The Beer Can

Summary

This post is a celebration of one of my favorite bits of South Pole infrastructure. The Beer Can, or “vertical tower” in official USAP parlance, is how we move between our comfortable living zone above, and our critical infrastructure zone below. The beer can, photographed from outside. Another view of the beer can, photographed from outside. But before we get to the Beer Can itself, let’s talk about these different zones. Above-ground is our modern elevated station. Dedicated in 2008, it’s a huge, contiguous building that contains all the facilities and amenities for indoor living. View of the elevated station, showing the beer can on one side. The elevated station contains our berthing, food service, administrative offices, gym, weight room, store, sauna, IT, communications, greenhouse, laundry, craft room, music room, and lounges, all under one roof. Depending on your job, you can go days or weeks without having to set foot outside the comfort of the elevated station. The galley, inside the elevated station. Modern luxury, at the bottom of the world! Keeping all of this running, however, requires a huge industrial village, buried deep below the snow. Power generation, water filtration, heavy equipment maintenance, carpentry, warehousing, fuel storage, and any number of other industrial processes take places in the “Arches”, a series of semicircle storage/work facilities. These were constructed decades ago, and they have been buried over time. I originally included this photo on my South Pole Topography post, but it’s helpful context for this one as well. The arches, showing the snowcover, the elevation difference, and the beer can that connects the arches to the elevated station. The architecture down in the arches is… different. More industrial. More utilitarian. This is the infrastructural heart of South Pole Station, where we do the work that keeps the elevated station running. Our primary indoor cold storage facility, the Logistics Arch, or "LO". An ice tunne...