How Do We Eat, Sleep, and Go to the Bathroom?

Yesterday Amy, Tony, Anna, Karen, and I flew from Lake Fryxell Camp back to Lake Hoare Camp, where I originally landed in Taylor Valley last week. They will do six limno runs at these two camps for the extended season. Seperated by the Canada Glacier, Fryxell and Hoare camps are each on the shores of the frozen lakes by the same names. Like I said in an earlier post, Hoare is a hub. With Rae Spain, the camp manager, running the camp and cooking for visitors, being here feels like staying at a friend’s parents’ house for the weekend as opposed to the things-always-laying-around, off-campus housing feel of Fryxell. Here we help with cleaning up, but overall it is cozy and well kept thanks to Rae.

That being said, I want to put an edge on this romantic Antarctica dream land, and try to describe how the only land animal on the continent behaves and lives when it migrates here (that animal being us). Meaning how do we eat, sleep, and go to the bathroom? Life in the field camp feels very futuristic with a solar, off-the-grid power system, a hyper-conscious awareness of our environmental impact, and (bleakly) nothing alive except humans. With limited local power, no grid tie-in, and no plumbing, it also feels like the developing world. As usual, we, the Earth’s energy and water hogs (and by we I mean most Americans), in order to get to said futuristic place some day, have a lot to learn from the so-called developing world. Maybe Antarctic field camps succeed somewhere in between.

Anyways, everything that comes onto Antarctica leaves Antarctica on a container ship once a year. This includes all food waste and human waste. For most of the continent, which is covered in two miles of ice, field camps will dig a pit toilet, put a tent over it, and let the grinding ice sheet take care of disposal, the contents of the toilet hitting open water a few thousand years from now, highly refined.

The Dry Valleys are an exception. Here nothing is supposed to touch the ground. Boot tracks remain for decades and deal seals can be found nearby that have remained intact for millennia. Little rocks on the ground (and others as big as houses) have been in position so long the wind has blown holes through them and rendered their surfaces smoother than formica. For this reason, the entire Dry Valleys region is designated as an Antarctic Specially Protected (or Managed) Area (ASPA or ASMA). No human substance of any kind can enter the soil. If you spill your coffee, you are to scoop up all the dirt it came in contact with, put it in a ziplock bag, label it, and file a lengthy report. All greywater–the stuff that remains after you wash your hands, wash the dishes, or shower–goes from container to container and eventually into drums that are taken back to McMurdo and then loaded onto the container ship. There is no plumbing, so you wash dishes, hands, whatever, and then drain the grey water into a drum.

The same goes for human waste. Pee goes into drums, usually directly via a funnel or into an old coffee can which then goes into the funnel. An outhouse for solid waste has a removable two-gallon bucket where a flush toilet would be. When full, the bucket’s contents are bagged up, frozen, and eventually transported in bulk back to McMurdo. Lake Hoare Camp, being the comfort station that it is, has two “rocket toilets” that accept both liquid and solid waste (the standard outhouse buckets cannot accept pee, so separating the two is necessary). The rocket toilet incinerates the contents every so often.

After we eat, clean up, and take care of business, we go to our individual tents. Energy is a premium in these tiny, self-sustaining camps. Bunkhouses are not a reality, as you would have to build them and heat them. For now, everyone sleeps in tents. You either get your average North Face or Sierra Designs 4-season tent or a Scott Polar Tent, originally used by the British Explorer Robert Falcon Scott. Scott tents are very sturdy, roomy, taxi yellow acute pyramids with a vent so you can also cook in them. At Lake Hoare I have a mountain tent. They are definitely cold at night, but in a sleeping bag with clothes on it is O.K. If you expose your face, sometimes it gets really cold, but if you go fully inside the bag, the moisture from your breath freezes on the bag and forms a layer of crusty frost.

I guess I left out eating. The only remarkable thing about food in Antarctic field camps is that most of it expired years ago. In the U.S. (or anywhere besides a continent always below freezing) if you found an unopened pack of cold cuts that said “best before 5/03,” you’d throw it as far from you as possible. Here, you it on a bagel (only slightly younger) and put mustard or equally old mayo on it. Things are kept frozen and apparently good to eat. Dehydrated food lasts much longer (some would argue forever). During Happy Camper most of our food was from the early to mid-90s. The labels brought back memories.