Little America by Richard Evelyn Byrd Jr

Author:Richard Evelyn Byrd Jr. [Byrd, Richard Evelyn Jr.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781442241718
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2015-08-31T04:00:00+00:00

Footnote

1 Those two hangars were named the Guggenheim Hangars, after my friend, Mr. Harry Guggenheim.

CHAPTER X

CIVILIZATION DOES NOT MATTER

“WHATEVER merit there may be in going to the Antarctic,” that excellent writer, Mr. Cherry-Garrard, has said, “once there you must not credit yourself for being there.” To spend the winter at Cape Evans, Scott's old headquarters, or at little America “because you explore is no more laudable than to spend a month at Davos because you have consumption, or to spend an English winter at the Berkeley hotel. It is just the most comfortable and the easiest thing to do under the circumstances.”1

I will go farther and say: once your ships have started north and the pack has closed behind them, there is nothing else you can do. You are there to stay, whether you like it or not, for eight months at least, and all the resources of the world, were they brought to play, could not liberate you sooner. If the climate is too cold and snowy; if you have a horror of bathing in public; if your stomach turns at the mention of fried penguin; if you detest sleeping in a reindeer bag which sheds hair in your eyes and nose—if these things bother you, there is precious little you can do about it. Having made your bed, you must lie in it and take what crumbs of comfort there are.

It is not a bed of roses, to be true. Neither is it the worst bed in the world. There were times when Little America seemed about one of the happiest and gayest spots some of us had ever known.

The period that followed supper was always—or nearly always—a delightful time. The dishes were pushed aside, pipes came forth, cigarettes were lighted, and men remained to chat or drifted off to join the groups in other buildings. There were some men who never seemed to rest. Ronne was one of these. His sewing machine in the corner of the administration building whirred during the day, and stopped only to allow his nimble fingers to fly, with a skill and sureness a woman might have envied, guiding a thread over his endless creations. Braathen, too, worked steadily on the model of the City of New York, which he started to build during the winter night, and on which he lavished the utmost care and attention. But for the rest of us this period was a time of relaxation, and we made most of the few hours according to our particular notions of what constituted leisure.

It was wonderful to observe how the characters of men and situations evolved. If one drew apart occasionally contrasts that would have passed unnoticed stood out sharply, and it was surprising to observe how certain men, normally ignored, had come into their own. There was a subtle reorganization of values. And yet, when one was immersed in it, there seemed to be little change, after all. What one saw depended on where one stood. For in

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