Source: Radio New Zealand
New Zealand’s Scott Base in Antarctica, in 2023. Antactica NZ/ Anthony Powell
New Zealanders living at Scott Base in Antarctica are making the most of their white Christmas.
At the moment, 71 people are living at the New Zealand-owned research station.
The station’s social committee president, Faith Farquhar-Culling, had been planning their Christmas celebrations.
“Christmas day we actually have off, so our Christmas [celebrations] will be on the 24th,” she told Nine to Noon.
“In the evening we will have a nice meal prepared by the chefs, and secret Santa where we all have to craft something, so that will be pretty exciting.”
Staff will then get three days off to relax, and Farquhar-Culling said they may get to enjoy some snowfall.
“At the moment, I think the actual temperature is -2C with a wind chill of about -6 or -7C,” she said.
“Yesterday, we had some small flurries of snow, so I’m pretty excited to have the closest thing to a white Christmas I think I’ll get before I go to the Northern Hemisphere.”
Farquhar-Culling said Scott Base had been competing with the American McMurdo Base in strength games for the “Governor’s Cup”.
“We have three events between McMurdo and Scott Base, the first event was man haul and the Kiwis won that,” she said.
“Second event was tug of war and we just had that on Saturday and unfortunately we took a loss, and the third event is coming up in January and McMurdo will decide what that is.”
She said what Scott Base lacked in numbers, they made up for in strength.
“We definitely have less people but we are pretty strong for our numbers in comparison to their 900.”
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
