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Antarcticans Database Project

38 points by antarctica 10y ago

jacques_chester 10y ago
My father served two full tours (ie, he was a "winterer") with ANARE, now called the Australian Antarctic Division. Casey and Davis. He was the communications technician. He loved it. The winterers were carefully chosen to be likely to get along easily, simply because there's not many options if you need to get away. It suited Dad down to the ground -- no need to deal with new people or folk he didn't like. The same small friendly team of people for about 8 months, then a flood of scientists and researchers in summer. I can't say it would suit me. But Dad has always had a knack for doing technical work in remote places. Me? I'll stick to a New York office, thanks. My parents have been helpful in so many ways. Not least of which is that if my own life seems boring, I can just talk about theirs.
- antarctica 10y ago
  Thank you for sharing this :-)
diggan 10y ago
Is there any way of downloading all the pictures without having to resort to using scrapers? Took a quick look and couldn't find anything
clarkema 10y ago
FID here (Wintered at Rothera, currently on base at Halley for the summer season.) There's some great photos on that site! It's surprising how little has changed over the years, but there is still a special something about the old photos and bases before the day of ready communications to the rest of the world.
m-i-l 10y ago
My dad worked for the Falklands Islands Dependency Survey between 1958 and 1961, setting up the ionsopheric station at Halley Bay. He then returned to work for the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, Antarctic Division (New Zealand) between 1962 and 1965, as scientific leader at Scott Base. He had seemingly endless fascinating stories and fantastic photos from his time there. My sister has created a blog with some of these at https://elw0168.wordpress.com https://elw0168.wordpress.com .
- CoolAntarctica 10y ago
  Thanks for that, I'll add a link to the blog from the Halley page, always fascinating to see stuff from the earlier days of the scientific era.
aidenn0 10y ago
My grandfather took 16mm movies when he with ODF; this makes me wonder what happened to those.
snsr 10y ago
What a fantastically interesting rabbit hole (referring to the photo collection itself). The work being performed and related implications have always been of interest to me as well. Thank you for compiling these!
seszett 10y ago
This is really about US & UK personnel though. As as overwinterer on French territory, I'm a bit disappointed the US and UK seized the "Antarctican" name just for themselves without making any other mention of the many other bases, actually.
- CoolAntarctica 10y ago
  There is no restriction as to where pictures come from or who can join the database personnel lists. Rather than have pages for everywhere that will often remain empty I open up sections as and when people contact me for their base/s and their time in Antarctica. The reason it's USA and UK is that is where people have so far contacted me from, which is unsurprising I guess for an English language website. If you wish to send your details or pictures I will be happy to include them (as long as the pics are reasonable quality!), I only have what people choose to send.
CoolAntarctica 10y ago
Hi, I'm Paul Ward, CoolAntarctica.com is my site, I found my way here after seeing a traffic spike on that particular page. Interesting to see your comments and glad you find the photo archive interesting. It's been fascinating to compile, contacting all those people who sent in pictures from a range of bases and across 50+ years. It's still ongoing, any more pictures anyone wants to contribute are gratefully received, I've had a couple more offers on the basis of this inclusion already.
- antarctica 10y ago
  Hi Paul, found your site after watching a trailer to new "National Geographic" series "Continent 7: Antarctica" at (http://tvnfo.com/p/1216727 http://tvnfo.com/p/1216727). Wanted to see some pictures from `Antarctica`. Thank you for a useful website.

38 points by antarctica 10y ago

My father served two full tours (ie, he was a "winterer") with ANARE, now called the Australian Antarctic Division. Casey and Davis. He was the communications technician. He loved it. The winterers were carefully chosen to be likely to get along easily, simply because there's not many options if you need to get away. It suited Dad down to the ground -- no need to deal with new people or folk he didn't like. The same small friendly team of people for about 8 months, then a flood of scientists and researchers in summer. I can't say it would suit me. But Dad has always had a knack for doing technical work in remote places. Me? I'll stick to a New York office, thanks. My parents have been helpful in so many ways. Not least of which is that if my own life seems boring, I can just talk about theirs.

antarctica 10y ago
Thank you for sharing this :-)

diggan 10y ago

Is there any way of downloading all the pictures without having to resort to using scrapers? Took a quick look and couldn't find anything

clarkema 10y ago

FID here (Wintered at Rothera, currently on base at Halley for the summer season.) There's some great photos on that site! It's surprising how little has changed over the years, but there is still a special something about the old photos and bases before the day of ready communications to the rest of the world.

m-i-l 10y ago

My dad worked for the Falklands Islands Dependency Survey between 1958 and 1961, setting up the ionsopheric station at Halley Bay. He then returned to work for the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, Antarctic Division (New Zealand) between 1962 and 1965, as scientific leader at Scott Base. He had seemingly endless fascinating stories and fantastic photos from his time there. My sister has created a blog with some of these at https://elw0168.wordpress.com https://elw0168.wordpress.com .

CoolAntarctica 10y ago
Thanks for that, I'll add a link to the blog from the Halley page, always fascinating to see stuff from the earlier days of the scientific era.

aidenn0 10y ago

My grandfather took 16mm movies when he with ODF; this makes me wonder what happened to those.

snsr 10y ago

What a fantastically interesting rabbit hole (referring to the photo collection itself). The work being performed and related implications have always been of interest to me as well. Thank you for compiling these!

seszett 10y ago

This is really about US & UK personnel though. As as overwinterer on French territory, I'm a bit disappointed the US and UK seized the "Antarctican" name just for themselves without making any other mention of the many other bases, actually.

CoolAntarctica 10y ago
There is no restriction as to where pictures come from or who can join the database personnel lists. Rather than have pages for everywhere that will often remain empty I open up sections as and when people contact me for their base/s and their time in Antarctica. The reason it's USA and UK is that is where people have so far contacted me from, which is unsurprising I guess for an English language website. If you wish to send your details or pictures I will be happy to include them (as long as the pics are reasonable quality!), I only have what people choose to send.

CoolAntarctica 10y ago

Hi, I'm Paul Ward, CoolAntarctica.com is my site, I found my way here after seeing a traffic spike on that particular page. Interesting to see your comments and glad you find the photo archive interesting. It's been fascinating to compile, contacting all those people who sent in pictures from a range of bases and across 50+ years. It's still ongoing, any more pictures anyone wants to contribute are gratefully received, I've had a couple more offers on the basis of this inclusion already.

antarctica 10y ago
Hi Paul, found your site after watching a trailer to new "National Geographic" series "Continent 7: Antarctica" at (http://tvnfo.com/p/1216727 http://tvnfo.com/p/1216727). Wanted to see some pictures from `Antarctica`. Thank you for a useful website.