Monday 11 March 1974
Today most of the staff spent the day collecting ice for the winter. Mike Wing and I bored eight holes in the ice below the hangar to take the posts for the winter dog lines. This was a long slow and cold job. The ice collecting party crashed off as much ice as they could with power picks and then scooped it up with the bucket on the front end loader. It is all being piled on the car park in front of the Base. If we are to do this at all it must be done this month whilst the hydraulics on the front end loader are still usable. We have decided not to stack the ice in between the huts as we think a lot of the trouble we had cleaning ice from these areas was due to last years team using them as ice dumps.
Late in the evening we made radio contact with the Australian team at Davis Station and I had a chat with Doug Bladfield, their leader. Bill Johnson celebrated his 45th birthday.
Davis Station (AUST)
Conditions at 0900 hours Wind North-North-East 20 knots Temperature -20.0°C
Tuesday 12 March 1974
Tony Atkinson has now taken over the developing of ionosonde film to give Stuart Clarke more time to get ready for his photometer and all sky camera work,
Conditions at 0900 hours Wind North-North-East 14 knots Temperature -20.1°C
Wednesday 13 March 1974
We prepared and set up the posts for the winter dog lines. The post is put in, trued up and a bucket full of water poured around it. The water takes a surprisingly long time to freeze. Another of Uglin’s pups, the last bitch, has died. Mike Wing spent most of the day doing an autopsy and found a massive haemorrhage in one part of the brain. The pup had died in convulsions and foaming at the mouth.
Tony Atkinson spoke with the Superintendent about the Vanda alternator troubles and appears to have satisfied him that everything possible is being done. A mirage, the most spectacular we have seen so far, was visible along the foot of Black Island for most of the day. It took the form of towering ice and rock cliffs. Stuart Clarke made an adapter for my heat machine and Tony Atkinson organised a small power supply for the alternator field. Garth Cowan checked over the seizmo vault now the ice is freezing solid.
Conditions at 0900 hours Wind North-North-East 13 knots Temperature -23.5°C
Thursday 14 March 1974
Today we collected more ice and continued work on the winter dog lines. It is difficult to set up really good lines because we are short of the ⅜” clamps which fit the steel wire rope of the spans.
The US Navy Chaplin, Jim Trett, called on us in the afternoon and volunteered to help us with our various chores. He means well but the staff gave him a civil but reserved treatment. No one wishes to endure any proselytism. He hinted broadly that we should drive him back to McMurdo but as I make everyone else walk I could hardly do otherwise with him.
Conditions at 0900 hours Wind North 2 knots Temperature -16.8°C
Friday 15 March 1974
The winter dog lines are finally rigged. This was a long slow job. First boring 8 holes with an ice auger, then extracting and straightening old posts for reuse, setting them upright, rigging the wire spans with clamps and turnbuckles and finally clamping the tethering point for each dog into place. All this to be done with gloves (not Mitts) in a 15 knot wind at -16ºC or below. Once it was done Mike Wing and Ray Colliver began to drive the dogs from the old lines to the new winter lines. All went fairly well until the last trip during which a tremendous fight left Shaun, Kusana and Kodiak with severe wounds.
There isn’t a great deal of snow on the ice at the new lines and if we don’t get a wind to bring us heavy drift or a snowfall we may have to fetch it in the front end loader.
Conditions at 0900 hours Wind North-North-East 15 knots Temperature -23.0°C
Saturday 16 March 1974
The 920 Caterpillar front end loader with bucket proves to be a great success as an ice collecting machine provided conditions are just right for it. We found a place which we could reach with the loader where a frozen melt pool lay at the bottom of a relatively thin vertically upthrust pressure ridge. Using the surface of the melt pool as a floor we would charge the ridge with the loader, drive in the bucket teeth and then crack off great lumps of ice. It is now so cold that the ice cracks easily but not yet so cold that we cannot use the loader hydraulics. We now have big stockpiles of ice behind and in front of the Base.
Later in the day we had to get Sean stitched up. He had acquired a three inch long gash right in to the bone of his right foreleg. I held his head and one front leg, Bill Johnson held his back leg and the injured foreleg and Mike Wing stitched him up.
Stuart Clarke carried out a stock check of the auroral equipment at the request of Ian Thomas (Lauder). Tony Atkinson has found a problem in that grime builds up in the solarimeter and causes false readings.
Conditions at 0900 hours Wind North-North-East 9 knots Temperature -25.2°C
Sunday 17 March 1974
During the night we had steady North-East 20 knot winds with an unusual amount of drift snow. This should take care of the dog lines. All morning visibility was 50 yards or less but in the early afternoon the wind dropped, the drifting snow settled and the day proved to be clear and sunlit.
I took the opportunity to trudge around amongst the pressure ridges to find exit routes for dogs and ice sledges. Bill Johnson, Tony Atkinson and Chris Wilkins took the bitch pups for a walk. Ray Colliver spent most of the day giving lessons in baking to three US Navy cooks.
Weighing husky pups
I hear that in McMurdo word has spread that a working party of about 50 people is to be assembled to rake out scoria “windrows” left by the dozer which prepared the site for the aerials for a new “ham” shack. Quite wrongly, they believe the work has become necessary because of a complaint by Scott Base and this has bred resentment towards us in some quarters.
The clear sky brought the coldest night (-36.5°C) so far.
Conditions at 0900 hours Wind North-East 15 knots Temperature -28.3°C
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