Getting Knocked Up in Antarctica.

Several nights ago I attended a very interesting talk about how we humans have managed, over the millenia, to measure and record time. I discovered that at one stage after the industrial revolution workers were required to be at work on time and they could be docked half a days pay for being late. Because the poor could not afford timepieces, people were employed to wake them in the morning. This was done by knocking on their windows - or in the case of those who slept upstairs, shooting dried peas at their upstairs bedroom windows - the term used for this practise was "knocking up" and later it came to be used for just waking someone up. I learned the expression from my father who would often refer to being "knocked up" at a certain time in the morning.

I'm not sure how it came about, but the term also came to be used for making a woman pregnant. My mind boggles about how the term came to have this other meaning and I did wonder that, if the "knocker up" 'knocked' too early, the double entendre, "early rise", could have resulted in the impregnation in those days preceding birth control.

A ?Knocked Up Lady 'Knocker Up' Takes Aim at an Upper Window

Back in 1960 near the Beardmore Glacier in Antarctica I became stranded at a primitive weather station with a few Americans manning the outpost. One night I left the comfort of their Nissen hut  for my polar tent and asked a RNZAF person there to 'knock me up ' at six the next morning because I had a radio call the next morning. The following morning I was interrogated by the Americans who only knew of the impregnation definition of the phrase. They were a bit sceptical of my explanation of the term!

Crew at Beardmore Depot

In the photo above, from left, Peter Rule(one of the rescued RNZAF airmen), 'Carp' USA (whose father was killed in the WW2 attack on Pearl Harbour), Athol Boag (RNZAF who was asked to 'knock me up), two from USA, 'Con' who had the interest in the differences between American and English phrases.

There is a very interesting discussion of the phrase in the linked discussion here. And the interesting story of the RNZAF rescue is recorded here and here. It also is in one of my previous blogs - and presently featured above - about the antarctic rescue.

Cook Wanted at Scott Base, Antarctica

Back in 1959 I was a member of a NZ Alpine Club expedition to the area just east of the Beardmore Glacier in the Ross dependence area of Antarctica. After we arrived at Scott Base we spent about ten days preparing and testing our gear before being flown further south. While there we became acquainted with the Scott Base cook, known as Willy. Willy was a feisty Scot, who disliked Americans intensely and had a weakness for scotch whisky. One night when we had a visit from the American Admiral Tyree, a US Senator  and others from McMurdo Sound base, Willy burst into the mess room, shouting abuse and threatening the Americans - much to our embarrassment. He was manhandled out into the snow and left to cool off.

Robin Oliver with Willy the cook

While we were away to the south, Willy performed even more and it was decided that he was unsuitable material for wintering over. One of the NZers had to return to NZ and happened to notice an advertisement in the NZ papers for a new cook for Scott Base. This news got back to Willy who went on strike. He took his  large supply of whisky over to the McMurdo rubbish dump where he established a trading post from his abode in an abandoned packing case. McMurdo was free of any spirits and Willy had no trouble trading his whiskey for food until he was put on the next flight out of Antarctica.

This happened about the time I returned from our field trip south. I say "I" because I had been stranded at the Beardmore Depot after a plane crash and the rest of our team had returned to NZ. So Scott Base was without a cook until the new cook arrived from NZ.  I was asked if I would like to earn some money by acting as cook for Scott Base. Being a poor 22 year old University student at the time, I told Jim Lennox-King (the Scott Base leader) that my cooking skills were somewhat basic - but I'd give it a go. Someone taught me the essentials of gravy and bread making and so started the busiest job I ever had. There were about fifty based at Scott Base and they were usually very hungry for the  remaining weeks I was cooking prior to returning to NZ on the Arneb.

BLS, the Scott Base cook(second from right),  in the Mess Room with some of the Scott Base staff

There was no room for me at Scott Base so I had to live on my own in a polar tent outside.  Despite the cold my hours were such that I had no trouble sleeping.  My days started at 4am when I rose and made my way over to the kitchen where I cranked up the ovens and started making bread. This was followed by breakfast - cooked of course; then lunch (not for everyone as many had made lunch for outside excursions) and after a brief respite in the afternoon the main dinner for the day had to be prepared. After this my day ended about 8pm - back to sleep in my cold tent.

All the time I had to plan about three days ahead because everything perishable was frozen in a snow cave in a slope beyond the Base and had to be chipped out of the ice and thawed out. I had a 'house mouse' to help most of the time. One evening, I'd just got off to sleep when I was woken by two Americans. They had caught a big Antarctic cod through a hole in the ice and asked If I'd cook it for them. I wasn't keen but the promise of sharing what was to be some delectable fresh fish was the turning point.  We had a great midnight meal while the Base slept!

There were other adventures. An American tractor had lost its load (a big packing case and sledge) into a crevasse on the Ross Ice Shelf. Kiwis never miss an opportunity so we harnessed up the dogs and raced out to the site, armed with crowbars and hammers. We climbed down to the packing case and jemmied it open to see what might be inside.  It was full of tins of green peas.  Undeterred we loaded up the sledge and made several trips back to Scott Base. I heard that they were still eating 'our' peas several years later.

Poem Near the Beardmore Glacier

Here is a short poem that I wrote a couple of years ago.  I find it interesting for a couple of reasons.

Firstly it relates to a moment in 1959 in Antarctica when I sat on a ridge near the Beardmore Glacier and went digging in my pack for a bit of paper.  In the map pocket I found an old letter from a girl friend of some twelve or so months previously, one who'd been part of my life for about three years. As you do, you get over these things. Anyway I thought it appropriate to bury the letter and the past on the spot.

'Somewhere a Letter'    (Beardmore Gl. on left, Hood Gl. on right)

The other interesting thing about this poem is that it seems to work in most ways I re-order the lines. Not all ways, in fact with ten lines there are 362880 ways they can be ordered 10 factorial (or something like that) my maths friends tell me! Here is the poem, written in response to the recollection of that moment.

Cold Words

Somewhere

on a ridge

a cairn

known only to me

forever buried

under a pile of rocks

85 south

cold words

in blue ink, I recall

her last letter.

bls

Antarctic Rescue - January 1960

I recently wrote about an alpine rescue in 1958.  I was recently reminded of a rescue I was involved in early 1960 in Antarctica.  Towards the end of the NZAC Antarctic expedition to the area east of the Beardmore Glacier our team was to be flown out to Scott Base by the RNZAF Antarctic Flight. Near the mouth of the Beardmore we fitted half (four) our expedition members and all their gear into the plane - we made sure that all our rock samples went in first - the Beaver, piloted by Les Jeffs, managed to struggle into the sky just before they reached the horizon. This was 8th Jan.

The Packed Beaver

Over the next three days the remaining four of us manhauled the four sleds with our remaining gear out to the Beardmore Depot. Here three Americans manned this halfway weather station between Scott Base and the South Pole. The Beaver would pick us up in a couple of days, we were told! Sure enough they arrived to pick us up but only had space for three of us.  I won the toss and elected to stay away from the metropolis of Scott Base.  They'd be back for me soon they said.

Fair enough I thought - but they crashed on a glacier to the west of us in a white out on 15th Jan. Luckily the impact simply turned the Beaver upside down and their new crash hats save them from serious injury.  The American radio man at the Beardmore Depot picked up their mayday signal and relayed it to McMurdo.  Because of weather problems help, in the form of an R4D (like our old DC3s), took five days to get to them but after discovering that they were in amongst crevasses, returned to McMurdo after dropping them some supplies.

"Carp" Beardmore Depot Radio Operator

The rescue was left to Bill Cranfield a very experienced NZ pilot who performed one of the great unsung rescues in Antarctica. In a tiny Auster he flew solo from Scott Base stopping to refuel from a fuel drum on his own somewhere on the Ross Iceshelf near the Shackleton Glacier.  He landed at the Beardmore Depot in a white out - there was nowhere else to go!  We guided him to the Depot  with smoke from a burning aircraft tyre.  We told him by radio when we could hear him directly overhead and he flew south for a while before turning 180 degrees and descending through the fog on full flap until he 'hit' the Ross Iceshelf. It was quite eerie seeing this little Auster taxiing towards us through the whiteout.

Auster Landed - note smoke 

Bill Cranfield and Les Jeffs

After a couple more days he managed to fly to the crash site and picked up one if the airmen but couldn't land at Beardmore Depot because of more whiteout conditions.  He returned to the site and slept with the airmen in their emergency tent hoping for a change of weather.  Finally on the eighth day he managed to rescue both airmen.  He returned to Scott Base with Les Jeffs on the 24th Jan and the other, Peter Rule returned on an American R4D flight with me on 2nd Feb.  For Peter Rule it had been 23 days since his departure from Scott Base. My only involvement had been to man the radio between the Beardmore Depot and the Auster.  My last effort at Scott Base was as cook for the base for the rest of the summer - as the cook had gone AWOL - together with his considerable supply of whisky.  It was a steep learning curve for me.

Bill Cranfield and Rescued Airmen (plus Athol Boag)

Antarctica 2012

This coming summer is the 100th anniversary of the epics of Amunsden and Scott.  Catherine, my brother John and I  thought we'd celebrate these polar events with a little art exhibition at the Selwyn Gallery at Darfield near Christchurch where we had our 2009 exhibition ("Beyond the Road Ends").  Catherine will be painting, I'll exhibit some of my prints and John will concentrate on the northern polar regions with his photos.  It'll be called "Poles Apart".  It will be on for the month of February 2012 with the opening on Saturday 4th Feb.  Catherine and I will also be doing one on Antarctica at Arts Post in Hamilton, as luck would have it, overlapping with the Darfield one.  Not so bad for a printmaker but more work for the painter! Here are images of two of my prints.

Gateway to the South (Embossed Woodcut - BLS)

One Way South (Woodcut Monoprint - BLS)

And, by the way, if you are interested in Art on Antarctica have a look at Meliors Simms' blog where she is charting the construction of her next exhibition (Imagining Antarctica) of textile art to go on Display at Arts Post, Hamilton from the 19th August.  Cool stuff.

http://meliors.blogspot.com/

Antarctica 1959

Here come three personal posts about Antarctica.  This one is about when I was a young man of 22.  The New Zealand Alpine Club organised a trip to climb mountains in Antarctica in the summer of 1959-60 and I was one of the eight chosen to go.  We man-hauled sledges, explored and climbed in the area immediately east of the lower Beardmore Glacier, in fact we were the first people to step onto the Beardmore since Scott. Here is a triptych of photos I took looking up the immense Beardmore on the blog of Meliors Simms, an artist currently finishing an impressive series of fabric artworks based on Antarctica.

http://meliors.blogspot.com/2010/04/antarctica-1959.html

Because we had logistical help, courtesy of the NZ and American taxpayers we included surveying, geology and biology among our skills and we acquitted ourselves well in that respect.  We discovered the furthest south animal life on our planet at the time (Collembola insects and mites), did enough geology for a couple of scientific papers and surveyed more of the Ross Dependency than any team that summer. We also managed to climb about ten peaks, all of them first ascents. I never saw a single penguin! At the end I managed to get employment as the cook at Scott Base when the cook went AWOL into the ice.  A narrative of the trip by Bob Cawley, our leader, can be found in the NZ Alpine Journal of 1960. For me the whole adventure was a life changing experience. Here are a few photos of this memorable expedition.

Manhauling on the Ross Ice Shelf

Camp on the Hood Glacier

Descending Mt Patrick

Mt Kyffin

Summit of Mt Kyffin

Wedge Face Peak Camp

Manhauling down the Hood Glacier.  Photo: Hugh Tyndale Biscoe