the antarctic sun, january 6, 2002 · pdf filetheantarctic sun january 6, 2002 published...

Renaissance-stylepainting by anunknown artist hiddenon the back door ofthe paint barn.

TheAntarctic SunJanuary 6, 2002www.polar.org/antsun

Published during the austral summer at McMurdo Station, Antarctica, for the United States Antarctic Program

�Thanks for not gettingkilled. It saves paperwork.�

Quote of the Week

- McMurdo electrician to residentwhile making dorm repairs in hallway

By Melanie ConnerSun staff

Mother Nature gave desperate RossIsland penguin colonies a small break in theform of a four-day, blasting windstorm lastmonth.

In mid-December, strong katabatic windsaltered the fate of the penguin colonieswhen they swept the winter's accumulatedice out to sea and provided the birds withaccess to their summer breeding grounds.The event was key to the survival of someRoss Island penguin colonies, reported sci-entist David Ainley, of H.T. Harvey &Associates, ecological consultants based inSan Jose, Calif. Before the storm, it was pre-

dicted that some colonies would not surviveat all.

"Cape Royds colony is going to fail,"said Ainley, in an interview in earlyDecember before the storm. "If the iceremains, it will disappear as a penguincolony."

Troubled penguins of the Ross Sea madeheadline news around the U.S. last weekwhen the National Science Foundationreleased results of studies in conjunctionwith satellite images from NASA that showiceberg movements. The NSF reported onepenguin colony - Cape Royds - was "in dan-ger of extinction" while others would

Big berg surfs the tidepage 3

I N S I D E

Music man, trash manpage 14

In the dim-lit inner chamber of the paint barn, the profile ofsome Italian nobleman stares steadily

at a fire extinguisher.The Renaissance-style painting isn't out of

place in the workshop at McMurdo Station;not with a diptych scene of a windsurfer ona tropical coastline facing it and a surrealpainting of circus animals on the other sideof the door.

Though at first glance the Antarctic researchstations appear to be purely industrial sites, acloser look reveals art everywhere.

Nature vs. nature: The plight of the penguins

See Penguins on page 12

~ hidden Art ~

Behind the grimecreativity reigns

See Art on page 7

Stories by KristanHutchison

Photos byMelanie Conner

The Antarctic Sun is funded by the NationalScience Foundation as part of the United

States Antarctic Program. Itsprimary audience is U.S.Antarctic Program participants,their families, and their friends.NSF reviews and approves

material before publication, but opinions andconclusions expressed in the Sun are notnecessarily those of the Foundation.

Use: Reproduction and distribution areencouraged with acknowledgment of sourceand author.

Senior Editor: Kristan HutchisonEditors: Melanie Conner

Mark SabbatiniCopy Editor: Lynn Hamann

Publisher: Valerie Carroll,Communications manager,RPSC

Contributions are welcome. Contact theSun at [email protected]. In McMurdo, visitour office in Building 155 or dial 2407.

Web address: www.polar.org/antsun

2 � The Antarctic Sun January 6, 2002

Careers on the continent Answers on page 4

Ice on the IcePercentage of the world�s freshwaterthat is ice: 90Percent of world's ice in Antarctica: 90Estimated percentage of world's fresh-water in Antarctica: 80Gallons of water in an iceberg measur-ing 500 x 800 x 250 meters: 22 billionDrinkable gallons after being towed toan arid part of the world, assuming a 20percent loss during transit: 14 billionGlobal population facing serious watershortage: 450 million people in 29countriesAverage number of gallons of waterused daily by a person in Jordan: 12Number of days above iceberg couldsupply areas of shortage: 2.6Estimated volume of ice in Antarctica:30,109.8 trillion cubic metersNumber of days this could supply areasof shortage, after transit: 530 billionSources: Scientific Committee on AntarcticResearch, U.S.G.S., New Zealand Herald

Cold, hardfacts

Ross Island Chronicles By Chico

Across3) An extracurricular job with tips6) All-purpose galley worker (abv.)7) Every grunt has one of these8) Rotating spiritual counselors12) A summer worker on the Ice14) Gas attendants for the planes17) They know your restroom habits19) Looks for the sunny side of things20) Works through winterDown1) Worker at the former Vanda Station2) Generic term for Ice staff (2 words)4) The outerwear of manual laborers5) Does it all (2 words)9) Driver for long-distance commute10) No HMO needed for these on Ice11) Builds shelters and all else13) Kills seals and other animals for oil15) Slang for scientist16) Stores, handles and detonatesexplosives18) A dog handler

We need to talk son. Yourmother tells me you�re outspreading rumors again.

Oh, you mean she�s notabandoning us by runningoff and eloping with ascientist?

Yes, that�s right. You haveher so upset she can�t lookat any scientist when shegoes to work.

Rumors are innuendos thathave no place in oursociety. They cause griefand heartache, but justbetween you and me,females can�t take a jokelike us men can. Rememberthat as you get older.

Thanks for yourunderstanding andgreat advice dad.

By the way, is it truethat you�re getting asex change operation.

January 6, 2002 The Antarctic Sun � 3

By Kristan HutchisonSun staff

The biggest iceberg in the Ross Seamoves with the tides.

Heavy winds and currents have less to dowith the path of iceberg B15 than themoon's pull on the water, according to DougMacAyeal, who planted Global PositioningSystem units on the big berg last Februaryto track its movement.

Since then B15, also called B15a sincesmaller chunks broke off, has traveled hun-dreds of miles without really getting any-where, MacAyeal wrote in an e-mail to theSun.

"The tidal motion of the iceberg is like a'hoola hoop' on the hips of a great hoolahoop wiggler," MacAyeal said. "It's alwaysmoving, but mostly in circles."

Each day B15 moves in a "looping cir-cle," with a diameter of about a kilometer,MacAyeal said. The GPS data from B15shows patterns following the 28-day lunarcycles, with daily fluctuations matching thetides.

"It�s almost like it�s surfing on the tides,"said Andy Bliss, who works withMacAyeal. "It's big enough that it can dothat."

Like the 800-pound gorilla, B15 is bigenough to do whatever it wants. When itbroke off the icefront in the eastern RossSea in March 2000, B15 was about the sizeof Connecticut. At the time, B15 caughteveryone by surprise and the NationalScience Foundation put out an emergencygrant for MacAyeal to place tracking sta-tions on the big berg.

"It was kind of a rushed deal and we did-n't have enough time to really get the instru-ment package down to what we wanted, so

we're going back to fix that," Bliss said.Since then smaller chunks have split off,

so the largest remaining piece is tracked asB15a, but commonly referred to as B15.

The original plan was to place two GPSunits on B15 and two others on a smaller,but still substantial, berg nearby, called C16.Then one of the four GPS units failed, sothey just put all the units on B15, Bliss said.

A funding extension this year allowedMacAyeal and Bliss to return. Severalweeks ago Bliss set up a GPS and fluxgatecompass on C16, with the help of fieldguide Chris Simmons and UniversityNAVSTAR consortium GPS support fromChuck Kernik and Shad O'Neel. In Januaryhe and MacAyeal will return to B15 andC16 to correct some problems with instru-ments left last year and collect some of themore expensive instruments.

B15 is now the size of Delaware - 100miles (160 km) long and 22 to 32 miles (35-51 km) wide, with 328 feet (50 m) showingabove water and 525 to 820 feet (160 to 250m) below.

"That's like the big mother of all ice-bergs," Bliss said. "When you're standingon the iceberg you cannot see any ocean."

At that size, storms like the one that hitMcMurdo Station with 100 mph (160 kph)winds in December just blow by.

"The satellites show that the iceberg didnot move appreciably, other than gettingkicked into a larger hoola hoop gyration,during the storm," MacAyeal wrote. Thefastest the iceberg has moved was about 15miles (25 km) in one week during somewinter storms.

B15 is so large the currents move aroundit.

"Little icebergs have been seen 'circum-navigating' B15a as if it were a wonderful

island," MacAyeal wrote.MacAyeal expects B15 to continue loi-

tering where it is until the autumn stormsbegin in mid-February.

"My 'forecast' (and I'm going out on alimb) is that B15a will not move until itbreaks in half," MacAyeal wrote. "Thiscould be as a result of a storm, or as a resultof interaction with C16 or with the twoislands that are out there."

There's little chance of B15 blockingMcMurdo Sound. Franklin and Beaufortislands currently keep B15 from floating infront of the sound. B15 would have to breakinto smaller pieces to fit through, thoughthose could still be large enough to force theicebreaker to reroute next summer,MacAyeal said.

B15 does have a large crack about a thirdof the way from the southern tip, Bliss said.

The crack goes along a suture line,where two ice streams met when the bergwas still part of the ice sheet. When B15does crack, it's likely to do so there, but itwould take a collision, MacAyeal wrote.

"The scenario would be a very strongSouth wind that would drive the icebergWest, via the Coriolis force, that causes oneend of the iceberg to hit Franklin Island,while the other end is �kedging� againstCape Crozier," MacAyeal wrote.

Kedging is a sailing term MacAyealapplies to icebergs colliding against otherobjects, which give them leverage to defythe normal motions of ocean current andtide, MacAyeal wrote. In that way B15interacts with a smaller iceberg nearby, C16.C16 is about 40 miles long and 15 mileswide, grounded solidly on one end. It prob-ably won't move until B15 breaks intosmaller pieces that could nudge it loose,MacAyeal said.

What science projectshave you paid atten-tion to this year andwhy?

�The closest I�veever come to sci-

ence is sweeping upthe scientists

floors.�Sue Vittner

Crary Lab janitor,McMurdo station,

Maine

�As a scuba diver, I�mparticularly interested inthe projects that involvedivers. Especially learn-ing what creatures live

under the water.�Brenda Walker

Administrative coordinator,Sr., Denver, Colo.

�I don�t know whatit is called, but it

makes sounds. Everycrackle is lightningsomewhere in the

world and every popis a meteorite.�

Hailaeos �Holly� TroyNetwork administrator,

South Pole Station, Las Vegas, Nev.

Big berg moves in small steps


By John S. PearseSpecial to the Sun

British scientists with the 19th-century"Challenger Expedition" were startledwhen they collected sea urchins harboringtiny babies among their spines.

Such parental care, or "brooding," bysimple animals like sea urchins was prac-tically unknown at the time. When otherspecies were found similarly caring fortheir young, prominent marine scientistssuggested that harsh polar seas, particular-ly in the Antarctic, somehow favored thisunusual form of reproduction. Mostmarine animals, after all, produce numer-ous tiny larvae that feed on plankton andfloat long distances before settling andmetamorphosing into juveniles.

Elaborate theories were developed toexplain the apparent propensity for brood-ing in the Antarctic, such as broodingwould (1) prevent offshore winds fromsweeping larvae away from the continentand (2) allow young to be nourished by theparent and develop in an area where favor-able food conditions for larvae in the sum-mer is too short for their development.These theories were contentious andunsatisfactory because other places withsimilar conditions (islands in the Pacificwith offshore winds, the Arctic with ashort period of food production) had few,if any, brooding species.

In the 1980s when we were working atMcMurdo Station, we found that parentalcare is not all that unusual to the Antarctic,and some of the most conspicuous andcommon species in the Antarctic producefeeding, floating larvae. Consequently, thequestion "why are there so many broodersin Antarctic waters?" became moot, andmore perplexing questions focused onhow these delicate, slowly developing lar-vae survive the seemingly adverse condi-tions of Antarctic seas.

However, the case of Antarctic seaurchins still remains exceptional. Almostall known instances of parental care by seaurchins occur in Antarctic waters. Most ofthe 80 or so species of Antarctic seaurchins are brooders. They are dividedmainly among three groups.

One group, with five species, are thefamiliar spiny sea urchins, such as the oneso common around McMurdo Station; allthese have larvae that float in the openocean before settling and metamorphosinginto juveniles, as do most other seaurchins in other parts the world.

The second group, burrowing hearturchins with about 35 species, all broodtheir young in special pockets (marsupialcavities) in their bodies. It appears thatthis trait developed only once in the ances-tor of this group, either before or after itbecame established in the Antarctic, andspeciation was favored because popula-tions stayed together and interbred, andnew populations are established rarelywhen a few individuals (or only onebrooding female) float to new areas ondrifting algae, pumice, ice, or other debris.

The third group, primitive cidaroid seaurchins, or pencil urchins, with stout, deadspines making them resemble naval mili-tary mines, are more enigmatic. Abouthalf of the 30 or so Antarctic cidaroidspecies are known to brood their youngamong their spines, as first noticed on the"Challenger Expedition." It is not knownwhat the other half do.

It is also not known how the species arerelated to each other, whether they repre-sent a single or multiple invasions intoAntarctic waters, or whether brooding isancestral or derived. If they represent sep-arate invasions, many of which evolvedbrooding independently, a case could stillbe made that brooding confers a specialadvantage in the Antarctic. On the otherhand, perhaps they actually are all brood-ers and are derived from a single ancestor,as are the heart urchins, or all the broodersare in a single lineage. If either of thoseoptions are the case, we would concludethat brooding is a rare event in theAntarctic, as elsewhere, and is not neces-sarily related to special environmentalconditions in Antarctic seas. These ques-tions directly address how Antarcticmarine animals are adapted to polar condi-tions.

The Antarctic Benthic Deep-SeaBiodiversity project (ANDEEP) is ideal

for examining these questions. Two cruis-es of the German research vesselPolarstern, between January and April2002, will sample benthic animals fromthe Antarctic shelf into the deep sea of theScotia and Weddell Seas off the AntarcticPeninsula. The main question being askedis whether animals in the deep sea gaverise to those now on the Antarctic shelf, orvice versa.

Scientists from a dozen countries willbe on board to sample bottom animalsranging from sponges and sea anemonesto worms and shrimps to sea urchins andfishes. Our group and one other (BO-292-O, James Blake, PI) will represent the twoAmerican projects on board. Our groupwill examine all the sea urchins collectedto see if they have brooded juvenilesamong their spines or buoyant eggs thatfloat and could not be brooded.

In addition, all the specimens will bepreserved for studies of their structure andtheir DNA, compared to animals fromother localities, to try to map the history oftheir evolution and relationships. The goalis to determine how many times broodingarose in these sea urchins, so characteristicof Antarctic waters, to better understandadaptations for living in polar seas.

John S. Pearse is a scientist from theUniversity of California, Santa Cruz.

Parenting practices ofAntarctic sea urchins

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Masked merrimentBy Tom CohenourPalmer correspondent

Festive masks provided good-naturedrelease from inhibitions during the NewYear's Eve party held at Palmer Station.

Mask making began several days earlierwhen it was discovered that surplus medicalcast forming material was available. Oneevening, 10 eager people descended into thecarpenter's shop prepared with maskdesigns, forming material, a flair for cre-ativity, or just the desire to watch. Duringthe week before New Year's, nearly twodozen masks were made.

"Just rub the lotion all over your face,"said Heidi Geisz, with the seabird compo-nent of the Long Term Ecological Research(BP-013-P). "It will help you get it [themask] off after it's made."

People took turns lying on the shop tableso helpers could place multiple layers ofdamp, white colored strips of cast fabricstrategically over their well-lubricatedfaces. Two were completely covered andresembled a mummy face, while most werehalf-masked like Zorro or Rocky Raccoon.Extra layers were built up on some maskscreating thick furrowed brows, a high bul-bous forehead, or sagging jowls. Mostmasks were gently smoothed but some wereleft rough and textured.

After two days, the cast material wasperfectly hardened so the decorationprocess could begin. Acrylic paints were themost popular method of finishing each cus-

tom-made mask. Ribbons and sequins wereapplied to others. One mask appearedstraight out of a horror film with 2" nailssticking out of its blackened face.

Disguised as monster, mummy, Zorro, orRocky Raccoon, it was fun way to bring inthe new year.

Pole move marks New YearBy Judy SpanbergerSouth Pole correspondent

We had two New Year's celebrationshere at Pole this week. Rest assured theNew Year has been adequately rung in.Sunday being our day off, we held the bigparty on Saturday night in the cleaned andmopped out heavy garage. Thunderjug, ourmost beloved and local band, played a fewsets with accompaniment from their newfemale back-up singers, the Jugettes (watchthe jokes). �Neil Diamond� also made anappearance. Neil gave up a coveted Vegasact to come here, God bless him, and sang�Cherry-Cherry.� Neil sounded as good asever and the crowd went wild. A variety ofunderwear made it up on the stage, fromwhere it came we don't want to know. Atmidnight we counted down to Sunday,which was more silly and funny than cele-bratory, but hey, it was only the 30th afterall. It was a fun evening and a good enoughreason to laugh and dance the night away.

Monday night, the actual New Year'sEve, we had a small impromptu party in thesummer camp lounge. It was a bit more sub-dued than Saturday, but the need to makenote of the New Year kept enough people up'til midnight to count down and wish eachother well. Hugs went all around, as well aswishes for a happy and peaceful New Year.Thunderjug and the Jugettes were there todo a couple of sets. The New Year hadarrived and we had done what we could tobring it in with the proper fanfare.

On Sunday morning we dedicated thenew pole marker. The physical pole, versusthe ceremonial pole that has the flagsaround a mirror ball, is in constant move-

ment. Well, the axis of the Earth doesn'tmove much, but the ice sheet that Pole sta-tion sits upon moves 30 feet each year alongthe 40 degree West Longitude line towardsBrazil. Thus the need for a new marker eachyear, marking the actual axis. This is done ina ceremony around the first day of the NewYear. A steel pole is placed in the snow andthe new marker is placed on top the pole.The markers are made and designed by theprevious winter-overs and usually reflectthe flavor of the people and the winter'saccomplishments. It's fun to go down therow of markers and note the different stylesand choices. (Replicas of the markers can bebought at Pole-mart, our station store). Thesign announcing that you are now standingat the geophysical pole is also moved tokeep up with the moving ice sheet.

Otherwise it's been a rather quiet weekhere. Our winter-overs are beginning the R& R process: A week at McMurdo Stationto sleep, relax and enjoy the many activitiesthat McMurdo plans for them. Science hasbeen continuing on with no major interrup-tions, which is alwaysa good thing. Andconstruction hasbegun to put the out-side panels on phasethree (pod A-3) of thenew Elevated Station.The weather has beenspectacular, nary acloud in the sky, verylittle wind and temps hovering aroundminus 12. Balmy, just balmy. We're thinkinga beach party might be in order.

And that's all. We here at Pole wisheveryone a New Year filled with successand peace.


around the continentPALMER

SOUTH POLE

McMurdo StationHigh: 51F/10.5C Low: 24F/-4.5CWind: 56 mph/91 kphWindchill: -11F/-24C

Palmer StationHigh: 43F/6C Low: 27F/-3CWind: 64.5 mph/104kphPrecipitation: 0.6 in/17 mm

South Pole StationHigh: -9.5F/-23C Low: -16.5F/-27CWind: 17 mph/28 kph

the week in weather

Photo by Cara Sucher/Special to The Antarctic Sun

Masked revelers at Palmer Station enjoy theNew Year.

Photo from Judy Spanberger

New Pole marker.

Apology:An inappropriate Spanish phrase was

used to describe a piece of tunnelingequipment used at South Pole in ourDec. 16 issue on this page. This phrasehas been removed from the Web ver-sions. We extend our sincere apologiesto our readers for this oversight.


Writer Bill Fox traveled from the tunnels below theSouth Pole to the top of Mt. Erebus this season tryingto define how we experience Antarctica.

Fox explains his ideas as relating to the way people turn "spaceinto place, land into landscape." But land has less to do with thelandscape in Antarctica than snow, ice and weather.

In his first journey into the Antarctic landscape, snow machin-ing across the sea ice with Ted Dettmar to visit the Cape Evanshut, Fox was caught in a storm. Blowing snow narrowed theirviews to shadowy glimpses of the nearest flag, surrounded bywhite, white and white.

"The overarching inquiry of my work is sensory perception ofthe world," Fox said. "Whiteout, in neuro-physical terms, is kindof a 'ganzfield.' Basically that is a space in which you aredeprived of sensory inputs. What such a condition allows you todo is understand how you see, because you cannot see."

About 80 percent of the sensory input people receive is visu-al, Fox said. In a whiteout, unable to see even the ground beneathone's feet, other senses are distorted. People become dizzy.

In Antarctica, Fox has become familiar with that void, havingone or more senses muffled by the conditions at a time. On Mt.Erebus during the December storm he experienced it again, alongwith wind-chill temperatures of minus 100F. The whiteoutreminded Fox of sandstorms he went through in another desert,the Nevada Black Rock, four months before. There the tempera-ture was 100 plus. The overwhelming heat or cold was almost allhe could sense in each case. There was not much smell and theconstant wind was a white noise isolating him from sounds out-side his own mind.

"My senses are being taken apart by the Antarctic one by one,"Fox said. "The history of exploration here is one of scientists, car-tographers and artists struggling to put back together our senses,including our sense of place."

Place is not just an area of land or a spot on the map, butincludes the people and buildings and memories. All of those aremissing on the polar plateau, where people find themselves inwhat is called isotropic space, Fox said. The view is the same inall directions, flat and white to the horizon. Nothing stands in theforeground or gives perspective to the scene.

"It's a big white, right? So how do you place yourself in thatlandscape?" Fox asked rhetorically during a lecture he gave inNovember.

According to Fox, humans are most comfortable in the envi-ronment they evolved in, the combination of field and woodsfound in Africa.

"When you look out a picture window of a house in suburbanAmerica, what you're looking at is idealized African savannah, asprocessed through hundreds of years of English gardens," Foxsaid. "You can see those same processes at work here, inMcMurdo."

As an example, he pointed out the rock-lined, duck-shapedpond the residents of Mammoth Mountain Inn built in the vol-canic dirt and snowmelt beside their dorm. Two benches accom-pany the "duck pond."

"They're creating a park," Fox said.When people go to a big, empty landscape, they tend to lay a

grid right over it, Fox said. They try to explore and measure thespace, turning it into maps to which they can refer to orient them-selves.

The first explorers did that in Antarctica, charting the shoresand working their way inward in search of the Pole from whencethe globe�s grids run. The mapping continues still, from planescarrying radar to look through the ice at the rock below. It occursin other ways too, Fox said.

"It doesn't matter if you're measuring how long penguins diveor the age of the separation of Antarctica from South America,"Fox said. "You're always measuring our relationship to this landand life."

The place of people in the polar landscape is something like aWallace Stevens poem, which miner John Wright quoted to Foxas they walked through a tunnel under the South Pole: "I placeda jar in Tennessee upon a hill, and it made everything inTennessee turn and face that hill."

"If you've ever been to middle Tennessee, that makes sense.The otherwise monotonous terrain orders itself around the jar,"Wright wrote in an e-mail to the Sun.

In the same way, the buildings at the South Pole rearrange thelandscape around them.

"The lines nevertheless come to mind here: I placed a dome onthe polar plateau and it made all the sastrugi on the plateau turnand face that dome," Wright wrote.

The dome and other structures at the South Pole change thelandscape in some very real ways, creating drifts of snow andgullies. The structures also change the way people perceive the

Experiencing AntarcticaCCrreeaattiinngg aa hhuummaann llaannddssccaappee oonn aann iinnhhuummaann ccoonnttiinneenntt

Bill Fox and BillMcIntosh hike alongthe Mt. Erebuscaldera rim.

Photo by Henry Kaiser/Special to the Antarctic Sun

By KristanHutchisonSun staff

See Fox on page 8


Art From page 1

~ hidden Art ~

"Personally, I feel that mostof these touches are to add a lit-tle bit of normalcy to life here,to make it feel less like an insti-tution, more like home," wroteCarol Crossland in an e-mailfrom the South Pole. "We can'tcreate anything close to thebeauty that ma-nature displaysall around us in the halo dis-plays, the feather crystals, theauroras, or the diamond dust,but we make our best attempt."

Over their long, dark winter,Polies sometimes entertainthemselves by creating unusualworks of art. In 1998 DianaLogan took bits of electronicsshe was inventorying for thetrash and made them into amobile of inch-tall figures, onefor each winter-over.

At Palmer Station, artiststake inspiration from the sea.Utility technician MikePatterson left his mark withmetal whale and krill sculp-tures, and a whale mural on theside of a fuel tank he paintedwith Scott Bowes and RaySpain in 1994.

Inside the South Pole dome,somebody planted a picketfence and a few fake flowers

People crossing the bridge between Crary Lab and Building155 laugh, stop to examine an object or add their own.Sprouting figurines, small branches and lines of magnetic poet-ry, the bridge has begun to resemble a folly, the whimsicalarchitecture found in English gardens, said Bill Fox, a writerand critic of art and architecture.

"There are few words involved. It's mostly just small visualobjects standing in for other things," Fox said. "Little dinosaursput on the rocks, among other things, signify paleontology andchildhood myths, childhood stories."

The decoration of the bridge began last year, before thebridge was built, with a tale of unrequited love and rejectedtokens of affection.

A beautiful blonde in Karen Joyce's office was sought afterby a man named Kevin.

"Kevin brought her rocks and rocks and more rocks, like apenguin trying to make a new love gift," Joyce said.

But the damsel loved another, off the Ice, and left without therocks or Kevin. The stone collection was dumped beside theoutside stairs, which seemed a shame to Joyce. When the wood-en bridge was finished she decided to place them there for oth-ers to enjoy.

"I'd take, every day, eight rocks up there and put them on the

stairs overlooking the pillars," Joyce said, "and I'd stand therefor a second overlooking my work and thinking 'It is good.'"

Then she'd go to lunch, and when she returned they'd begone.

"Art is not eternal and it's interactive," Joyce said. "I reallystruggled with that in the beginning."

After a few days bringing new rocks each day, the rock pilewas running low. Frustrated, Joyce decided to cement things tothe bridge, starting with a quarter.

"It's been a war of equilibrium since, trying to find stasis,"Joyce said. "I know that's a bridge between two bars, and Iknow drunk guys love to destroy things."

She's made a small study of how long things last. The plas-tic space shuttles, dinosaurs and ET figurines she glues onalways disappear, but the metal block with "Please turn meover" written on one side and "Thank you" on the other remains.

She's running low on dinosaurs, but has plenty more ET's.For some reason Doug Ruuska brought a thousand.

After experimenting with seven different kinds of glue, shesettled on the five-minute epoxy used to attach cameras to thebacks of penguins.

"If you can glue something on with that it takes a real jerk topull it off," Joyce said.

See Art on page 8

~ Karen's Bridge ~

Carved and painted flow-ers decorate a work truckat McMurdo Station, atleft.Below, a stained glasswindow from the SouthPole cargo office and astone and fake bush on aMcMurdo footbridge.

Photo by Carol Crossland


outside one of the red buildings.It's both a homey touch and out-of-place on the lifeless Ice.

"What you're doing there iscreating an absurd contrast,"said grantee Bill Fox, whosebackground includes reviewingart for several newspapers andmagazines and running theNevada Arts Council. "You'redoing that not to remind your-self of home, but to remind youof where you are and to enjoyit."

Public art may be more com-mon in Antarctica because peo-ple don't own property here,beyond their personal belong-ings, said Stacey Rolland, assis-tant supervisor of theMechanical Equipment Center.Creativity they might normallydirect toward their home oryard is instead focused on pub-lic spaces.

"The human instinct to deco-rate our landscape is hard-wiredinto us," said Karen Joyce, thelead for computer science sup-port. "Since we can't plant trees,

landscape."The surrounding plateau and sastrugi seemingly orders itself

around the edifice. Flags, people, buildings give 'shape' to theland," Wright said. "Small topographic rises or depressions arediscernable when there is a familiar object to accentuate such afeature. Without such, that subtle shape is not discernable to me."

Humans instinctually change the landscape to make moresense to them because they are uncomfortable with the vast, openspaces, Fox said. Like the primates we evolved from, people pre-fer "conceal and reveal terrain," with bushes and trees to hide in.

Antarctica is particularly foreign, most easily compared withscience fiction settings or the surface of Mars, Fox said.

"This is still a strange place to us. This doesn't look like theAfrican Savannah. This doesn't look like Central Park," Fox said."We still don't have a grasp of this place emotionally."

Lead helicopter technician Sarah Krall is not convinced that istrue, even after eight days together with Fox on Mt. Erebus. Shefeels comfortable in Antarctica and other wide-open spaces thatmake some people nervous or uncomfortable.

"It is a land likened to no other," Krall wrote. "It is so big, sountouched by all that makes us human. It thrills me to know it isout there. It makes me want to wander and prowl and sit andlook."

Her first extended trip into the field was in 1987-88, when shespent two and a half months snowmobiling through a section ofthe TransAntarctic Mountains, from the Byrd to Nimrod glaciers,

with two geologists and another mountaineer."Sometimes, hunkered down on a ridgetop, waiting while the

geologists discussed their finds, I would look out at the miles andmiles and miles of land and grin until my smile muscles ached,"Krall wrote. "I don't have any need to change the land into land-scape. It isn't just space, it IS place."

Fox also prefers working in deserts. The simplified landscapemakes it easier to take apart and reconstruct how people relate to it.

"The thing is, there are no trees, so you can see everythingmore clearly," Fox said. "Whether it's what has shaped your life,or what is shaping the building of this community."

Fox is scheduled to fly back to the more familiar landscape ofChristchurch next week, and then home to Oregon where heplans to write at least one book and several articles from hisAntarctic experience. The University of Georgia Press will pub-lish the book in 2004 and the first article may appear in OrionMagazine this year.

With his National Science Foundation Artists and WritersGrant almost at its end, Fox already realizes he will missAntarctica. Before coming to Antarctica, Fox interviewed mostliving Artist and Writers grantees. All of them yearned to returnto the Ice, he said.

"Part of that has to do with the landscape, but most of that hasto do with being part of this family," Fox said. "It's not that it's allwine and roses here, but there is a sense of participating in creat-ing a human landscape that I haven't experienced anyplace else."

Fox From page 6

~ hidden Art ~

The scrap metal whale is hidden behind building 141. Roy Eglund made it as a winterover project in 1993.

Art From page 7

See Art on page 9

�If you really want it to stand, it�s got to be strongenough to stand on its own.�

Risk Miller

~ hidden Art ~January 6, 2002 The Antarctic Sun � 9

A line of metal hands wave to the right of the stairs leadingto the Facilities, Engineering, Maintenance and Constructionbuilding. Like many pieces of Antarctic art, they were inspiredby the materials at hand. The long strip was cut from a pipebeing readied to protect a communications line last year.Insulator Foreman Richard Perales set the unusual scrap aside,with the thought of making it into a totem, but never got aroundto it. Just before the Antarctic Outback party held in the weld-ing shop last season he gave Risk Miller permission to make adecoration from the scrap.

"I thought, 'Well, what could I do quickly? Well, I have thisstencil right here at the end of my arm,'" Miller said, holding outhis hand.

Using his left hand, and other people's rights, he created thepattern of waving hands.

"It was something for me that was readily available andexpressed a sense of people being here." Miller said.

After the party the Hand Rail lay in the shop for a while

before finally being welded to the stanchions in the parking lot."The impact I got when I first got to McMurdo was 'Wow,

it's so dismal. What can I do to improve that?�" Miller said."You could start adding things to the landscape to liven it up."

Miller has many other ideas of ways to ornament the town,from letting people personalize the flags marking trails androads, to welding metal hands to the pipes running throughtown.

"So there's no bushes or vegetation. You could still make arock garden or something to make it nicer to move through thelandscape," Miller said.

He'd like to hide pieces of welded art all over town, "littlethings that would catch your eye, here and there," he said.

Miller puts up his art to improve the community, but there'sa personal payoff too. Even though he doesn't sign his work itgets noticed.

"Last year it got me a little attention from this girl I wassweet on," Miller said.

which we would be doing, wetry to put a permanent tag onthings."

Art also becomes a com-mentary, pointing out thehumor in a situation and chal-lenging assumptions, Rollandsaid. That's often the role ofsigns that appear around town,such as the "Wild KudzuMining Co. Sluice No. 2"claims sign over a ditch or the"Bungy jumping" sign atSausage Point.

Without these outlets, thevisual and psychological land-scape would become madden-ingly sterile, Rolland said.

The 'harsh continent'axiom applies to art as well.Unsanctioned artistic expres-sions often disappear after afew days or weeks, dependingon how controversial they are.The bungy jumping sign wasgone after a few weeks.Sometimes art is blown downor worn off by the strongwinds. Other times the art isremoved.

The best-known exampleof banished art was a metalwhale made over the winter of1993 by Roy Eglund in the

Art From page 8

See Art on page 10

~ hand rail ~

�The humaninstinct todecorate ourlandscape ishard-wiredinto us.�

Karen Joyce

Risk Miller, left, cuts holesin pieces of metal for acontraption unveiled at theMEC Alternative ArtGallery Saturday. Thehands he cut from a scraplast year are now in frontof the FEMC.Below, a krill sculpturepoints the direction of thewind above the sauna atPalmer Station. MikePatterson made the krill in1994.

Photo by Tom Cohenour/For the Sun


heavy shop. It has chain ribs anda gaping mouth filled with saw-teeth. For a while the sculpturestood by the Coffeehouse, untilthe National Science Foundationsummer station manager arrivedand took a disliking to it, Joycesaid. A "Save the Whale" cam-paign kept the sculpture frombeing returned to the scrap metalheap, and instead it was relegatedto the backside of building 141.

In an interesting twist, granteeFox is now lobbying for thewhale to be redeemed andreturned to a more prominentposition in town.

Artist Risk Miller also worksin scrap metal and was responsi-ble for one of the most recent artinstallations, hands cut from alength of scrap. He accepts thereality that the "Hand Rail" hecreated outside the Facilities,Engineering, Maintenance andConstruction building could beremoved.

"If I put something out there, Irealize I run that risk," Millersaid. "If you really want it tostand it's got to be strong enoughto stand on its own."

Strong enough both physicallyand aesthetically, but Miller does-n't begrudge the artistic judg-ments of the authorities.

"That's those people's job. Ifsomething is offensive, that's notwhat this whole thing is about,"Miller said. "I don't think peopleshould just be able to put upwhatever they want."

While it brings up questionsabout how much people areallowed to invest in the communi-ty, the transitory nature alsosometimes adds to the art, makingit part of station's oral tradition,Rolland said.

Some of the art is meant to betransitory anyway, like the peacesign formed on Ob Hill from peo-ple in red parkas a few weeks agoor snow sculptures near the SouthPole marker. The biggest artevent of the season at McMurdo,the MEC Alternative Art Galleryor MAAG, is as much a happen-ing as a show. Now in it's fifthyear, the MAAG started as spoof

~ hidden Art ~

The Goat Path started as a shortcut up thehill, from behind Facilities, Engineering,Maintenance and Construction building tothe Carpentry shop. No goats were involved,but over the years people have carved steps,built rock cairns and painted a sign for it.

"It's kind of like a little spiritual path,"said carpenter Galen Schlich, who walks itdaily.

Old trail flags pulled from waste bins flut-ter along the path like Tibetan prayer flags.The wind plays music on a set of chimesSchlich made two seasons ago from electri-cal conduit, wire cable, copper stripping anda piece of oak.

"I wanted to build something that made

sort of a little more variety of sounds,"Schlich said.

He has grander plans for the path, expand-ing on the rock pile and creating a place tosit.

"Human beings like to pick up rocks andmove them around," Bill Fox said of thefour-year-old cairn.

All that will disappear soon, as the area istaken over by milvans, carpenter Mark"cmdr" Melcon said. But the trail will justdevelop again in another location, as it hasseveral times before over the last seven ormore years.

"I always say it's like the Inca trail,"Salvatori Consalvi said, "only shorter."

See Art on page 11

Art From page 9

~ Goat Path ~

�It�s like the Inca trail, only shorter.�Salvatori Consalvi

A museum of muralspainted by past win-terovers hangs in aroom at the carpentryshop at McMurdoStation, at left.The Goat Path to thecarpentry shop isitself a work-in-progress, below.


~ hidden Art ~

of the pretentious New York Cityart scene. It's evolved into a high-ly interactive event, like BurningMan, where the audience is theshow, Rolland said. One year twopeople in Tyvek suits lay on acanvas and passersby paintedthem along with the canvas. Lastyear blocks of ice were set out forpeople to chip away at or meltwith torches. Last night theMAAG featured a RubeGoldberg-style contraption.

The MAAG stands out fromthe pre-holiday Arts and CraftsShow because it is completelynot-for-sale. The lack of commer-cialism is another trait of the artthat appears around town. It's putup free for all to see, often madeof scrap and found material.

The artists don't get paid, oreven remembered. Though a fewpaintings are signed, most of theartwork is anonymous. Often it's ashared, spontaneous effort. Oneperson moves a few stones orplaces a few flags along a trail,and soon others are adding to it.

"It's like this spirit that's com-ing out, this collective spirit,"Miller said.

In a way it's also a silent con-versation. Even the most frivolouslooking pieces, plastic dinosaursand stone piles, can be fraughtwith meaning.

"It's complicated stuff. If youwere Freud, you'd go out thereand have a ball," Fox said.

There's nothing complicatedabout the basic philosophy behindthe various installations and artpieces though. That is simple.

"Just make it a little nicer ifyou can," said carpenter Mark"cmdr" Melcon.

People's art reflects the materials at hand, giving each work center at McMurdo Station itsown style. The older buildings have the best art, either because it has collected over time, orbecause nobody is as concerned with preserving newly built sterility.

At the Movement Control Center an abstracted figure cut from earplug containers hangsnear the door with a gallery label: "Lend an Ear, Industrial paper and ink, Jonathan Keller,2000, Donated by the artist on behalf of the US Hearing Protection Board." A cardboard bull-dozer hangs from the ceiling of the waste barn, where cardboard farm animals and bubble-wrap aliens decorate the walls under the hungry eye of a tiger prowling a cardboard junglescene.

"If you walk into any of the shop areas here you'll find some of the best, most interestingfolk art you can imagine," Bill Fox said.

The paint barn is a mini-gallery. Andy Warhol could have done the black marker drawingof Bob Marley on an orange door. Even the heating vents are painted rainbow colors and thescrub brushes have carved wooden handles and painted heads.

The masterpiece painted on the vault-like backdoor is clearly reminiscent of early Italianrenaissance portraiture. A cat and red apple sit beside the man, in his puffy-sleeved brocadeshirt. Even the texture of rust and layers of paint beneath the richly colored paint give the effectof an oil painting cracked with time or a fresco painted on stucco.

Like many renaissance paintings, the artist is unknown, or known only to a few. This paint-ing is initialed, but unlabeled, and by now the painter has left the Ice.

The carpentry shop is almost a museum, preserving painted panels they've found tearingdown old buildings. Murals by past winter-overs hang high over one of the shop rooms, sport-ing slogans: "Which way to the beach," "Daylight come and we wanna go home," and "Wayoff the flagged route."

One shelf holds this year's group project, a model of a log cabin built from beef jerky. Otherodds and ends hang in a hodge podge on the walls.

"A lot of it isn't even art to some people," said John "Woody" Haywood, carpenter shopforeman. "It's just weird little things they stick on the wall that attracted them at some time."

Art From page 10

~ Working man's gallery ~

Painters turn walls anddoors of the paint barn into

canvases to display theirprowess. At right, a paintingof a windsurfer on a tropical

beach creates a diptych onthe double doors.

In the waste barn, abulldozer crafted from

cardboard hangs from theceiling.

12� The Antarctic Sun January 6, 2002

experience a "significant reduction"because of abnormally extensive sea iceand the movement of massive icebergs,one the size of Delaware.

"Enormous Icebergs ImperilPenguins," read one headline from the LosAngeles Times last week, where it wasreported the two icebergs that broke off inMarch of 2000, combined with sea ice,have "choked" some coastal areas.

This year emperor and Adelie penguinshave had difficulty traveling to and fromtheir breeding grounds, usually located atthe sea's edge, because of ice conditions inthe Ross Sea. According to Ainley thebirds' normal walking speed is 0.5 milesper hour, while their swimming speedaverages 4 to 5 miles per hour.

Long, difficult over-ice journeys dis-couraged penguins from breeding thisyear. Usually, the birds migrate inland totheir breeding grounds from the pack icein the eastern Ross Sea, where the femalepenguin lays eggs in pebble-lined nests,then travels to the sea for food while hermate incubates them. This year, the forag-ing parent has often returned too late, if atall, causing the incubating birds to aban-don the eggs in search of food.

"Males take the first turn on the eggs,for about 12 days," said Ainley. "But nowmales sit and wait but the females don'treturn."

Their fate seemed a cruel act by MotherNature until the mid-December stormoriginating on the polar plateau, blew 20miles (32k) of ice out to sea and clearedthe way for penguins. Ainley's team andother scientists were studying the birds atCape Crozier, Cape Bird and Cape Roydswhen the storm hit and they witnessed the

immediate effects of the removed sea ice. "When we ventured forth, we found

that the colony population had tripled andmore penguins continued to stream in,"wrote Ainley in an e-mail. "It appears thatthe big wind expanded the Ross Seapolynya sufficiently enough to encourageall these birds to show up."

The storm could have saved thecolonies had it not arrived two months toolate. The four-day storm that should haveoccurred during the early austral spring hitRoss Island one week before summer sol-stice on Dec. 14.

What is left of theAntarctic summer isnot long enough to raise chicks beforewinter arrives.

"If they don't lay eggs by Nov. 20, it'stoo late," said Ainley.

For the penguins, Mother Nature isfickle. In many ways, the timing of thestorm couldn't have been worse, as itoccurred during the peak-hatching season.The winds carried away more than sea ice- it also stole eggs and chicks.

"Apparently, whenever a parent rose toswitch position or give over nest duty toits partner the eggs or hatchlings departed,

swept away by the wind," wrote Ainley. About 500 adults were blown down the

hillside and killed at the Cape CrozierAdelie colony. Hundreds of remainingpenguins were buried in snowdrifts 5 to 15feet (1.6 to 4.9 m) deep.

"A bunch wiggled their way to the sur-face, but likely hundreds are still buried,"wrote Ainley.

After the storm only 2 percent of theAdelie breeding population at CapeCrozier, the sixth largest Adelie colony inthe world, has chicks.

Beforehand,emperor penguins at CapeCrozier failed to produce chicks, accord-ing to Gerald Kooyman of ScrippsInstitution of Oceanography. The problemwith the emperor colony is that the largesticeberg (called B15 based on the locationfrom which it broke) may have bumped upagainst Cape Crozier during the winter,which is when they lay eggs and incubate.

"It is unclear as to the timing of the ice-berg's movement in relation to the comingand going of emperors during the winter,"said Paul Ponganis of the University ofCalifornia in San Diego. "But the endresult was that we could not find any liveemperor chicks at the usual Cape Crozieremperor colony location."

The exact fate of the birds remains apuzzle.

"We do not know if most of the emper-ors abandoned the site and left, if theywere trapped there and died, or if theymay have moved to another site,"Ponganis said.

On the other side of Ross Island, beforethe four-day, mid-December storm, the

See Penguins on page 13

Penguins From page 1

"A bunch wiggledtheir way to thesurface, but likelyhundreds are stillburied."

Dave Ainley, penguin researcher

After the storm, an Adelie penguin is buriedto its neck in snow at Cape Crozier. The iceand snow conditions have been difficult forpenguins this year. At right, a wall of jumbledice impedes the birds� migration to breedinggrounds.

Photo courtesy of David Ainley

Photo courtesy of David Ainley


Adelie penguin colony at Cape Royds andthe southernmost Adelie penguin colonyin the world was headed for extinction.The outlook remains grim. While thestorm blew out 30 to 75 km (18 to 45miles) of ice, the population increasedonly slightly. The birds' journey has beenshortened from a 120-km (72-mile) round-trip walk to a 60-km (36-mile) round-tripwalk - still too far for an over-ice journey.If the sea ice can break up more the colonywill be fine, Ainley said.

Just north of Cape Royds the windworked miracles for the Cape Bird colonythat was expected to suffer the same fateas its neighbor to the south. However,Cape Bird is located slightly farther northand closer to open water than Cape Royds."It now takes a day for the penguins to goout and back," said Ainley. "That's their'normal' feeding trip duration."

According to Ainley, about 30 percentof the Cape Bird breeding population haschicks, compared with 2 percent at othercolonies.

The ice as a culpritJust as penguins are a part of Antarctic

ecology, so are ice movement and the con-stant calving of icebergs. The irony is thatpenguins need coastline and shores uponwhich they can breed; yet this terrain is

provided by the retreat of ice shelf throughthe calving of bergs. Colonies around RossIsland are very vulnerable to ice calvingand they are now living through the effectsof a giant iceberg that calved-off almosttwo years ago.

The trouble began for the penguins inMarch of 2000, when the B15 icebergbroke away from the Ross Ice Shelf andeventually migrated toward Cape Crozieron the east side of Ross Island. The ice-berg measures 100 miles long (160k), 22to 32 miles wide (33-50 miles), 150 feet(46m) above water and 800 feet (246m)deep. The berg has split in two, shifted,drifted, pivoted and cracked in the last twoyears, and harbors the potential to blocksea access to McMurdo Station.

On the west side of the island, theeffects of accumulated sea furtherincreased the isolation of the island. Thisyear, for the second consecutive season,the sea ice in the McMurdo Sound did notbreak up as it usually does in the late aus-tral spring. Usually, strong, southerlywinds send newly-formed sea ice on itsway and out of the area. Researchers saythat perhaps the absence of the wind thisyear prevented the sea ice and from escap-ing McMurdo Sound. Others are exploringthe possibility that persistence of the seaice is caused by the B15 iceberg.

"There is also some argument now as to

whether the sea ice is caused by B15a orthat the fact that B15a didn't get blownaway last winter is due to an unusuallywindless winter that also caused the seaice," wrote Doug MacAyeal of theUniversity of Chicago, in an e-mail.

Along with the annual breakup of thesea ice comes the U.S. Coast Guard vessel,the Polar Star, an icebreaker used to cut achannel through remaining ice to allowsafe passage of re-supply ships. However,this year the NSF has contracted two ice-breakers to clear a path in the extra-thickice. The breakers helped the Cape Roydsbirds by collapsing the integrity of the ice,which created enough cracks to allowopen water to reach the colony whenstrong winds blew the ice out onWednesday and Thursday.

"The breaker cuts a swath down themiddle about 100 yards wide," saidAinley. "The ice becomes two big icesheets that can break apart.

Meanwhile, researchers at Cape Birdand Crozier will use radio telemetry totrack the birds and find out where pen-guins are feeding. They will track theirprogress during the coming years andstudy as much of the penguin colonies aspossible.

According to the NSF, "The penguinsresponse to the icebergs likely will pro-vide major new insights into the biology,

Penguins From page 12

"There is alsosome argument

now as to whetherthe sea ice is

caused by B15a orthat the fact thatB15a didn't getblown away last

winter is due to anunusually windless

winter that alsocaused the sea

ice."Doug MacAyeal,

University of Chicago

The location of B15 in relation to the penguin colonies before the storm, left, and after.

ProfileBy Mark SabbatiniSun staff


When David Zimmerman start-ed writing songs, he quicklyfigured out how to tell if theywere reaching an appreciative

audience."I would write nothing but funny songs

because you can tell instantly if people likefunny songs," he said.

The tactic seems to have worked forZimmerman, a waste equipment operator atMcMurdo Station, with those who haveheard his acoustic-oriented work oftenreferring to his sense of humor. But the gui-tarist has also expanded into more serioustopics during performances on the Ice,while working as a sailor on replicas of his-toric East Coast ships and on an album he'sreleased.

"The way I describe what type of musicI play is one cup raw folk and two table-spoons funky," he said.

Zimmerman drew a sizeable crowd dur-ing a largely humor-oriented Christmasshow at McMurdo this year with one of hisolder brothers, Robert, who helped teachDavid to play guitar and played a large rolein his decision to work in Antarctica. Theolder Zimmerman worked in waste opera-tions before David came down three yearsago to work as an insulator's helper. But dur-ing his free time David often helped hisbrother and others at the waste plant.

"Everybody up there seemed like theywere real cool," he said. "It seemed like afun place to work."

So after a year at the South Pole andanother off the Ice, Zimmerman took a jobthere this season. He said his work is large-ly driving a loader and emptying full trashbins around the station. The work has somefringe benefits beyond the company of hisco-workers.

"You find lots of cool stuff in the trash,"he said. "If you wonder why the skua shackis kind of barren it's because we all get achance to go through it first."

Among the more memorable items,Zimmerman said, are pieces of wood paint-ed to look like Greek pillars, "an entirewardrobe" of clothes, unused blue and yel-low x-ray film that has a stained glass effectwhen placed on windows, and variousmaterials he uses to make sculptures.

He also worked in waste operations dur-ing his season at the Amundsen-Scott SouthPole Station, but said he prefers McMurdobecause it's easier to find places to playmusic. Most Pole workers are housed incommunal Jamesways, where playing gui-tar can be disruptive to those trying to sleepor seeking some quiet.

"If you're going to play for yourselfyou've got to go into a lounge and ninetimes out of 10 someone's watching amovie," Zimmerman said.

He has played various musical instru-ments since the age of 4, but said he's morelikely to simply play for fun for an hourrather than follow any structured routine.

"I was never a big fan of practicing," hesaid.

Zimmerman grew up on Long Island andat the age of 6 moved with his family toWoodstock, N.Y., where he still keeps hisstuff even if he doesn't live there full-time.His mother signed him up for violin lessonsearly in his childhood and then he took sev-eral years of piano lessons - which he saidhe enjoyed more - starting at age 10.

At about the same time he started volun-teering with his father for the Hudson RiverSloop Clearwater. The Clearwater vessel,started by folk star Pete Seeger and now inits 32th year of operation, teaches history,biology, environmental science and naviga-tion to about 20,000 people a year.Zimmerman's mother saw an ad for it whenhe was 8.

"She dragged all of us kids kicking andscreaming," Zimmerman said. "There was abunch of hippies playing folk music."

But he said that experience was how heand his two older brothers started playingguitar. He also spent years working on theClearwater, first as a volunteer and then in avariety of paid positions all the way up tofirst mate, and a number of other tradition-ally rigged vessels along the East Coast.

"It's just really fun to move somethingthat big with just the wind," he said.

Zimmerman got his first guitar forChristmas when he was 14. He learned toperform with others between deckhandshifts on the Clearwater, often struggling togain appreciation from an audience thatconsisted of junior high school students onfield trips.

"We played for the kids and that's thebest way to feel comfortable in front of anaudience�it certainly can't get any worsethan that," he said.

The next step was songwriting andhumor was the easiest genre at the begin-ning. It made an impression on Andy White,a pipefitter apprentice at McMurdo who metZimmerman during his first season on theIce. White said one of the "hystericallyfunny" songs he remembers hearing wasone called "Storm Trooper Commander."

"I thought it was the funniest thing ever,"White said. "The entire 'Star Wars' movie isincluded in the song. It's about what a schlep

job being a storm trooper is."Parodies of Antarctic life were a large

part of the Christmas shows Zimmermanperformed during his first year on the Iceand again this season, both times with hisbrother. He said this year they played songsone or the other had written previously - andtogether wrote about five more the weekbefore the show - with material about theIce coming naturally.

"It's a lot easier because everybody hasto deal with the same stuff," he said.

A sample of such work is found on his1999 album "Just a Little Something,"where he spends "Another Night inChristchurch, N.Z." lamenting the mountingnumber of mishaps on the transport planethat keep him from getting to his job on theIce. Other songs profile the life of a "MeanNasty Bowling Guy," talk about Englishbeing the "Language of Land Mines" andfeature him getting turned down in embar-rassing fashion by a "Kiwi Girl."

Zimmerman said friends helped him findan inexpensive studio and provided assis-tance with artwork for the album, and so farhe's sold about half of the 1,000 CDs pro-duced. He said he's planning another record-ing project after this season, possibly addinga percussionist to the guitar and vocals thatmake up his first effort.

White, a sculpting artist who helpeddesign the cover of Zimmerman's album,said it was surprising to find such artisticand humorous instincts in Zimmerman,since during his first season he often sat qui-etly alone during break times.

"He wouldn't talk much, (but) the wholetime he was writing songs, the entire sea-son," White said. "Occasionally he'd askyou for a rhyming word, like 'what rhymeswith lasagna.'"

Songs from David Zimmerman's album"Just a Little Something" can be heard thisweek at The Antarctic Sun's Web site atwww.polar.org/antsun.

In ttune wwith tthe IIce

Photo by Mark Sabbatini/The Antarctic SunDavid Zimmerman and his faithful guitar.

Zimmerman is 1 cup folk, 2 T funky

the antarctic sun, january 6, 2002 · pdf filetheantarctic sun january 6, 2002 published...

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