He was manning the Antarctic station - that sounds like it involves routine work that anyone can do (absolutely no offense), are there jobmarkets out there for these sort of gigs?
Just curious really.
The author spent a number of seasons, including winter, in Antartica. From what I remember he was a "techie" who would run/maintain experiments for European universities; outdoor experience & knowledge on how to operate a LIDAR were his qualifications for the job. The tasks may sound mundane however even running an ethernet cable by -70c is more challenging than it sounds.
There is also an American station but it's rather crowded so I doubt you'd get to enjoy solitude there. The British station is less crowded but I heard it smells terrible.