Now that you know all about Antarctica, let’s take a look at what life is like living there!
Click here to read the first part of Life at One End of the World!
• Polies must wear 25 pounds of clothing to stay warm; they store the clothes in a special coatroom.
• Bedrooms (two sizes: 9x8 feet for winter residents and 9x7 feet for summer visitors) have just enough space for a bed and a desk.
• In winter, kitchen supplies must last 265 days to serve 50 very hungry people. On average, a Polie must eat 5,000 calories a day to have enough energy to keep warm; most actually lose weight!
• Salad greens and vegetables are grown in a greenhouse and served fresh at meals.
• Polies relax and warm up in the sauna.
• All trash and waste are packed in recycling rooms to be shipped out. (Everything travels by ship or aircraft, but not in winter.)
• For entertainment, Polies have rooms for reading, games, and art and crafts. They also have a TV room, where they watch recorded programs (the South Pole is too remote to receive live TV), and a small store for buying snacks.
• Polies lift weights or play basketball in the gym.
• A doctor and medical equipment are available. Serious injuries require creative thinking: In 2002, a meteorologist fell and hurt his knee. Using voice and video links, doctors in Boston helped a doctor at the South Pole perform surgery on the man.
• Beneath the station, in carved-out areas in the ice, are fuel and cargo storage, waste management, maintenance garages, and a power plant. A cylindrical tower contains stairs and an elevator so that people can travel back and forth from the aboveground building to the underground facilities.
