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By Peter Rejcek
The South Pole’s most famous visitor didn’t
offer a very encouraging description of 90 degrees south
when he and his team arrived on Jan. 17, 1912.
“Great God! this is an awful place and terrible
enough for us to have laboured to it without the reward
of priority. Well, it is something to have got here …”
Capt. Robert F. Scott recorded in his diary, devastated
to have lost the race to the Pole to Norwegian Roald Amundsen.
Scott and his companions later perished on their return
journey.
These days the South Pole is home to a new U.S. research
station — officially called Amundsen-Scott South
Pole Station — the third to occupy the spot since
1957. More than 250 people labor there each austral summer,
supporting and conducting a dizzying array of scientific
research, much of it devoted to astrophysics and unraveling
the mysteries of the universe thanks to an environment
conducive to such experiments.
But scientists aren’t the only ones attracted to
the Pole. A handful of tourists venture south each year,
and the number, while modest, has quadrupled in the last
five years. The number has climbed steadily from 40 during
the 2003-04 season to 164 (which includes repeated visits
by pilots) last year, according to statistics kept by
South Pole Station Support Supervisor Beth Watson.
“The burden that increasing tourism is placing on
station personnel and resources has the U.S. Antarctic
Program weighing alternatives for managing the influx
of international visitors and looking at how the issue
is handled at other USAP facilities such as Palmer Station,”
said Peter West, a spokesperson for the National Science
Foundation (NSF) .
The tourist season lasts from roughly early December
to late January, a period of about 50 days.
“There’s this block of [time] that we find
they’re coming, and they come and they come,”
noted Jerry Marty, the NSF’s representative at the
South Pole who oversaw the construction of the new South
Pole Station over the last decade, an elevated structure
that can house 154 scientists and support personnel. The
official dedication was held in January.
“Personally, I think it was a surprise. I think
it was to all of us at the station. It’s one of those
unknowns that we hadn’t expected,” he said of
the rise in visitors.
While perhaps unexpected, the NSF has official policies
and procedures in place to handle visitors, or what it
calls non-governmental organizations (NGOs) or non-governmental
activities (NGAs). The official policy states that, “The
U.S. Government is not able to offer support or other
service to private expeditions, U.S. or foreign, in Antarctica.”
The South Pole itself is an Antarctic Specially Managed
Area (ASMA) , an internationally recognized designation
that provides guidelines for its management.
Tourism surge
“What we’re seeing is not only an increase in
tourism but a change in what’s coming,” said
Watson, who has worked at the South Pole during 10 of
the last 12 years. Instead of the grand adventurers who
haul sleds hundreds of kilometers from the coast, she
said, many visitors are less experienced, skiing the final
60 miles, or last degree, to the South Pole.
More than 46,000 tourists visited Antarctica during the
2007-08 season, according to the International Association
of Antarctica Tour Operators (IAATO) , most of them arriving
by ship to the Antarctic Peninsula from the tip of South
America. The USAP’s Palmer Station on the peninsula
receives far more visitors, more than 1,500 last year,
based on statistics from IAATO. McMurdo Station , the
largest of the stations, recorded only 133 visitors from
one tourist ship.
The surge in Antarctic tourism in recent years has been
well documented. The reasons behind the increase are manifold,
from the success of movies like “March of the Penguins”
to renewed interest in the polar regions and their prominence
in climate change. The ongoing International Polar Year
, a two-year science campaign by dozens of countries to
explore the Arctic and Antarctic, has also produced quite
a few news headlines.
“There’s this renewed interest in polar regions,”
Marty said. “We’re seeing that more and more
books are being written about the exploration of polar
regions. The used books stores are finding it hard to
maintain stocks of classics.”
Antarctic Logistics and Expeditions (ALE) , a tour company
based in Salt Lake City, offers a number of tour packages,
including direct flights to the South Pole and “Ski
the Last Degree” adventures, as well as longer expeditions.
David Rootes, one of the company’s directors, said
in a phone interview, “I suppose we’re benefiting
from that general worldwide increase in people doing more
tourism … especially tourism to more unusual and
extreme destinations.”
ALE until recently had been the only tour operator offering
transportation to Pole, working out of the Patriot Hills
camp in West Antarctica, with flights originating in Punta
Arenas, Chile. A second company, Antarctic Logistics Centre
International (ALCI) , now offers similar packages, but
flies out Cape Town and operates from a Russian research
station in East Antarctica.
The Patriot Hills camp can accommodate up to 100 people,
though not all are Pole-bound. Many sign up for the ascent
up Vinson Massif, Antarctica’s tallest mountain and
a necessary feat for those on the Seven Summits circuit
to climb the world’s highest peaks on all seven continents.
The only land-based operation that is a member of IAATO,
ALE reported 260 clients participated in various multi-day
expeditions on the continent during 2007-08. Of that number,
ALE supported 92 tourists to the South Pole, 50 of them
doing the “Ski the Last Degree” or fly-in trip.
The South Pole trips aren’t cheap. It will cost
$46,500 in 2009 to “Ski the Last Degree,” while
a seven-day trip, including a flight and four-hour visit
to the Pole, will set you back $37,850 for 2009. All four
of this year’s fly-in packages from ALE are already
fully booked.
Changing times
In the not-too-distant past, the station manager or someone
like Marty would greet the visitors, provide a short overview
of the station, and then give a brief tour of the facilities.
Now, with the tempo of operations at the new station and
its demand on Marty and others, additional volunteers
sometimes have to greet the visitors
Marty noted many tourists are inquisitive and well versed
in polar history and science, keeping the greeters on
their toes.
“The program is changing and growing so fast that
even some of us that are representatives are caught off
guard with a question that we truly can’t answer,”
he said. “It’s a far more detailed plethora
of questions that we are receiving from the tourists than
ever before.”
Rootes said many of the tourists are particularly interested
in climate change issues. He said that’s a positive
aspect of the new tourism — an opportunity to educate.
“We get the chance on the ground to show them what’s
happening. … You can really drive home some of these
issues. Hopefully the stations benefit from it, too. They’re
coming in contact with some of the people helping fund
their science.”
Safety concerns
The fly-in trips, by their nature, are structured and
easy for the station to manage. On the other hand, expeditions
can arrive any time of the day, though a company like
ALE addresses these concerns by keeping in communication
with the South Pole so that personnel know roughly when
to expect an arrival. ALE thoroughly briefs all their
expeditions, pilots, and guides on South Pole procedures
and provides them with copies of the ASMA maps, according
to Rootes.
“The lack of advance knowledge of [some] expeditions
arriving at South Pole is problematic in terms of station
impact, and in some cases, could be a safety problem in
terms of aircraft landings without sufficient knowledge
in advance on our part,” explained Polly Penhale,
environmental officer for the NSF’s Office of Polar
Programs , which manages the USAP.
There are also other hazards, such as exposed fuel lines,
and sensitive science areas that are off-limits because
the experiments require clean air for atmospheric studies
or quiet for seismic measurements.
“I’ve noticed an increasing number of planned
expeditions in the near future, with the anniversary of
important milestones in the race to the Pole,” Penhale
added.
Grand adventures
Rootes said that expeditions are indeed on the upswing.
Most of the longer trips originate out of Hercules Inlet
on the coast, taking about 50 days to complete a one-way
ski trip to the Pole. (The current record is 40 days.)
ALE then flies the expedition team out, though some opt
to kite sail back in less than half the time.
Some seek to claim the dwindling number of South Pole
records or to recreate past feats of adventure. For example,
descendants of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s team plan
to retrace the footsteps of the Nimrod Expedition of 1909,
when the original adventurers got within 97 miles of the
Pole before turning back (see Matrix Shackleton Centenary
Expedition ).
Watson recalled a visit by an expedition of Indian Navy
men. “They skied in a line. It was quite impressive
to see them come in,” she said.
But it seems the hardcore, professional adventurer is
the exception rather than the rule these days.
Rootes conceded that the overall experience of people
participating in some of these guided adventures is falling.
“There are few real expedition people out there,”
he said, but added that the company extensively screens
its clients beforehand.
“We want expeditions to succeed in their goals and
often advise them to gain more experience if we don’t
think they have necessary skills,” he explained.
“As a result, we turn away as many as we take down.
It’s no point in us charging a fortune to take ill-prepared
expeditions down there, if they’re going to peter
out halfway through and we have to rescue them. It just
causes grief all round.”
Zero impact
The companies are expected to handle all their own logistics,
including any search and rescue missions.
Rootes said the ideal is to have zero impact on the USAP
or any other nation. The company has its own medical personnel
and keeps a cache of supplies and fuel at the South Pole
should any tourists get stuck due to weather or other
problems.
“We try to be as self-contained as possible,”
he said. “If anybody has to [use] any services at
the Pole, then we haven’t achieved what we feel like
we want to achieve, which is to minimize our impact on
the Pole in terms of what they’re doing.”
Government work
ALE is not only in the tourism business. It increasingly
plays a part in providing logistic support for national
science programs on the continent, its Patriot Hills camp
ideally suited to support work in West Antarctica. For
instance, scientists with the NSF-funded project POLENET
based their fieldwork from Patriot Hills last year. The
company has also worked with the British Antarctic Survey
, Chile and even South Korea.
“The service varies from program to program,”
Rootes said. “For example, for the Koreans, we provided
a complete field support package including flights, snowmobiles,
guides, etc. For NSF, we prepared a Herc skiway, provided
accommodation, food and fuel, and they did the rest.”
The future
What effect the current worldwide economic downturn might
have on the future of Antarctic tourism is uncertain at
this time, though Rootes expects another busy season this
year, with the company flying three Twin Otters this year
rather than just two.
Marty, NSF’s South Pole representative, said the
station will continue to evolve to manage the burgeoning
tourist industry without neglecting its primary mission
of science support and discovery.
“We’re learning from the experiences,”
Marty said.
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