My First Winter/Over, McMurdo, AQ

1988-1989

Actually out of context but it will do for now.

Did you know that the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code for Antarctica is AQ?

To the summitThe following collection of twelve letters was written during the long Antarctic Night of my first Winter/Over (w/o), 1988-89, at McMurdo Station, Ross Island, Antarctica. Originally the earliest letters were composed on a TRS-80, Model 100 and stored on single-sided/single-density discs. Later that Winter I found an old PC of some unknown brand and vintage which had a 10mb hard drive, an orange phosphor character-cell video monitor, and early DOS versions of PC-Write or Ms.Word, and really went to town.

Now, twenty years later, the texts have been dusted off, spell-checked (sort of), reformatted, and presented here for what ever historical or hysterical value they may have. No apologies offered, no accuracy guaranteed; this is the way I saw my surroundings and this is the way I felt. Some touching paragraphs in there (I think so anyhow), some comments and replies to people now dead, and other parts to folks I've long since lost touch with. Chick MacLean and Arti Rogers are two in particular I most miss. But then I am sure they are not now the people I knew then and it is that world from which I remember them.


The images here and there in these letters are all from later winters but they will do until I find the slides from that first w/o and get them scanned.

U SAP Crest after the Research was Removed
  1. The Journey South
  2. Finding McMurdo Station
  3. January 1989
  4. Winter Solstice
  5. The Last Sunset
  6. So Much for May
  7. Airdrop Happened
  8. Fourth of July Pig Roast
  9. Hero of the Antarctic Night
  10. Winfly Week
  11. Twelve Days and Counting
  12. Work to do at Palmer Station


 A.J.Oxton, OA, OO, OAE,  k1oIq

Evil Al The Network NARC

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