy task in itself,  left homes and families in Norway, England, American to spend the next couple of years in some of the harshest conditions imaginable!  Two books that I really enjoyed reading were Endurance: Shackleton's  Incredible Journey by Alfred Lansing and The Last Place on Earth:Scott and Amundsen's Race to the South Pole by Roland Huntford. If you have any interest in the journeys of 3 of these men, their stories almost feel made up.  I cannot imagine anyone that I know being brave enough, strong enough, or willing to commit the time to a journey such as that.

A replica of Amundsen's Tent on Damoy, 

A British research hut, now a museum on Damoy

Inside the research hut

 Antarctica has been a place for research and exploration for the last 120 years and continues to be.  Antarctica's only activity is research, but there are some strange or maybe unusual is a better word, things that go on in Antarctica.  There is a post office at Port Lockroy, aka Penguin Post is run by 4 individuals who are chosen from about 1500 applicants who spend mid November to mid March on an island in Antarctica about 600 miles from the furthest point of Chile.  The pay is $1700 a month.  This year, all 4 are women and they were picked up by our ship's zodiac and came onboard so that people could buy postcards, stamps and send mail from Antarctica.  They brought their tools to process many people on the ship proof that they'd been to Antarctica.  The letters and postcards are all hand canceled, put in a blue British royal mail bag that is secured, entrusted to the ship's captain to take to the Falkland Islands and then the Royal Navy flies it to an air base in mid England where it goes into the regular mail.

British royal mail sack sitting in the ships "outgoing mail"

Aside from making money on the 70,000 pieces of mail, it gives the UK a viable claim to Antarctica  if the Antarctica treaty ever goes away.  Argentina, who offers trips to have your baby born on Antarctica and Chile who offers Antarctica weddings, still have pending claims on Antarctica trying to prove that they have some type of claim on Antarctica.  The world and treaty participants, including them, just ignore, but they do keep their presence there.

me in front of a historic building.  I was easy to spot since my waterproof pants were turquoise and everyone else's were black!