 | Henry Kaiser in Antarctica: Journal Twenty
January 27, 2002 |
Tonight is probably my final night in Antarctica. Early tomorrow morning I will be leaving on a C-130 from Pegasus Ice Runway Field, bound for Christchurch, New Zealand. Weather permitting, of course. 
HOME SOON!
I just took my bags to bag drag.
Bag Drag
For the first month I was here, whenever I would transition from indoors to outdoors, during the nighttime hours, I would think: "It's still light out?" Now many folks are leaving the ice and the population will drop to less than 10% of the summer season for the dark winterover night. Nobody will see the sun here for many months. As the winter-over personnel begin to show up in town, they sit in the dining hall, grumbling about he number of people in the room, and looking outside at all times of day and night, they complain: "It's still light out!"
An in-town collective art project of the season has been the wooden bridge over the pipelines between Building 155 and the Crary Lab. 
THE BRIDGE
The story behind this art project was relayed to me by Karen Joyce of Computer Services in Crary. It seems that last year she had a beautiful assistant, and the assistant had a suitor, who constantly brought her rocks as gifts, similar to penguin courting behavior. Beautiful rocks. Alas, it was to no avail. At the end of the season Karen noticed all the lovely rocks dumped outside. She marveled at their beauty. So she placed a few on the bridge for others to see. They disappeared overnight. She placed more. They disappeared again. So she glued some onto the bridge. More folks began to affix things to the bridge and to leave them there and it has become an informal and spontaneous group art project that has become more intense this season. 
Magic?
Embroidery
 Patriotic Art
Poetry engraved on bridge
A little bird
Dimetrodon In 2001, for the first time in my life, I met my half-sister Mary Lou. She is about 10 years older than me and dates back to my Dad's first marriage. She sent me a little travel gift to accompany me on my Antarctic adventures: a little stuffed polar bear. My roommate Cruiser and I had been enjoying it in our dorm room. Together we had the had the idea of mounting it on the bridge. Today, Cruiser made a little acrylic box for it and a wooden attachment bracket. This evening he affixed it to the bridge with a tiny bit of assistance from Gina and myself..  GINA & CRUISER
Installation The Polar Greeting It's still light out WISH YOU WERE HERE
ALMOST TIME TO SAY GOODBYE
NO MORE WORDS
I'll be back with a report on my trip home in a week or so. A little way after that, I'll post a final journal entry with some summations and odds and ends that have not fit in previously.
I am about to leave, knowing that tomorrow, I will wish I was here.
Aloha from the Ice,
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