On Antarctica, the world's coldest continent, the average high temperature is -49 degrees Celsius. In the summer, the sun never sets, and in the winter, it never rises. Keeping sane there is its own special challenge.
The McMurdo Station is a research base perched on the edge of the Ross Ice Shelf, the world's largest body of floating ice. The station is administered by the United States and is the largest community in Antarctica. Capable of supporting more than 1200 residents, the population of the station drops to 150 brave (perhaps foolish) people when winter begins in March. Their task is to maintain the station during the months of total night. The biologists, astronomers, geologists, and climate scientists who were there before, have gone, as any research is impossible in the brutal winter.
Every day the remaining staff of maintenance personnel perform their routine tasks and make repairs when needed.
Sometimes they peer through the darkness toward their friends from New Zealand, at Scott Base, about two miles away. Though most of the time they're just voices on the radio, it's nice to have neighbours not too far away. Together, they share a power grid and one coast of a dark forbidding continent.
Though the days are dark and freezing cold in the depths of winter, the moon will rest above the horizon for weeks at a time.
Its pale light illuminates the cold, craggy landscape as if acknowledging a companion and reaffirming the bonds of life. So even for those who live in the darkest part of the Earth, there's light.
# Most of the researchers leave because it's impossible to do research during the winter.
# To acknowledge something means to recognize or admit its existence.