World Penguin Day celebrated with an article on Antarctic heritage

Just in time to celebrate and anticipate World Penguin Day on April 25th, Polar Geography has published our article Tourism and heritage in Antarctica: exploring cultural, natural and subliminal experiences, co-authored by CHAQ scientific project members Bob Frame, Daniela Liggett, Kati Lindström, Ricardo Roura and Lize-Marié van der Watt.

In the article we look at Antarctic tourism before COVID-19 outbreak (which was a game-changer, as you may imagine, at least for some time). We looked at how Antarctic heritage is represented in three types of documents.

First, the official documents of the Antarctic Treaty System, such as the documents concerning the List of Historic Sites and Monuments and the Site Guidelines for Visitors, developed in cooperation with the Antarctic tour operators’ association IAATO. These documents establish the authorised heritage value of the Antarctic Treaty System, that is, the political consensus about the heritage values in Antarctica.

Second, we have looked at how IAATO tour operators “serve” heritage as a commodity and what is the horizon of expectations that they generate in their materials. Real tour routes are always a compromise between anticipated tourist interest, cost and accessibility, but it seemed to be rather clear to us that the cultural heritage aspects are in the back seat, and overwhelming natural “wilderness” experience takes the centre stage. Most of the tours take place in the areas that have had a major anthropogenic impact, but that is not perceivable to our urban tourists born and raised among asphalt of warmer latitudes.

However, the official values of the Antarctic Treaty System do not always represent the tourist perception of the sites. Thus, as a third data source, we have also looked at the entries in the guest books in Antarctic huts and user-generated data in trip Advisor. These sources reveal that for a person who visits Antarctic tourists sites, the cultural and natural aspects of the environment blend into one hybrid experience of sublime. It is impossible to divorce the historical, authentic aspects of heritage sites from the natural environment they are located in. The resulting naturecultural hybrid experience is a part of the heritage value of these sites, even though the Antarctic Treaty System’s List of Historic Sites and Monuments concentrates more on isolated human artefacts rather than wider landscapes.

Penguins at Penguin Bay - enriching with smell and sound the experience of the inconspicuous wooden stick on the stone mound, the remains of the cairn and signpost marking the location of the depot left by Nordenskjöld’s expedition in this Bay in 1902, before starting their first overwintering season. The site is off limits for tourists as it lies in the heart of a huge penguin colony.

Swedish film screening and live chat with Kati and Dag

We hope that the Swedish-speakers among our readers have not missed the upcoming event organised by Luleå Technical University who has produced a short documentary about the scientific results of the CHAQ2020 expedition. The expedition was initiated and coordinated in Sweden by the Swedish Science Foundation financed project Creating Cultural heritage in Antarctica (CHAQ) whose principle investigator Lize-Marié van der Watt and the Swedish expedition leader Dag Avango worked hard to make the expedition a reality. In addition to the conservation related questions that have received a lot of attention so far, the expedition had also a scientific research agenda. This research was carried out by CHAQ members Kati Lindström and Dag Avango who speak about their research results to the Swedish viewers in this short film. You will hear about why countries and people want to protect cultural heritage in Antarctica, how cultural heritage protection in Antarctica has been understood by different people and in different periods, but also what this means for the possibility of preserving the sites in the face of climate change.

The film will be screened from 12.00 on LTU Vetenskap's Hus’ website and you will have the chance to ask Kati and Dag questions through the live chat.

The film includes some footage filmed by Kati in Antarctica - even if you can’t speak Swedish, you cans till enjoy that! Melting History thanks LTU communications department for the initiative!

Homage to Santiago M. Comerci (1922-2020)

During the last three days, Latin American historians of the Antarctic have gathered in the virtual space to share their work and during the first day, a short homage was paid to Santiago M. Comerci, a historian of Antarctica from the Argentine Antarctic Institute who left this world on August 21 this year, at the age of 97.

The Swedish reader might ask: who is Santiago Comerci and why would he appear on Melting History? The answer is: Comerci is one of these few men thanks to whom the Snow Hill Hut still stands. Without him and Ricardo Capdevila, the ice would probably have cracked the building from the inside long before CHAQ got there.

Argentina claimed the hut in 1954 and Argentine Navy visited Snow Hill even in the 1970s, but the building was a pack of ice and remained so until Comerci, the then head of the Museum division of the Argentine Antarctic Institute, and his team of two experienced military officers as logistic support, arrived here on February 4th, 1980. The house was so full of ice that the door could not be opened and the first job consisted in smuggling in a pick-axe from the barely 20-cm door opening and secure the access to the building. By the way, not being covered in ice from inside is something new for the building: also José Maria Sobral talks about the ice sheet on the ceiling and walls which on warmer days melted a pool into his bunk bed….

1980 was a year of vicious weather and the work days were few. When the skies cleared in February 22, the men were picked up by high functionaries of the Argentine military junta of the time. A large number of objects was removed from the hut for their display and conservation in Buenos Aires. Next year, Comerci returned, and this time they managed to clean the whole house and took back even more objects. For years to come, his work on Snow Hill was followed by Ricardo Capdevila who continued with recovering the walls with tar paper, reinforcing the hillside and other works. Inventory of the Esperanza Hut made by Comerci in 1978-79 served as a bases for Capdevila’s later works at Esperanza Bay. The conditions of this work were often climatically very severe and materials scarce - not at all comparable to the comforts of the 21st century museum laboratories.

Comerci would continue as the director of Museoantar - the museum section of the Argentine Antarctic Institute - until 1996 and continued to actively write Antarctic history for many years into his retirement.

Below you can watch a short homage to Santiago M Comerci, compiled by Pablo Fontana from the Argentine Antarctic Institute. You will also see some of the objects recovered by Comerci during these first years on Snow Hill (Cerro Nevado).

Como el musguito en la piedra (Like moss on a stone)

Gunnar Almevik reflects on his time at Snow Hill, and the impact of the location on his work and thoughts on heritage

We came to Snow Hill Island and the winter station the 11th of January and left the 24th. The preparation in Sweden involved archival studies and review of documentaries and previous studies, and I expected that the sensation to being there would just confirm what we've learnt.  On the contrary, the encounter was extraordinary. The place really struck me. Personally, the sentiment had nothing to do with the hegemonic narrative of great men, adventure and hardship, nor the critical aspects of heritage as means of national identity and territorial sovereignty. The affordance of the place brought me a persisting feeling of vulnerability. The small wooden house draped in tarred felt exposed in the tremendous Antarctic landscape was like in the song of Violeta Parra, 'Como el musguito en la piedra' ("Like moss on a stone" Volver A Los 17). Ambiguously, the knowledge of the transformation of the landscape with melting glaciers and erosions of the earth, the house seemed also like an intruder and statue for the Anthropocene. The house stands on a peculiarly undulated small hill close to the sea in front of the seep moraine slopes of the mountains. In photos from 1902 the glacier fronts runs along the shore and surrounds the location of the building site. Today the glaciers fronts are far away and the ice-covered sea-shore is now open water. The hill on which the building stands is steeper and totally surrounded and undermined by intricate streams of meltwater. One may ask, who is the moss and who is the rock?

View of the site: note the running water from the mountain glaciers. Photo: Gunnar Almevik

Just before I took off from Sweden I  several local and national media interviewed me. I got the seemingly obvious question; Why do we need to preserve these remote buildings and remains that almost nobody have the possibility to visit and experience? I remember that I answered the question, not how, and I still carry it with me unrequited. I know though why I’m here. I am here on the mandate from Swedish National Heritage Board with the mission to document and do a condition survey of the remains from the Swedish South-Polar Expedition led by Otto Nordenskjöld 1901-1903. The winter station at Snow Hill Island, which the Argentinians call Casa Suecia (Sverigehuset) de Cerro Nevado, is the main remaining element from the expedition.

Documenting the landscape and the house has involved various technologies. My colleague from the University of Gothenburg, Jonathan Westin, has done laser scanning and together with Dag Avango, extensive drone-based photogrammetry. One objective with the documentation is also to communicate a virtual experience or diorama of the place to a broader audience. I have collected about 5000 high-resolution photographs mainly of the building and its close surroundings, later to be processed through a software for photogrammetric triangulation. However, most time I’ve spent doing traditional manual measured drawings along with written accounts. I will tell you something about the more traditional fieldwork methods.

Dag Avango and I started to walk around and get familiar with the place. We started with an octagonal triangulation drawing of the landscape from 1902 made by Otto Nordenskjöld, Gösta Bodman and José Maria Sobral. We tried to identify their measuring points. Some points were obvious landmarks like the mountain Nunatak in the south or the close by basalt peak. Other points were co-located with the  expeditions' meteorological instruments. The discrepancies were obvious, like the locations on the glacier that no longer existed, and the many small laboratory huts once in firm terrain that know were eroded riverbanks. Our process of cartographical re-enactment became a way to know the place, and in a practical sense to think like Nordenskjöld, Bodman and Sobral. Thinking of a transformed landscape.

Dag made up a series of numbers to identify objects of interest in the landscape, and spent several days to describe and photograph these spots. I also filled a notebook with textual descriptions of the house and interiors but most time I spent measuring.  Overall, I did 13 drawings with some occasional measuring help from Jonathan Westin. It took me five days. I drew on a transparent plastic film in A3 placed on a millimeter paper and taped on a lightweight board. I used a 2mm HD lead pencil and a scale ruler, and for measuring, I used a two-meter folding ruler and a 50 meters measuring tape. It can rain and snow but my drawing continues.

My first drawing was a map of the site on a 1:200 scale. I used a bearing compass adjusted for use in the South Pole (with a calibration for the magnetism that otherwise bends the arrow downwards), a clinometer for measuring the angle of inclination and a measure tape for the distances. The method was principally the same as the one the expeditioners used in early 1900s. I started to do a polygon around the area from which I could triangulate or aim the details. The polygon had 21 points, and when the last angle and distance was measured, the connection of the first and last failed on three meters. Considering the large area and old school technique, I was content, and distributed the errors some decimeters on each point. It took me about a day to produce.

Drawing Location map with notes from walking interview. Photo: Gunnar Almevik

This manually drawn site map was used in a walking interview with the IAA officials (and friends) Pablo Fontana and Valeria Contissa. Following the object and location number series that Dag Avango made and the literation of my map, we spent an entire day walking through this interview. It was really productive and brought forth new information. Being in a particular physical context evoke memories and narratives that no questionnaire can foresee and that does not emerge in a distal situation of an interview. The physical environment and various objects acts in the narrative. The walking interview directed by and recorded through a graphical representation becomes a method to elicit information from these mnemonic actants.

The building was measured in scale 1:20 from a system of horizontal and vertical reference lines. Due to the methodological interest, I did not use laser distance ranger or leveler but only traditional plumb lead and spirit level. Reference points were marked with chalk liner, and from this fixed system the irregularities of the building was disclosed. The set of drawings included facades, planes and sections, and some details of doors and windows in scale 1:5 and 1:2. I worked another four days with the building drawings.

Gunnar at work, measuring the hut. Photo: Kati Lindström

One may consider the relevancy of this traditional method of scale drawing in 2D. When the laser scanner collects a billion measure points in less than an hour, I work several days to collect a thousand. The tip of my pencil compromises the accuracy of centimeters in the static scale drawing, when the laser represent the whole complex environment in dynamic 3D models by the fraction of a millimeter. Still there are advantages that stands out, and not least in an extreme field situation like this. One problem with advanced digital technologies in this field-based situation, with no internet access and limited data power and electric supply and internet access, is that we do not yet know the quality of the data. Strong wind, hard sun, snow and rain affect both laser scanner and photogrammetry while the old school technology still works the same.

The drawing is to me not just a way to produce a graphical representation but also a method for a systematic observation. The practice of drawing evokes a mode of attentive seeing. It forces me into every corner of the house and the process demand of me to consider exactly what to represent. The process of data collection and data analysis is totally integrated. The analysis of the information is made in the field situation, and the result of the graphical representation is produced and handy at the end of the day. It is not a black box. I can directly use the graphical representations in the following condition survey.

Some observations were made essentially through the process of drawing. The irregularities and sag of the building was somehow obvious at sight, but the rationale was not apparent. Firstly, part of the building’s asymmetry is definitely intentional. The length of the building by the sill is 6.40, by the windows 6.30, at the top plate 6.20 and at the ridge 6.10. This inclination of the building was probably from when the timber was cut up in length, potentially already by the workshop in Stockholm who preproduced the modules of the station. One may ask, why? My assumption is that the building’s form by this inclination and without gable eaves becomes streamlined and more sustainable to the strong southern winds. The plane of the building is outlined approximately 25° NNE, which is also the angle that the experienced mountaineer Pablo put up the tents to sustain the southern Antarctic winds. Now when I study the stone refuge of Johan Gunnar Andersson, Toralf Grunden and Samuel Duse here in Hope Bay, it is also outlined at 25° NNE. The entrance door is located towards east.

The house is also deformed in another direction, but this is not intentional. The building lean heavily towards the west, measuring almost 10 centimeters on a distance of four meters. This is quite a lot but although not conspicuous in this context without straight or perpendicular references. I had a theory that I wanted to test and dug a hole on each side of the building. I could verify my suspicion that the depth down to the permafrost was 40 cm shallower on the west side compared to the north. I wondered which impact this could have on the construction, and found a plausible direct causality in the east-side framework. The construction of vertical studs has two top-plates carrying the system of joists and the truss. The plates are jacked into the studs and fastened with two iron nails. As the building is tipping heavily to the west, the top plates on the east side have pulled apart from the studs. 

The main aim for to the condition survey is to identify risks and present recommendation of possible actions for safeguarding. Concerning the “Casa Suecia” there are two very different scales to consider. On the one hand it’s the house. The deterioration of materials and even the extensive sag and deformation of the construction are small problems, easily fixed with a jack-screw, some nails iron fittings and some good materials for regular maintenance. On the other hand are the consequences of climate change, with melting permafrost and glaciers causing severe meltwater erosion that will eventually undermine the foundation for the building. What are the possible actions on this scale? Should one drive down tubes to circulate kerosene as a cooler for the permafrost? Should one dig and enforce channels with armed concrete to lead the meltwater around the hut on the hill? Could the building be moved to another secure location? Or, should one just let ‘nature have its course’, and eventually see the old winter station raze into the Weddell Sea? I guess the answers hark back to the journalists’ question, why do we need to preserve these remote buildings and remains that almost nobody have the possibility to visit and experience? Maybe later, I will try to answer this question.

CHAQ2020 establishes The Bodman Automatic weather station

Dag Avango tells us more about the Bodman Automatic Weather Station - it is not just plug-and-play.

One of the tasks of the CHAQ2020 expedition at Snow Hill was to establish an automatic weather station (AWS) there. This AWS have two objectives. The first one is to support the ongoing work of preserving the remains of the First Swedish Antarctic Expedition at Sow Hill by providing data on the local climate. The second is to make it possible to compare meteorological data from today with meteorological data from the Nordenskjöld expedition, from almost 120 years ago. For this reason we equipped the AWS with sensors that can measure the same things as the First Swedish Antarctic Expedition – solar radiation, soil temperature, air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and wind direction. In addition, we placed a number of temperature sensors in tubes in the soil at different depths, in order to measure the temperature in the ground, in the active layer and in the permafrost.

The work of putting the weather station in to place was considerable and took almost a year of preparations. The idea came up during a meeting between CHAQ and our Argentinean partners at the Instituto Antártico Argentino (IAA) in April 2019. The Swedish Polar Research Secretariat kindly supported the project by designing the station and covering half of the costs for the hardware. In the autumn of 2019, Niklas Rakos of the Swedish Polar Research Secretariat designed the AWS and bought most of its components. In late November, Niklas trained the CHAQ2020 team in the fine art of putting it all together at the secretariats research station in Abisko in the Swedish Arctic.

Not all pieces were in place though. The battery we had to buy in Argentina because of international flight regulations. And we could not use just any battery. Pablo Fontana had to spend days and nights to get one that would be acceptable to the Argentinean air force as cargo on their Hercules. We also needed a mast to mount the AWS on and got one from the junk yard of the Argentinean Antarctic station Marambio. Because of its considerable size, the mast was impossible to bring on the same helicopter that took us to Snow Hill. The Argentinean air force had to transport in a separate flight, hanging below the helicopter in steel wires.

With the mast on site, we began the work of building the AWS. The first task was to make a hole in the ground deep enough to support the heavy mast. Pablo and myself had picked a hill some 200 meters south of the Nordenskjöld hut for the AWS. As it turned out, this hill had a core of hard ice only some 60 cm below the moraine, which made it an exhausting task of digging and hacking. Once in place, we secured the mast with steel wires to make it withstand even the most severe storms. Mounting the sensors took a lot of adaption of the mast, some of it hard handed, but eventually we managed to successfully connect the sensors with the data logger box, as well as the solar panel and battery power source. With breathless excitement, we turned the AWS on and it worked! Being humanities scholars, we were proud of having successfully built an artefact like this!

The weather station at Snow Hill is now up and running, collecting data that will be of great use for our future planning for the management and preservation of the historical remains at Snow Hill. We named it The Bodman Automatic Weather Station (The Bodman AWS) after Gösta Bodman – a mineralogist born in Norrbotten (Råneå, Luleå municipality) in Arctic Sweden, who was the meteorologist of the Nordenskjöld expedition. We hope the Bodman AWS will represent the beginning of a new era of long term cooperation between Sweden and Argentina, in preserving the historical remains of the First Swedish Antarctic Expedition.

Pablo Fontana mounting sensors on the top of the mast. Photo: Dag Avango

Dag Avango and Jonathan Westin mounting the temperature and air humidity sensor. Photo: Kati Lindström

Kati Lindström connecting sensors to the data loggers of the Bordman AWS. Photo: Dag Avango

The Bodman AWS in place at Cerro Nevado / Snow Hill island. Photo: Kati Lindström

Manuel Mamani digging through the ice to make a mast hole for the Bodman AWS. Photo: Dag Avango

Listen to Kati and Pablo live from Antarctica

Today, 28 January 2020, Kati Lindström and Pablo Fontana will be interviewed live from Antarctica on Antarctic radio (!) at 17:00 Buenos Aires time. You can tune in here (in Spanish) http://www.radionacional.com.ar/lra36-radio-nacional-arcangel-san-gabriel/

Next station: Esperanza!

The team has wrapped up their fieldwork at Snow Hill, and is now working at Esperanza. Kati Lindström is filling us in on the details.

After 14 days on Snow  Hill and ticking off almost all boxes in the  work plan, it was time for the team to move on in a dramatic series of helicopter flights that took them from Snow Hill to Marambio Base and, after a very short overlay there, on to Esperanza  Base on January 24. It is very rare for the Antarctic fieldwork to have so good luck with the weather as to be able to finish most of the planned work. But it is equally rare for the logistics to be so quick and smooth. So the team considers itself twice lucky! 

We will be revisiting the intensive working days at Snow Hill even in upcoming blog posts. The days were so long and loaded that we we hardly found time to write the necessary field notes! We left behind a functioning weather station, data-loggers for temperature and humidity in the house and in the permafrost, a well-ordered storage of historical objects. We droned the coast  in and out, photographed, scanned, documented, filmed, inventoried, measured, drew, did some emergency fixes on the roof, took wood samples of the building and in between all of it, managed to cook, laugh and have fun. 

Esperanza Base welcomed us with open arms and - extremely appreciated - warm shower. Coming here also meant a farewell with Valeria  and Emmanuel who returned to Buenos Aires.Today, Saturday, is the time for the team to load batteries, both personal and of the equipment. Tomorrow, the team will begin to work with the stone hut of the Esperanza  Bay. But already today we have sneaked down to the historic remains left by Andersson, Duse and Grunden, amidst a penguin colony. We can't tell you how much We can't tell you how much we appreciate our own living quarters now after seeing theirs!

Snow Hill Hut. Photo: Kati Lindström

Esperanza base and the remains of the hut. Photo: Kati Lindström

Esperanza base and penguins. Photo: Kati Lindström

Full activity in the Winter Station

Yesterday, Jonathan Westin this update from the camp at Snow Hill.

 There is full activity in the Winter Station these days; in Gösta and Erik's room, Gunnar has set up a drawing studio. There he assembles hundreds of measuring points he has collected from all over the hut, and translates these into floor plans and section cuts using traditional drawing methods. Gustaf and Ole's room has been turned into a conservation lab where blue boxes with items are brought, inspected, and cared for by Valeria. This is an activity that extends up to the attic where the artefacts are repackaged and stored. In José and Otto's room, I have set up scanning equipment to capture in 3D some of the more interesting objects. This has proven challenging, since many of the artefacts are either very dark or shiny, something neither laser nor structured light handle well. The main room is now a photo studio, and Kati is documenting each item as they move between the different stations.

 Down in the camp, Emanuel, Pablo and Dag work on the weather station (now named “AWS Bodman” for obvious reasons) with the aim to have it up and running this afternoon.

Setting up camp, finally!

The CHAQ2020 expedition has now spent its first days at Snow Hill Island in Antarctica, our first fieldwork site. With a spare hour between hard work and evening dinner, Dag Avango made a little time to summarize what we they have done this far.

“On Friday January 10, we finally left Buenos Aires military airport Palomar with a Hercules of the Argentinean air force. Sitting in the huge body of this military aircraft, together with tons of equipment and in a deafening soundscape, was a new experience to the group from Sweden. Five hours later we briefly middle landed at the military airfield of Rio Gallegos in southern Argentina and then continued the final three and a half hour leap across the Drake Passage and landed safely at the airfield of the Argentinean Antarctic research station, Marambio.

The next morning we loaded our equipment into the helicopters – everything from scientific instruments like drones, a laser scanner, cameras, an automatic weather station to notebooks and food for 7 people for several weeks, tents, communication equipment, generator, petrol, gas and of course personal clothing – an endless list. At midday, we took off and after a short ride safely landed at Snow Hill Island. Here we established our camp, which now consists of three spacious sleeping tents, and one tent each for storage, work and cooking. And, of course the “bathroom” tent, which we placed behind a moraine ridge. With the camp established, all the plans we have made over the last year could begin. We celebrated!

We began our fieldwork on January 12 and for the following two days we had very fine weather, low winds and the sun shining from a clear blue sky.

Under these more or less ideal conditions, the members of the CHAQ2020 team got going on their different field work tasks. Me and Gunnar Almevik established a basic map sketch over the site, which we now use to plan our work. Jonathan Westin has all but finished the laser scanning of the Nordenskjöld hut – interiors and exteriors. The work to produce ortophotos of the area is also nearing completion, after a substantial number of drone flights by Jonathan and myself. We will use photogrammetric data from the drones, together with terrestrial photogrammetry data that Gunnar Almevik has produced, to create 3D models of this site.

Meanwhile our expedition leader, Pablo Fontana, has not only managed the camp and communications, but also prepared for the setting up of our automatic weather station and for our upcoming re-photography campaign. Valeria Contissa, the conservationist on our team, has set up her lab in our work tent and is already far into conservation work on artefacts from the Nordenskjöld expedition. While all of this has been going on, Kati has been consistently capturing the work we have been doing on film and on sound recording, collecting the raw material for the film Melting history, which will be one of the products coming out of this expedition. Last but most certainly not least Hector Manuel – our manager of logistics from the Argentinean military – has been feeding us tea, mate, food and great company. He is an important reason why the team is in a very good mood and spirit, even though the last two days have been very busy.

In the coming days you will see more in depth stories from CHAQ2020, so keep checking what’s happening on our site.

Tracking the team at the field camp

The GPS won’t necessarily always be on, but when it is, you can follow the team at camp Snow Hill here: inr.ch/Z5Y5YNJ

Marambio, finally!

The team has made it to Antarctica! If all goes well, they may be transported to a field camp at Snow Hill sometime later today.

The waiting game II: A climate change issue?

Marambio Base, you can see a C-130 Hércules from the Argentine Air Force. Photo from 2014, Wikimedia commons.

Credit: Casa Rosada (Argentina Presidency of the Nation)

Dag Avango writes about climate change and the long wait for departure

Today, Friday January 10, we are scheduled to leave Buenos Aires and fly south via Rio Gallegos to the Argentinean research station Marambio in Antarctica – a week later than originally planned. Delayed departures is nothing unusual in Antarctic logistics. This is not your ordinary flight destination. Any transport to the frozen continent is dependent on weather conditions as well as the results of rigorous safety check-ups, there to ensure that airplanes, boats and equipment are in good condition and that the personnel is healthy. In the case of our delay, the safety concern are the conditions for landing at Marambio. The airstrip at this station consists of fine-grained sediments that provide a good foundation for landing because they are frozen as a part of the permafrost of this region. However, temperatures there during the current Antarctic summer have been high with plus degrees Celsius for weeks and with a peak of surprisingly high 9 degrees plus a few days ago. As a result, the permafrost on the airstrip has begun to thaw, transforming its normally firm surface to a deep watery mud. Under these conditions, the Argentinean air force cannot land its huge Hercules planes there.

As an historian, I shall refrain from judging if the thawing permafrost at Marambio is an impact of climate change or the result of a weather anomaly. Climate scientists have established however, that the Antarctic Peninsula has seen the most substantial increases in temperature over the last decades on the continent, with dramatic losses of shelf ice such as the collapse of Larsen B and subsequent loss of land ice. These changes are also one of the main rationales for the CHAQ2020 expedition objective of contributing to the conservation of the historical remains of the first Swedish Antarctic expedition at Snow Hill. The remains of this station is under threat of destruction from thawing permafrost and erosion from growing streams of melt water. There is no reason to doubt that these processes are the result of the same long-term changes in the climate. Thus, while climate change is a main reason for CHAQ2020 to be here it is possibly also a reason why we are still in Buenos Aires and not at Snow Hill.

The waiting game I: proceeding to work on the VR model

Jonathan Westin writes about the work he is doing on the Virtual Reality model while the team is waiting for lift-off.

When Samuel Duse, as part of Nordenskjöld’s Antarctic Expedition, arrived in Buenos Aires in 1901 he took note of the rapid development of the city: In just a few decades Buenos Aires had evolved from a small town with low one-story houses, into a city sporting palaces comparable in size and splendour to those in Europe. According to Duse, the scale of the boulevards could compete with any of those in Paris, but the speed of the traffic and the noise drew a closer comparison to the busy streets of Petersburg and Moscow. Here, the expedition was joined by American artist Frank Wilbert Stokes, and, of course, the Argentinian marine officer José Sobral - who turned out to be a very valuable team member. While Duse and the expedition only stopped for five days in Buenos Aires (which he noted was a regrettably short time for such a welcoming city), our expedition has due to a thawed landing strip at the Marambio Base in Antarctica been ”stranded” for more than twice as long.

Though the city has a lot to offer and has in no way disappointed when it comes to welcoming atmosphere (and tremendous quantities of grilled meat), not to let research time go to waste I have taken this delay as an opportunity to study the historical photos of the winter station on Snow Hill and various artefacts from the expedition displayed in the city museums. With these as source material I have been able to start work on the Virtual Reality model. While it is only a rough untextured sketch so far, when finished it will offer a photorealistic take on life in the hut in 1902-1903 with the Antarctic landscape as a backdrop. As I at this point lack any reliable measure points, this is so far mostly a photogrammetric exercise where I have to rely on known sizes of objects in the photographs and from these deduct size and distances of the surroundings. Despite these uncertainties, or perhaps because of them, it prepares me for the research and documentation that we will conduct once in Antarctica: as I familiarize myself with the interior and exterior chorography of the hut in 1902-1903, its materials and architectural composition and the many artefacts of life that marked it as a place rather than just a space, I can with keener eyes note the transformations the hut has been through these last 117 years both through use and conservation actions. During the next three months, the VR model of the winter station will also go through several transformations and refinements as we gain a better understanding for these changes, and gather the necessary data in situ.

Next, Dag Avango will tell us more about the reasons for the delay – and how it too is illustrative of the practical consequences of climate change.

Top left: the workroom housed two small tables and a small circular heating stove. Shelves have been built between the roof beams to house supplies. Top right: The frosty winter station surrounded by the necessary artefacts of an expedition. Lower left: Grunden, newly cut, after his ordeals at the Bay of Hope. Lower right: a screenshot from the work in progress modelling the winter station using historical photos.

Photos: Gothenburg University Library and screenshot by Jonathan Westin

A busy festive season

Usually, the team-members would spend the days between Christmas and New Years’  socialising and taking a break, rather than working. Not so when you are on your way to Antarctica.  The last couple of days the CHAQ2020 team have been busy picking up the last bits and pieces for the expedition – parts for the Automatic Weather Station, various tools and a toilet seat for comfort in the field. Final equipment tests are run and packing everything into Zarges and Pelican boxes becomes a sophisticated game of Tetris. The team did take a well-deserved break, however, welcoming the New Year and all the adventures it may bring with a rooftop- barbecue.

Happy 2020 from the CHAQ 2020 team!

Shopping for Antarctica…

Exploring the ARA Corbeta Uruguay museum

The Corbeta Uruguay, the Argentine vessel that came to the Nordenskjöld expedition’s rescue, is now a museum that lies anchored in Buenos Aires. As part of their fieldwork, the team went for a study visit soon after the Swedish team members arrived in Argentina.

From left to right: Pablo Fontana, Kati Lindström, Jonathan Westin, Dag Avango and Gunnar Almevik.