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Have you ever imagined what an exorcism ceremony at the South Pole would be
like? I never would have imagined that...but now I have participated in one...
My flight from McMurdo Station's sea ice airfield to Pole was a bit more
arduous than your typical domestic flight within the U.S. After a three hour
flight to 90° South in a C-130 Hercules military cargo plane, we
circled Pole for 90 minutes; the weather was inimical to a safe landing, so,
after a three-hour flight, we had to turn around and fly straight back to McMurdo. This is locally known as a
boomerang flight. About an hour on the ground for refueling and back into
the frigid air for a three-hour trip back to the axis of our planet and a safe
landing at Pole. Total transit time: 11.5 hours. A long time to sit in the
hold of a cargo plane, but many great opportunities to peer out the tiny
porthole at amazing mountains and immense icescapes. The immensity of
Antarctica—about 1.5 times the size of America—was evident to see.
After disembarking from the aircraft I was greeted by Katy Jensen, the Pole
Station's capable, hardworking and beautiful station manager. Depositing my
gear in my "Jamesway" tent dorm #5, I headed off for a rehearsal with the
Pole rock band Thunderjug. The band is named for the "piss bottles" that
are most folks' bed warmers in the toiletless Jamesway dorms. We ran through
several numbers and looked forward to a Jamesway Lounge dance party on
Saturday night.
Katy took me outside and showed me a fascinating piece of old but reliable
technology: the Campbell-Stokes Sunshine Recorder, circa 1910 or so... most
likely the same model that Robert Scott had on his exploration ships. It
records daily intensity and duration of sunlight by burning a piece of paper
with sunlight focused through a crystal globe. No moving parts and
operational after nearly a century. A piece of hardware that is both
gorgeous and elegant.
Since there is about 10,000 feet of ice deposited upon the surface of the
Earth at Pole, the altitude is 10,000 feet. But because the Earth's
atmosphere is thinner at the poles, the equivalent altitude is more like
12,000 feet. It is completely dry: 0% humidity. And it is COLD. Around minus
30-40°F for most of my visit. The community of about 200 lives in a base
designed for 40 inhabitants. A new station is being constructed, but won't
be complete until 2006. This is the toughest construction job in the world.
Besides being a place of climatic and geographical extremity, Pole is a
place of multidimensional extremes of human achievement: past, present, and
future. This is the most inspiring place that I have ever visited. From the
heroic age of Antarctic exploration to the present population who work
harder than anyone anywhere today, to the future of the new station and the
visionary science projects that are accomplished here, this is human
achievement writ large. In describing the science projects, I mean visionary
in several senses. Scientists learn much about the rest of the
earth from studying Pole. It is a unique and valuable place to view our planet from. It is also
one of the best places on Earth to view the rest of the universe. John
Carlstrom of the University of Chicago guided me up into his D.A.S.I.
telescope where the quest for the origins of the universe as well as dark
matter and dark energy are carried out. Since the air is so clear here, and
since there is little air, light, or electromagnetic interference at Pole,
this is a mecca and window on the cosmos for astronomers. We discussed the
academic and government agency politics and processes of getting grants to
do our work here. It has been a long and tenacious haul for both of us. We
are both happy and excited to be able to do our work here and we are both
confident in our work's value.
Saturday morning I head out to the South Pole(s) in the brisk, minus 40°F air.
There are two South Poles: ceremonial and geographic. The ceremonial pole is
the original pole that was found by the earliest explorers who reached the
Pole. Since it bears the familiar candy stripe barber pole design with the
mirror ball on top of the North Pole, it was most likely placed here by
Santa Claus, well before humans ever set foot on this continent. Surrounded
by the flags of nations signatory to the Antarctic Treaty, it is the prime
photo opportunity spot of Antarctica. Nearby, marching yearly across the
surface of the ice cap, is the real geographic pole, which is precisely
repositioned each year as the ice slides slowly over the Earth's crust. A
line of old poles and flag makers, gradually sinking into the snowcap
recedes off into the distance.
Setting a DAT recorder at the geographic pole, I take out my acoustic guitar
(in this case an all-graphite Rain Song guitar that I have used for years as
a boat guitar on dive trips; it will remain here as a gift to Pole Station)
and I ready myself to attempt to play slide guitar, using the South Pole as
my guitar slide. The night before, I sat out by the pole and searched for a
slack key tuning that would right for this job. Finding one that I liked, I
checked it with many station residents, all of whom approved. Messing around
with the pole for an hour, I found that I could produce lots of sound
effects and textures, but melody, groove, and harmony seemed quite elusive.
I spent another 30 minutes trying to play melodies and licks, kneeling next
to the pole, as my hands and knees became colder and colder. Gloves were on
and off; finger picking became more and more problematic in the 40°F below
zero air. After 90 minutes, I was a little tired, so I stood up, put my
gloves on again, inserted some chemical hand warmers and held the guitar's
strings up against the pole. I stared off to the distant horizon, across the
miles of whiteness, and I idly strummed the guitar with a gloved right hand
as I slid the guitar's neck along the pole. After drifting into an
empty-minded trance for a while, I returned to the mundane world to find
myself strumming a peculiar rhythm pattern with my gloved right hand. What
did it sound like? It seemed American Indian in cadence, not something that
I had played before. It was quite enjoyable. Suddenly, I realized that the
American flag next to me was flapping with exactly the same rhythm! The
music had literally came to me OUT OF THE AIR. Next I tried fretting and
sliding against the pole to find melody and chords. A riff jumped out at me.
It was fun to play. Again, I drifted off into no-mind state for a while, as
I continued to play. My thoughts returned to the pole and the Race to the Pole that the heroes of the early age of Antarctic exploration had
participated in. Hmmmm? This rhythm fit my idea of a slow race, as was the
race to the pole. Suddenly I had a set of musical ideas for a piece about
that historic race and I was instantly able to play it! I checked the
frozen DAT machine, and it was still operational. I ran off five takes of the
tune without many mistakes. This is the kind of inspiration that I had hoped
for on the ice, and here it was, like some kind of miracle out of the air,
when I least expected it.
. . .
The heart of Pole Station, the galley, sits under a larger geodesic dome,
erected back in 1975. The foot or two of snow that falls each year had nearly buried the
dome. Orange living units with freezer doors fill the space under the dome.
Other shelters are large, long metal arches that cover the machine shops and
garages.
On Saturday, the cooking staff had a day off and the beakers (science staff)
and others prepared the food. A colorful menu was posted on the wall.
Dessert was Bear Paw Parfait, a dish that you don't often get to enjoy on a
bear-less continent. It's funny how many folks back home seem to think that
there are polar bears down here. The only big, fierce animal on this
Southern continent is the Leopard Seal, who lives out on the ice edge, by
the ocean, a very long ways from here.
That night we had a great dance party jam, running through some old
standards: Cissy Strut, Dark Star, and Ode to Billy Joe, among the tunes.
Cookie Jon, bass player in the band, remembers coming to see me at the
Fillmore, more than 10 years ago, when the HK Band played these same tunes.
As the notes spun out of my guitar through the many dancing Polies, I
remembered a scene from my pal Kim Stanley Robinson's novel Antarctica.
Stan has traveled to Antarctica on the same National Science Foundation
Antarctic Artists & Writers Program Grant that has brought me to the ice. A
scene in that novel described a psychedelic guitar dance party at Pole. The moment I read it, I realized that it might be possible for a
performing musician to apply for this grant, as opposed to the writers,
painters, and photographers that have preceded me. Here I was, recreating a
scene in the novel that had brought me here. Thank you KSR!
Pole is a close-knit and family-like community. The cramped living
conditions, harsh and beautiful environment, and the tremendously tough work
schedule mean that folks need to get along smoothly with each other. They
all work together to make Pole a safe and productive place. They work harder
than anyone that I have ever seen.
On Sunday I played three solo acoustic guitar shows in the gym at 1:00 p.m., 7:00 p.m. and
9:00 p.m., so that folks on different shifts would have a chance to enjoy a short
show. "I'm So Glad," "Special Rider Blues," "Hard Time Killin' Floor Blues," "The
Flinstones," "Dropped D," and "The Skunk's Tears," were some of the pieces the
emerged from my guitar. I imagined I felt Skip James' ghost hovering over the
pole in the blue deepness of the Antarctic sky. I also spent a lot of time
walking about shooting video around the station for my future reports for
the National Geographic Today television show.
Oh yes, the exorcism ceremony! It turns out that El Gran Chingazo, the
snow/ice tunneling machine that is used to carve tunnels 40 feet below the
surface of South Pole Station, has always been a problematic beast. A
figure of 57% downtime was mentioned to me. The alternative to cutting
tunnels with El Chingazo is hacking out the tunnels with a chain saw and
pulling the snow/ice blocks out on a human-drawn sledge. This is tough work,
especially since the tunnels remain at a constant minus 50°F. Chingazo had recently become totally unresponsive and as a last
resort the mining and heavy shop crews turned to exorcism to attempt to
solve the problems. Big John and Bill invited me into the heavy shop and
showed me the altar of offerings that they had constructed beside El Gran
Chingazo. Richard M. Nixon's ghostly face peered out from Chingazo's cab.
The fragrant incense of diesel and oil filled the air. I prepared my guitar
and amp next to Frederick's electric MIDI violin rig; the lights were turned
out and many Pole folks entered the shop, chanting and playing drums. A high
exorcism, with much shouting and dancing followed, under the leadership of
Bill and Big John. I did my best to provide a crashing hybrid of Texas Blues
Guitar and Korean Salpuri Exorcism Guitar, as the MIDI violin exploded with
screams and shrieks. Suddenly we heard the unmistakable sound of bagpipes
and a piper marched in and joined the ceremony. Pole culture certainly is
special. Perhaps the exorcism has been my most memorable experience on the
ice? Maybe I took it too seriously, but as a long-time listener of
different types of trance-inducing, exorcism and shamanistic musics, it was
easy to drift off into some other kind of consciousness. Did the exorcism
work? Time will tell. Back here at McMurdo Station, I await further word
from Pole.
On my last morning at Pole I dropped down into the snow/ice tunnels beneath the pole.
Forty feet down, it is minus 50°F, as promised. My guide is John
Wright, the bagpiper of the exorcism. John is a master of cutting tunnels
from the mining trade. He has come to the pole to cut the long ice tunnels
that connect the base to the subterranean "bulbs" where the station's water
supply is melted and the old bulbs where sewage is disposed of. The tunnels
are an impressive feat of engineering and construction. John shows me how
two tunnels, drilled into to meet "golden spike" style, meet up within an
1/8 inch of perfect alignment. You can walk through about 1200 feet of
tunnel and then it's necessary to step into a warming room to reheat your
body. There is no bright and ever present sunlight in the tunnels to warm
your body. I was impressed with John's deep concern for
safety for his crew, which is so different from the concern for liability
protection over safety that I see in so much of the today's world. Bill and
Scotty, of John's crew, work with a chain saw and sledge to cut more tunnels
through the cold, hard snow/ice. Dressed in heavy clothing and covered with
ice dust from the chain saw, they look the part of workers in the farthest
extreme of human habitation. Or perhaps like albino coal miners, mining
albino coal. We are not in Kansas anymore, nor ON THE ICE; this is BELOW THE
ICE.
HK
--------------------------------
POST SCRIPT:
When I arrive back at McMurdo, ready to go diving again in the much warmer,
28 degrees above zero, fluid space below the ice, I find a heart-touching
e-mail poem from Pole's manager Katy Jensen in the inbox of my iBook.
-HK
===========================
Erebus Blues
(partially borrowed from Webster's II New Riverside University Dictionary)
So smoothly
you
pack and dance
from
blue
antarctic
pelagic magic
and
Slide Guitar Around the World
to
"The dark underworld region through which the dead must pass before they
reach Hades!"
I can't imagine it
--a week on the edge of it--
after whirlwind days of
cool
white
here
but
I also can't wait
to hear it
through your guitar.
Thanks for the smiles you brought us, Henry.
=================================
POST POST SCRIPT
Bad news from Pole.
Maybe the exorcism did not work and the spirits are angry?
HK
"Still waiting for parts for El Gran
but on Monday we had a bit o' a freak accident concerning the beast
including a shattered punch
and a sliced pinky finger tendon for Big John Penney"
HK
Dome Under Blue Sky
Dome Entrance
Lovely Dome
Under the Dome
Bucky Would Be Proud
New Station- Done in 2006
Arches
Both South Poles
Ceremonial Pole
Reflected in the Pole
Treaty Nations' Flags
Geographic Pole Long Shot
Pole Detail
Campbell-Stokes Recorder
Recording Sunlight
The Sun Burns the Paper
Guitar at Pole
Pole as Guitar Slide
Slidin' 'Round the World
Pole Chow
Party Band at Pole
Jammin' at Pole
Playin' in the Pole Gym
Searchlight Casting
Reason Tatters
El Gran Chingazo
The Exorcism Ceremony
Note Nixon's Ghost in Cab: LOOK Close to See Him
Dance for Chingazo
Playing for Chingazo
Violin for Chingazo
Video from the Exorcism of El Gran Chingazo:
Listen to Henry play guitar:
*Note: You will need a media player (e.g. RealPlayer, Windows Media Player, etc.) installed on your computer in order to listen/see these clips.
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