Daily Life at Base Camp
In the following movie, we can see what a typical day was like during the building phase of the Princess Elisabeth Station at Utsteinen in Antarctica. The construction started during the 2007-2008 season, 110 years after the first Belgian expedition to Antarctica sailed to the Earth's southernmost continent aboard the Belgica. The Princess Elisabeth Station was officially inaugurated in February 2009. It is the first "zero emission" research station in the world, which means that it runs entirely on renewable energy sources.
The movie shows us how volunteers spent their time in and around the base camp during construction. The base camp consisted of individual tents for the workers, as well as bigger tents and containers, which served as a kitchen, dinning room, bathroom, drying spaces, etc....
An expedition member describes his day and how he uses melted snow to bathe, brush his teeth and wash his clothes. After six days of hard work, the workers would get a day off on which they could play sports, go for a walk or enjoy a well-deserved day of rest.
Thanks to the enthusiastic collaboration of all these volunteers, there is now a new a place where up to 12 scientists can stay while conducting their research in the Dronning Maud Land. The project was a major challenge, but we did it in the end. Now that it has been completed, a new era of scientific research in a widely unexplored region of Antarctica can now begin.
The International Polar Foundation would like to thank T.A.G.E.O. for the movie's soundtrack.
For more pictures and videos, or additional information on the building of the station and daily life there, please go to the station's website: www.antarcticstation.org. Links to any related documents, pedagogical dossiers or picture galleries can be found at the bottom of this webpage.
