UK Antarctic Heritage Trust sends new teams to conserve Port Lockroy and survey Wordie House

Centre · 2The UK Antarctic Heritage Trust (UKAHT), a Cambridge-based charity, is in the second year of a three-year mission to conserve Britain's first permanent scientific base in Antarctica, Base A at Port Lockroy on Goudier Island. 1 2 Centre · 2The site is a designated heritage site with the world's southernmost post office and museum, and a colony of more than 1,000 gentoo penguins. 1 2 Centre · 2A team of eight will spend five months at Base A. Led by RAF veteran Carole McCullough, they will run the post office, museum and gift shop, monitor the penguins, and install up to six roof beams and 30 steel and timber floor props so the buildings can withstand increased precipitation and snow. 1 2

Centre · 1The team includes conservation carpenters Kate Walford (on her first trip), Hugh Arnold and Jo Oliver, shop manager Kath Wibemer, wildlife monitor and museum manager Alice Parr, and postmaster George Clarke, who is returning for a third season. 1 Centre · 2For the first time, a field team of six specialists will travel south to carry out the first comprehensive survey of Wordie House, another British heritage site, assessing its condition and structural integrity and carrying out digital mapping. 1 2 Centre · 2Wordie House is where one of the longest continuous climate records on the continent began in 1947; the Evening Standard describes it as the second longest, with the records continued by Ukraine's Vernadsky station. The team is guided by travel medic and former Port Lockroy base leader Lisa Ford, with conservation carpenter Sven Habermann, artefacts conservator Sophie Rowe, XR producer Lesley Johnston and conservation engineer Maggie Cook, and UKAHT chief executive Camilla Nichol will be there. 1 2

Centre · 2The Base A site is more than 80 years old and needs significant repairs because of its age and factors such as increased rainfall, water flow and snow loading. The BBC reports that initial assessments found serious structural weaknesses, that last year's team prepared the site for this season, and that UKAHT called this its "biggest ever conservation season" at Port Lockroy. 1 2 Centre · 2Nichol said in a statement: "This is a huge year for us as we meet the growing challenges of climate change," adding that since Wordie House's records began in 1947 the Antarctic Peninsula has become one of the fastest-warming places on the planet. 1 2 Centre · 2Conditions will be basic: recruits share a bunk room with no running water or flushing toilets, in near-constant daylight and sub-zero temperatures. They have had first aid and sea survival training and talks on penguins and Antarctic history, and the BBC describes a 9,000-mile journey to get there. 1 2