VOLUME 14-15 JULY NO. 4 HONORARY PRESIDENT “BY AND FOR ALL ANTARCTICANS” Dr. Robert H. Rutford Post Office Box 325, Port Clyde, Maine 04855 PRESIDENT www.antarctican.org Dr. Anthony J. Gow www.facebook.com/antarcticansociety 117 Poverty Lane Lebanon, NH 03766 [email protected] Anchors Away .................................. 1 38th Treaty meeting ends in Bulgaria 5 VICE PRESIDENT A 2016 gathering in Port Clyde? ...... 2 Your editor visits two Washingtons . 6 Liesl Schernthanner P.O. Box 3307 Robert H. Rutford is Society’s fourth Ice Eagles, a coming new film ......... 7 Ketchum, ID 83340 [email protected] Honorary President ........................... 2 An Antarctic historical web site ....... 8 The last time at South Pole ............... 3 TREASURER Bela Csejtey (1934-2012) ................. 9 Dr. Paul C. Dalrymple “Nuisance flooding” tipping point .... 5 Box 325 A return to Gondwana by ISAES ... 10 Port Clyde, ME 04855 Phone: (207) 372-6523 [email protected] ANCHORS AWAY (AND AWEIGH) SECRETARY Joan Boothe The Society’s web site and newsletter observe and celebrate present 2435 Divisadero Drive and past events. And they – at least virtually – bring us together. But there’s San Francisco, CA 94115 [email protected] nothing like a gathering. On the next page, our Treasurer asks us to Port Clyde, Maine, for a July 2016 gathering – and coastal delights of the season in WEBMASTER the USA’s most northeastern state. Thomas Henderson 520 Normanskill Place If you like his suggestion, let Paul know. Write or call him (see Slingerlands, NY 12159 TREASURER to the left). If a threshold is passed, planning will start! We’ll let [email protected] you know more next issue. See you in lobster city. ARCHIVIST Mid-Summer in Maine. Mid-Winter on the Ice. Both can be special Charles Lagerbom for an Antarctican. So also can be the first time one arrives in the Antarctic, 16 Peacedale Drive Northport, ME 04849 or the last time one leaves. Will Silva, who has wintered at Palmer and South [email protected] Pole as station physician, shares such a moment in this issue. “Little actually happens; the horizon becomes internal," he says of a winter at Pole. Enjoy BOARD OF DIRECTORS Dale Anderson, Dr. John Will’s essay. And consider sharing your Antarctic moment in a future issue. Behrendt, J. Stephen People who work in the Antarctic tend to be overqualified for their Dibbern, Valmar Kurol, Dr. jobs and to have energy and drive to match. Two examples appear in this Louis Lanzerotti, Mark Leinmiller, Jerry Marty, issue. Tom Henderson, the Society’s webmaster – as if that weren’t enough – Ronald Thoreson, Leslie has produced films with Antarctic themes and describes a new one here. Bill Urasky Spindler is the Antarctic veteran behind southpolestation.com. NEWSLETTER EDITOR More than half this issue was written by people other than me. I’d like Guy Guthridge nothing better than to see the newsletter contain yet more different authors – [email protected] bringing different voices, different experiences to our members. MEMBERSHIP A distinguished voice has newly assumed the mantle of our society’s Send check to Treasurer, or Honorary President. I’ve had the privilege of knowing Robert H. Rutford click “About Us” on web site. since he headed NSF’s polar office in the 1970s. Welcome, Bob, to this new $20/yr newsletter mailed. role! $13/yr newsletter online. Foreign $25 mailed. Guy Guthridge The Antarctican Society July 2015 A 2016 gathering in Port Clyde, in mid-July 2016, let us know. We will put more in the October newsletter. Maine? For more about the last gathering, by Paul Dalrymple see the October 2014 newsletter, page 2, and Jim Mastro’s article in the January 2015 Another Mid-Winter Day passed last issue. month. Always good to see one come, always good to see one go. In olden times the Washington segment of our society used Robert H. Rutford is Society’s to gather for a midsummer picnic basically fourth Honorary President put on by the large number of thirty U.S. Geological Survey Antarctican Society by John Splettstoesser members who used to work in the Antarctic. Those Washington-area picnics died with time. In the last decade, however, ancient and honorable Antarcticans have gathered several times for three days or so each at the coastal Maine abode of our treasurer. The first one or two had a hard core of about twenty-five or thirty IGYers; later ones grew to about a hundred and twenty-five, including offspring of Antarcticans. Should we meet again? Those old timers who repeatedly showed up seemed to enjoy themselves. Right now we would love to entice more of the crowd from the 1980s, the 1990s, and this century to join in. Where do we meet? About half way up the coast of Maine, in a small lobster town of Port Clyde, population several hundred. We rent a tent for a seafood dinner, featuring hot-boiled lobsters. We turn a two-car garage into a lecture hall, and Dr. Robert H. Rutford several of our members present talks about their halcyon days on the ice. It is low-key, We are pleased to introduce Robert H. with some attendees having taken up Rutford as Honorary President of the residence in nearby hotels, some in b&bs or Antarctican Society. He follows our vacation rentals of which plenty are nearby, previous Honorary Presidents Paul Daniels, and some in their own tents sprinkled Ruth Siple, and Charles Swithinbank. around the area. For the events themselves, Bob’s distinguished career in there are no charges up front, just a bucket science, government, and academia includes or two on site for donations to help defray Antarctic field research since 1959. More the cost. recently, he was president of the University If this idea sounds interesting, of Texas at Dallas for 12 years before something you might enjoy participating in, returning to the faculty to teach geology and you want to hear more about a gathering until retiring in 2008. He now is President 2 The Antarctican Society July 2015 Emeritus, and Excellence in Education Russia, in 1994, the Commemorative Medal Professor of Geosciences Emeritus. from the Polish Academy of Sciences in A graduate of the University of 2004, and the Distinguished Service Award Minnesota, Bob has been involved in polar from the U.S. National Science Foundation research since 1955 when as a Lieutenant in in 1977. Mount Rutford (Antarctica’s the U.S. Army he spent a year in Greenland seventh highest) and Rutford Ice Stream are testing and operating over-the-snow heavy in or near the Ellsworth Mountains. equipment, some of which was used during Bob has lectured on tourist ships the 1957-58 International Geophysical Year. visiting the Falkland Islands, South Georgia, After a first experience in Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula. as a graduate student in 1959, he returned in Whether a person is born a leader or 1960-61 as deputy leader of a University of becomes one can be debated, but either way Minnesota team working on the geology of Bob was one early. I was on the Jones the newly discovered Jones Mountains. In Mountains expedition in 1960-61. Bob led 1963-64 he headed field research that led to the way, drawing upon his experience in his doctoral dissertation regarding glacial Greenland and that prior season in geology and geomorphology of the Antarctica, his strength as a natural athlete, Ellsworth Mountains. In the late 1960s he and a contagious sense of humor. Several of was on the Eights Coast of West Antarctica us worked following seasons in Antarctica for additional study. on various projects; the lessons learned in In the early 1970s Bob moved to the 1960-61 provided a basis for knowing the University of Nebraska - Lincoln to lead the meaning of leadership. Ross Ice Shelf Project researching the glaciology of the Ross Ice Shelf, then moved The Last Time to Washington, D.C., where from April 1975 South Pole Station, 2014 – 2015 to July 1977 he headed the Office of Polar Programs, National Science Foundation. by Will Silva Bob returned to academia as vice chancellor for research and graduate studies My days grow short as shadows at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln. His lengthen. A month since summer solstice, Antarctic research continued as a member of my balaclava and extra long johns go on the multinational Ellsworth Mountains o before a nightly ski. The wind is cold, -20 F Expedition, 1979-80. at 12 knots from grid northeast. The warm The National Academy of Sciences o (-8 F, 4 knots) bright days of summer are in 1986 named him U.S. Delegate to the over. Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research I first came here in the summer of (SCAR). He held that position until 2006, my years. A friend had asked as he walked was vice president in 2000, president in me to my car, “Will, how old are you?” 2002-2006, and past president until 2008. “Forty-four.” Charlie clucked, “Right on From 1976 to 2000 he was an advisor to the schedule.” Indeed, my velvet midlife crisis U.S. Department of State on Antarctic was an escape from the crazy world of Treaty matters. American medicine early in the HMO Bob was honored with the University revolution. I had grinned as I chucked a of Minnesota’s Outstanding Achievement Land’s End catalog into the recycle bin: this Award in 1993 and entered on the is not my uniform any longer. university’s Alumni Wall of Honor. He was I step outside into the brightness – awarded a D.Sc. honorary degree from St.