I got paid to live in Antarctica

I had a colleague once who worked in antarctica for a while. She told me that according to a long standing tradition, every year after the last supply plane left for the winter and the base was buttoned up for a long dark wait until spring, the whole crew would gather in the lounge together to watch The Thing.<p>That&#x27;s all I got, I just love this story and mention it every chance I get.

A much more fun and less SEO&#x2F;smarmy take on this topic is Nicholas Johnson&#x27;s &quot;Big Dead Place&quot;, originally a blog and later a book. It gives the flavor of working in the U.S. Antarctic program like nothing else does.

This was an interesting post, but it’s very transparently written for search engine optimization rather than readability. There are some great stories in there but the formatting was really hard to read as a human all broken into obviously search-friendly questions rather than an an actual flow—just makes it come across as robotic. It’s a bummer that blogging is in this state.

There&#x27;s a lot of good info in the article, but it&#x27;s kind of disappointing she didn&#x27;t cover how she actually got the job. It&#x27;s mentioned that the jobs are quite competitive and that people are wait-listed for years sometimes.

Isn&#x27;t almost everyone on Antarctica payed to be there?

There is a lot of great youtube videos on both McMurdo and the station at the pole.<p>I know the plan to rebuild McMurdo was delayed by covid - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.discovermagazine.com&#x2F;environment&#x2F;antarcticas-aging-mcmurdo-station-is-getting-a-major-overhaul" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.discovermagazine.com&#x2F;environment&#x2F;antarcticas-agi...</a><p>I&#x27;d love to hear what the plan is now. Are they moving ahead with the project?

I remember seeing a web dev (!) job for the Antarctic Survey years ago where you stay there, probably in summer.

Become an aircraft mechanic. You can support research planes or helicopters for organizations like BAS or similiar.

Wish she went over the life there in more detail. It&#x27;s a very isolated place, surely you&#x27;d go mad constantly being stuck with the same people.<p>Or other interactions like that. More on the uniqueness of the location, and difficulty of travel or getting stuff.

Outside of tourists is anyone paying to live in Antarctica? I assumed everyone was paid there

But what about Canadians? Do we not have a chance to live in the land of The Thing?

best blog about working in Antarctica, with fabulous photography by Mike Krzysztofowicz: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;antarcti.co" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;antarcti.co</a>

Nice read - It never occurred to me you&#x27;d need catering staff there

And of course, the author is paid for doing a job not for (just) living there. It&#x27;s like me saying &quot;I got paid to live in Berlin&quot;.

Bah, I got paid once to live in Bakersfield CA for about three months... now that&#x27;s a real extreme environment!!