Derby Woman’s Antarctic Christmas with Penguins

Aoife McKenna, 24, from Derby, anticipates spending the Christmas season enveloped by snow and penguins. She is employed by the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust (UKAHT) to manage the world’s southernmost museum at Port Lockroy, a British Antarctic base situated on Goudier Island, for the period spanning from early November to late March. As one of a five-person team, she will be engaged in welcoming cruise ship visitors, conducting penguin counts, and awaiting the hatching of the season’s initial chicks during the Christmas period. McKenna remarked that it might be “the most Christmassy Christmas I’ve had, which is really, really lovely”. The island also features a post office, which Ms McKenna noted processes 18,000 postcards each season, alongside a gift shop. She explained that cruise ships are scheduled to call at the island, which is approximately the size of a football pitch, throughout the festive season, including Christmas Eve, Boxing Day, and New Year’s Day. The site can accommodate a maximum of 40 visitors simultaneously, ensuring Ms McKenna’s continued work in the museum. She stated, “We’re really getting to the peak of the Antarctic summer, and that means the peak of the tourist season”. Her duties also involve assisting with penguin monitoring, with the first chicks of the season anticipated to hatch during Christmas week. “It’s a really fun part of the job,” she commented. “There are about 1,000 gentoo penguins living here at Port Lockroy, so 500 breeding pairs, and part of our responsibility is to monitor them.” She added, “When those eggs hatch, which we hope is going to be really soon, we will be counting the number of chicks. “From our egg count, we had 938 eggs, which is really, really exciting. It’s a really good number”. McKenna stated that the UKAHT charity assumed management of Port Lockroy in 1996, with penguin counting ongoing since that time. Despite the island’s small size, she noted that the “area that’s accessible to us is even smaller”. Ms McKenna explained, “Because, of course, the 1,000 penguins that live here take over most of the space of the island,” adding, “We keep our distance from them because it’s their territory, especially now during the breeding season. So they very much have the run of the island here.” She further remarked, “They smell really, really quite bad. That’s kind of their one flaw”. Ms McKenna also described seeing whales in the bay and seals visiting the island as “amazing”. On Christmas Day, she and her team, comprising base leader Lou Hoskin, wildlife monitor Maggie Coll, postmaster George Clarke, and shop manager Dale Ellis, will observe a day off. McKenna, whose prior role was a museum curator in Inverness, Scotland, commented, “I’m looking forward to having some quiet time, and just celebrating together as a little group of five.” She added, “Obviously I’m going to miss my friends and family”. She mentioned plans for a lie-in, exchanging handmade Secret Santa gifts, playing games, communicating with family, and savoring Christmas cheese received from one of the ships. Crafting the presents proved difficult, Ms McKenna noted, “because we don’t really have any privacy or space to ourselves”. McKenna described their living quarters as a Nissen hut, an Army structure, where they share a bunk room and lack running water or flushing toilets. She stated they utilize 16 jerry cans for fresh water, which they obtain from ships. “They also do our laundry, give us fresh food sometimes, and we take our showers on board,” Ms McKenna explained. The team experiences perpetual daylight, which Ms McKenna characterized as “a big adjustment”. She observed, “I don’t get hungry at the same times, tired at the same times,” adding, “We have to be really conscious about getting to a point in the evening and closing all the blackout blinds.” Despite this, the team continues to enjoy their experience. Ms McKenna concluded, “It’s been a very long time since I’ve seen snow at Christmas so being able to have a white Christmas here, with all the penguins, is like a dream come true”.