Description

Parachute Fragment:

“Operation Deep Freeze”:

This parachute fragment came from a parachute that was used to drop supplies into the original construction site for the South Pole Station during Operation Deep Freeze in 1956. The supplies were necessary for the building of a research facility at the South Pole.

Built on an 8,900 ft thick ice sheet, the remote location was the first permanent human structure at the bottom of the earth. All other research facilities in Antarctica were located near the seacoast. The station has been continuously occupied in some form since it was first constructed.

While digging the footings for the current Amundsen-Scott Station, the builders discovered the parachute relic buried deep under the snow at the site. In 2002, I traveled to Antarctica for a documentary about life at the South Pole. With me, I brought a letter that had been sent from there during one of Admiral Byrd’s expeditions. On the envelope the postmaster noted it took a year to deliver the letter. I brought it as a gift for the South Pole Station.

When I left, the folks at the new Amundsen-Scott South Pole facility gave me a piece of the parachute as my gift to take home as a remembrance of a trip of a trip of a lifetime.