Antarctica

Some important info.

 Is there an available job for us in Antartica?
• Support positions or trades fall into a whole range of occupations that
are involved with the tasks of keeping the base and its personnel in good
repair and able to perform duties safely and efficiently. These positions
usually require people who are experienced in their particular field almost
always with relevant professional qualifications, including but not limited to
the following:
1. Cook
2. Electrician
3. Carpenter
4. Boat handler
5. Mechanic
6. Plumber
7. Radio operator
8. Doctor
9. Diving officer
10.Fire fighters

Chef in British Antarctic Survey

(The Chefs are based at Rothera and Halley VI Research Stations and are responsible for providing a high standard of
professional catering service to the station teams.

About the rol

BAS are looking to employ chefs to complete contracts of between 6 and 18 months. This is not your standard hotel or restaurant job. You will
be a vital part of the station team. You will travel to Antarctica and as part of your day to day work ride skidoos, be part of the station emergency
response teams, y on small aircraft over the ice shelf’s or sail through the pack ice on one of our ice strengthened ships. If you can produce great food
with a positive attitude whatever the Antarctic can throw at you this could be the job for you

During the winter your customers will be the same ones for up to 295 days so you need to be able to produce a wide variety of dishes to suit
your group and cater for any dietary or medical requirements. Life on a remote ice station is not all about the day job. You will be expected to take part
in all aspects of station life including First Aid, eld living and skills training, cargo handling and a myriad of other tasks

The work will be hard but the memories will last for a lifetime
Dutie
• Catering: provide as required meals and snacks for station staff and visitors
• Stock Control: responsible for food and equipment, stocks and stock rotation. Active involvement with Station managers in ordering replenishment
stocks
• Food safety: responsible for maintaining high standards of personal and kitchen hygiene, maintaining food safety records
• Cleaning: responsible for maintaining cleanliness of kitchen and all food storage areas
• Training: responsible for training station members in basic food safety and safe working practices
• Domestic Stores: responsible for stock control and rotation of domestic cleaning stores
• To assist in other duties as required by the Director of BAS.
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 What's your typical day like in Antarctica

A typical day very much depends on where you work – in addition to the research scientists, there are a variety of other support staff on station who work as carpenters,
plumbers, IT techs, and waste handlers. The kitchen where I work prepares four meals a day (breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a midnight lunch for people working night shift) for a
summer population of around 850 to 900. We are the only place to get meals on station so we're kept busy!
I work the dinner shift, which starts at 10:00 and goes until 20:00, so here's how my day goes: I wake up around 7am and shuf e across the street to the galley for coffee
and maybe some cold cereal. Then I'll head to the "gerbil gym" for a run or a bike ride on the stationary equipment. I come home for a little yoga and then shower and change
and head back to the galley to start my shift.
Every work day starts with a production meeting – the four production cooks and the one sous chef for our shift gather together and have coffee and discuss what's
on our menu for the day, who will make which dish, and what prep we need to get done for the days ahead. Every meal offers 1-2 entrées, a separate vegetarian entrée, a starch,
a vegetable, and any sauces or extras we have time to make that we think would enhance the meal. Our shift also likes to put out any leftovers we have from previous nights to
reduce waste since EVERYTHING we throw away must be shipped off the continent and that costs money.
When I head home, I usually nap for an hour and then get up, shower, put on nice clothes and head to one of our two bars or our Coffee House to meet up with friends,
and even though it'll be after 9pm, the sun is still blazing. We have trivia nights, karaoke nights, open mic nights, live bands, science lectures, and some people take fencing or
Latin from other people on station – there's quite a bit to do in your off-hours

What's the craziest/most unexpected thing that's ever happened to you on the
job
There's an emphasis placed on environmental stewardship here, and for the USAP, that stewardship is guided by the Antarctic Conservation Act (ACA) and ensuing laws.
Among other things, like requiring that all our waste be shipped home, it also protects all wildlife from human interference of any kind. We are not allowed to approach the
penguins or seals and, worst of all, we can't shoo away the skuas.
Skuas are large scavenger birds – a bit like seagulls or pigeons but they can be the size of a turkey. I've been dive-bombed by a skua while walking from the galley to my
dorm because I was eating a pastry, and it's pretty terrifying. The only thing I'm allowed to do to protect myself is put an arm over my head. I can't wave at it or scare it away, or I'll
nd myself with a quick ticket home and a hefty ne to the US government. Unfortunately, these birds know the galley is where the food is and the back dock, where we dump our
food waste, is a pretty good grazing area for them. One day last year, I went to dump a bag of food waste into our huge, plastic lined wood crates. Someone had left the lid open
so I lifted the can and dumped the bag in, only to hear a loud squak and an eruption of feathers as an enraged skua ew out, scaring the life out of me, both because I was
startled and because I had just interfered with wildlife. I immediately conferred with my boss who con rmed that I wasn't going to be red or ned since I hadn't intentionally tried
to hurt the bird, but you can bet I now always check inside the waste crates before I take out the garbage

Tell us about the food in Antarctica. What do people love? What just doesn't
work
Because the ACA forbids the introduction of foreign species, nothing grows here, nor can we have animals from which we could get by-products, so fresh fruits,
vegetables, eggs, and dairy products are a commodity here. Due to the cost involved in ying down the cargo planes that can bring substantial quantities of these products, our
large "freshies" deliveries are pretty few and far between. Last year, we had to go about eight weeks or so without anything fresh – not even parsley or garlic. This year, our
management has been able to coordinate a few smaller "freshies" deliveries with the smaller, ski-equipped planes that make the ight every other day or so from Christchurch,
New Zealand, so it hasn't been quite as bad as last summer, but apples and oranges are de nitely still considered valuable currency down here, and you can trade them for
favors.
Food that is always popular down here falls under the category I think of as "the worst of American-style fast food": burgers, pizza, fried chicken, and tater tots.
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 Anxious about going back to normal?
It's called 'reverse culture shock'
• Psychologists call this response reverse culture shock, or re-entry syndrome.
It's the feeling you may have when you get back from living overseas. It's
particularly severe among returned long-term Antarctic expeditioners.

• "Living in Antarctica is hard; coming home is harder," Alexander Kumar, a

British medical doctor, writes in his blog: "At a reunion, I found it di cult to
connect to my friends and relatives. I had trouble choosing between double
skinny latte co ee or caramel mint mocha. My mood uctuated between
anxious and underwhelmed.”

• Another expeditioner, Christina Zerfas, writes of having to return to peaceful

and relatively smog-free Indianopolis: "I involuntarily jumped backwards when
the rst car passed ... The smell of pollution was overwhelming.”

• "You don't just come back, snap your ngers and pick up where you left."
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Reverse culture shock
The concept of reverse culture shock dates back to the early 1960s. US psychologists John and Jeanne Gullahorn
observed that after travel and culture shock and homecoming, there's more ups and downs: readjusting to what was once
familiar.
References:
• https://www.coolantarctica.com/Community/ nd_a_job_in_antarctica.php

• https://www.bas.ac.uk/jobs/careers-at-bas/operational-support/chef/

• https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/30/antarctica-job-tips-
survive-cold

• https://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/coronavirus-covid-19-
restrictions-easing-reverse-culture-shock/12221534

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