Well I suppose it’s time I write a bit about Antarctica since I told about 400 people they could follow my peripatetic ramblings about the South Pole here. And most people get fatigued by relentless, melodramatic hope and heartbreak (including myself).
So, what circuitous, itinerant wayfaring life choices lead to one being deployed to the South Pole for a year? And what is there to do down there? Pertaining to the latter, as the conspiracists would have you believe, we mostly build nefarious energy weapons and hide evidence of extraterrestrial crash landings. However, the National Science Foundation has been graciously provided by our elected representatives an equivalent of 1% of the military budget to perform all federal research, and when the scientists have put the finishing touches on the faster than light communication technologies, they use a small fraction of this funding to build, operate, and maintain a big (really big) telescope in the ice near the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. And the telescope watches for neutrinos, specifically Cherenkov light (that travels faster than light) produced when neutrinos interact with ordinary matter. To what end is this research performed only our ubiquitous human curiosity can provide an answer to.
And for the former, for this Once in a Lifetime opportunity, I may ask myself “Well, how did I get here?” I think a few dozen books on physics as a precocious teenager, a neurotic level of self-inspected and reliance instilled by scouting, harsh Minnesota winters, and a countryside childhood, some international work through a very expensive master’s degree, four months spent hiking alone through the mountains, schoolhouse construction in the Himalayas, a couple major mountain summits, and a mental-health destroying schedule of marathon training + full-time systems administration work while in graduate school checked all the boxes. And I really just got lucky as an alternate when the primary candidate failed their physical examination.
The ascetic life on the pole has its perks and drawbacks. To mention a few:
No light pollution – good.
No sunsets – bad.
No internet shopping – good.
No oranges – bad.
No pornography – good.
No birds – bad.
No rent – good.
No emergency healthcare – bad.
It’s remarkably like prison. Except better paying. And harder to escape.
My packing list includes a few eclectic items. A nice set of binoculars, 40x Trader Joes 85% dark chocolate bars, a Russian language copy of Treasure Island, some stationary, a gigantic Russian black rabbit fur ushanka, a (free) pair of Vaurnet glacier traversal sunglasses, all Poetry – A Magazine of Verse publications as offline PDFs, a light-based alarm clock to keep my circadian rhythm on track (extraordinary gift, much thanks) and a poster sized printout of all Russian grammar case endings. I suppose there’s a theme. I skipped the 15 copies of Shia Lebouf this time around (which kept me close company on the 2,650 mile PCT hike). I think I’ve learned to live without.
I sold my car and laptop so hopefully my brother will have his motorcycle working by the time I return. Not that the two months I’ll be in Duluth starting November 2024 will offer much of an opportunity to visit friends on the road. After that, it’s to Riga for six months of Russian language school and then central Asia for development work if I can find it. If not, another long hike can’t hurt (oh it can really, really hurt).
If you want to know what it’s like on the pole, I encourage you to watch some tiktoks or something (it’s a running joke I’m tiktok famous here, never watched one in my life). And there really are a few good blogs out there that will provide more detail and less sarcasm. I’m not much for photography, but I know there are some excellent collections of South Pole photos on Instagram. However, I will be filming a documentary for a Canadian director who didn’t manage to secure travel to the station. More info on that forthcoming. IceCube also provides weekly updates through their website, and I will certainly post a few more times here to request emergency shipments when the (good) chocolate runs out.
If you want a letter from the pole, feel free to write me at:
Kalvin Moschkau – Winterover
PSC 768 Box 400
APO AP 96598-0001
(If filling out an online shipping form, enter “APO” as the city and “AP” as the state.)
I promise to get back with something if it’s received by January!
This blog has 1812 unapproved spam comments so you might be better off emailing me at lasciviousluddite@aol.com if you want to chat…
kalvin dot life 