Week 24 at the Pole

cukes
Benjamin Eberhardt, IceCube/NSF

Winter is aurora season, which means that green tends to dominate the color scheme of images from the South Pole. But this week, the green is from vegetation—indoors. Check out these carefully tended cucumbers hanging in the station’s greenhouse, ready to be harvested for the midwinter dinner. Midwinter marks the winter solstice, a time of celebration at the station, as the sun begins its return to the Pole. The crew was also treated to some plates of authentic food that would have been eaten during early polar expeditions. Hmm…pemmican, anyone? The smiles at the dinner table reveal that pemmican and hoosh weren’t the only items on the menu. The bottom image shows the many greeting cards exchanged between the Antarctic stations, another midwinter tradition.

hoosh
Benjamin Eberhardt, IceCube/NSF
dinnergroupBW
Viktor Barricklow, NSF
desserts
Benjamin Eberhardt, IceCube/NSF
wallofgreetingcards
Benjamin Eberhardt, IceCube/NSF