McMurdo Sound

McMurdo Sound carries the name of Lt. Archibald McMurdo who sailed on the HMS Terror, along with the HMS Erebus, with the James Clark Ross expedition of 1840-43. The expedition discovered and probed the Ross Sea of which the Sound is a part.  It is a relatively safe harbor, as far south as a ship can sail in the summer before encountering the permanent ice of the Ross Ice Shelf.  Ross Island, with one side in the sound and the other side frozen into the ice shelf, made a most convenient embarkation point for later explorers.  (The two volcanos on the island are named Mt Terror and Mt Erebus).

The Robert Falcon Scott expedition came south 60 years later (1901-1904) aboard the HMS Discovery. The Discovery was able to get through the sea ice into McMurdo Sound to build a hut on “Discovery Point” of Ross Island.  McMurdo Station, today, is situated in that very place overlooking McMurdo Sound.  The Ross Discovery Hut is still on the point, looking virtually as it did the day it was built.  It’s contents are undisturbed just as they were when the original explorers last left it.  Being that it is bone dry and seldom above freezing here, there is virtually no decay.  The hut can be entered, but only during guided tours.  I’ll let you know when I get a chance to go in.

As I write today (November 16), McMurdo Sound is frozen solid enough to land large airplanes on.  When I came (November 5) we landed on the Sea Ice Runway within easy walking distance of McMurdo Station.  As I write, through my office window in the Chapel of the Snows, I can see trucks driving the ice road between the little airport and the station.  Across the Sound, I can see snow capped islands embedded in the permanent ice shelf and the Royal Society mountain range on the far shore.

By the first week of December, as we head closer to the Austral summer, the ice will no longer be strong enough to support the landing of airplanes.  The little buildings of the airport, including the control tower, are all built on sleds, so they can be towed to the Pegasus runway farther out on the permanent ice.  By the time I am scheduled to leave in January, the trip to the airport will take 15 or 20 minutes, instead of the 3 to 5 minutes it takes now.  By late January or early February, the ice will be soft enough to be broken up by ice breakers so that supply ships can come right up to McMurdo Station, offloading a year’s supply of fuel and other necessities needed to sustain life here.  That year’s supply will be added to the year’s supply that has been kept in reserve.  With the weather so unpredictable and the rest of the inhabited world so far away, we always have at least one year of reserves.

I’d love to show you hundreds of pictures, but you’ll have to settle for a few.

The Sea Ice Runway on McMurdo Sound

The Control Tower Folks are Very Nice

Each shop can be towed away before this all becomes open water again



Even on a pretty nice day the wind still bites out here

Scott's Hut
On the far corner lies a dead seal.  I don't know how many years
or decades it's been there, but things just don't decay here.