Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
BAS decided that it would be fitting to use dogs in their traditional role of science support to
mark their departure from Rothera. As a result, John and another handler had taken two teams
on a final seven-week survey around the Milky Way and Uranus Glaciers, and on a shallow-core
drilling traverse of central Alexander Island. It was the last dog journey ever in Antarctica. I read
John's report of the trip. It ended with a quotation from Helmer Hanssen, Amundsen's dog-handler.
'Dogs like that, which share man's hard times and strenuous work, cannot be looked upon merely
as animals. They are supporters and friends. There is no such thing as making a pet out of a sledge
dog; these animals are worth much more than that.'
The transport programme to get them out was called Operation Tabarin in commemoration of
the expedition which brought dogs from Greenland to Hope Bay in 1943. John and the dogs trav-
elled, via Brize Norton, to Newry in Maine, and then the younger ones went north to the Inuit
village of Inukjuak on Hudson's Bay where they formed a working team. 'It was a bittersweet ex-
perience,' John said as we jogged along the river. 'I didn't realise until I got up there that the dogs
weren't going back.'
One day, while walking around the point with one of the pilots, he stopped in front of a slum-
bering Weddell seal. 'You know they used to shoot those guys around here, to feed the dogs,' he
said. 'I saw it. The romance of the huskies is very misleading. More seals were killed than dogs
were fed. The seal chop - that was when they sliced them up - was brutal and disgusting, and the
smell on the dog spans was foul because the high fat content of their diet had a poor effect on their
digestion.'
'Don't you miss having them around?' I asked.
'No, I don't! They used to kill each other and snap at us!'
At eleven in the morning and four in the afternoon the men gathered in the dining room for the
smoko ritual. Al, the cook, would appear with trays of hot sausages, crispy bacon and fresh rolls,
or, in the afternoon, his legendary flapjack. He was an ace cook, and so was Dave, the winter-
ing cook. They always made me welcome in the light and airy kitchen, and I used to go in there
whenever I could think of an excuse. A cleaver on the wall was inscribed with the words Queue
Here For Haircuts. Al and Dave were both from the north of England, and Al had been cooking
for BAS since the sixties. Six months after I returned from the ice he was awarded the Polar Medal,
and he took me with him to Buckingham Palace. A hundred other people were being decorated
at the same time, from doughty Bermudan dowagers to Tory Members of Parliament and frail old
ladies rewarded for 'services in Paraguay'. The best dressed man was a chieftain in a black and
gold robe, though the flunky announced that he came from Liverpool. Apart from the chieftain,
the only man who hadn't hired top hat and tails was a director of Oxfam who looked as if he'd got
his suit from the back of one of his shops. The Queen had mugged up and commented to Al that
cooking was a very important job.
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