Thanksgiving is one of the most important holidays in the US, so it is an important day on the McMurdo calendar as well. In civilisation, it’s usually celebrated with big family gatherings on the last Thursday of November, making for a four-day weekend typically filled with football and Christmas shopping. At McMurdo there is so much that needs to be done in such limiting circumstances that a six-day, 60-hour work week is standard; taking three whole days out of the peak season would be unconscionably profligate, so instead they celebrate Thanksgiving on the following Saturday and luxuriate in a rare two-day weekend.

Growing up hundreds of miles from extended family, and being a fan of neither football nor shopping, the primacy of the holiday had mostly passed me by; in the years I was an adult in the States, I usually spent it with other ‘Thanksgiving orphans’ doing something atypical. Perhaps the most important Thanksgiving of those years was the one I spent in New York on the promotional gig for Princess and the Frog, because that’s where this adventure started. I was working that day, but they catered a turkey dinner for us at the venue, and I ate my roast and sweet potato off a paper plate backstage while reading The Worst Journey in the World for the first time. Exactly ten Thanksgivings later I was in Antarctica, where it all took place.

The early expeditions knew the importance of good food. Obviously as a source of energy, getting sufficient calories was a prime concern, but when one is starved of most of the pleasures of life, food takes on a great emotional significance as well as biological. The cook on the Discovery Expedition was so bad he was sent home when the relief ships came. Both Scott and Shackleton learned from this experience – Shackleton brought a wide variety of ‘luxury’ foods on the Nimrod Expedition, and Scott made sure that the cook on the Terra Nova could turn his hand to making ordinary meals delicious and extraordinary foodstuffs palatable.

The biggest event in the Heroic Age culinary calendar was the Midwinter Feast, which took on the significance of Christmas, for not dissimilar reasons of brightening the darkness and cold. At Cape Evans, Midwinter 1911 began with a multi-course meal replete with sweets and alcohol, followed by toasts and the presentation of an ersatz Christmas tree bedecked with amusing little presents for everyone, and finally the table was collapsed and cleared away for a slideshow and a dance. Cherry-Garrard declared “It was a magnificent bust.”

American Thanksgiving falls during the Antarctic summer, so unlike the Midwinter feasts of yore, a lot of the activities are outdoors, and involve the New Zealanders from around the corner at Scott Base as well. There is a manhauling race (which the Kiwis always win) and a foot race called The Turkey Trot, which runs a loop around Cape Armitage and back through The Gap. Costumes are not compulsory but have come to be expected, so I went to take photos.

The rainbow assembles – the figure centre-right with the splayed legs is wearing a turkey costume.

Being an open day, there was an uptick in tourism from the New Zealand side as well:

McMurdo’s mighty kitchen crew, with extra volunteer labour, had been working to prepare the feast all week. There were a number of scheduled seatings throughout the day, to regulate flow and make sure everyone had a table. I met with my coordinator’s other ducklings outside the Galley at 4.30 for the 5.00 seating, and when we were allowed in we got to see how the rather utilitarian Galley had been done up as a nice buffet, with tablecloths and everything.

I was particularly amused by this offering, given that Capt. Scott’s great food craving from the southern journey on the Discovery Expedition was a great big bowl of Devonshire cream:

It was actually cream, none of that Whipped Topping stuff.

We found our seats and tucked in. Most of my tablemates were British and it was their first experience with some American Thanksgiving standards – the pecan pie in particular got an enthusiastic vote of confidence.

You can’t see it in this photo, but the group behind us, to the right of the frame, had had some orange trays made (vs the Galley’s usual blue) that read ‘Make Antarctica Great Again.’ As far as anyone could tell, they were not being ironic. In a community dedicated to science, where even the dishwashers are likely to have a university degree, there is a certain amount of tension under the current US administration. Government support makes McMurdo possible, but the anti-science, anti-conservation tilt of The Powers That Be render it precarious, and the MAGA crowd at Thanksgiving were the subject of much anxious whispering over the next few days.

Exuberant after-dinner larks are as much a feature of Antarctica now as they were a hundred years ago, only with the advantage of electricity they are now quite a lot louder. I am not one for crowds or noise, and had had quite an intense week, so my plan was to make for the dormitories before the impromptu nightclubs opened, but I did stop in to see the one my friends had been setting up. They were down to get some specific footage for a documentary series, but the weather had not been on their side, so to fill their days they had put a great deal of time and effort into converting the gym into a dance club. Regrettably I don’t have any photos of it, but they did a really outstanding job, and the verdict the next day was that Club 77° was the best venue in town.

For my own part, I was happy to hit the hay.

If you’re curious about what goes into feeding Antarcticans, PBS’ Nova did a great little feature on it here:

And yes, the pizza really is that good.

Sarah Airriess – Blog