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Bars in Antarctica

drinksdigest.com

123 pointsnotpushkin85 comments

This is a surprising characterization of alcohol use at mcmurdo, and seems PR-focused.

I hiked with a guy after he finished up a season working on the base, and here is what I recall of how he described it:

Everyone is so bored that alcohol is the default entertainment, crown royal is virtually the only choice for daily drinking, and drinking is rationed to keep the problem down.

I spent five weeks doing robotics research at McMurdo in 2010. At least then, there were there separate bars, no limits to alcohol consumption, and regular parties. I didn't get the sense that it was a big problem - seemed like a medium-heavy drinking culture that was quite a few notches less problematic than most college campuses.

Reading the rest of the replies here, I may have missed some of the more problematic sides of the drinking culture there - though it wasn't apparent to me.

Side note - for much of the summer it feels like day-drinking since it never gets dark over the summer.

> "Everyone is so bored that alcohol is the default entertainment"

Sounds just like winter in the UK to me.

Sounds just like winter in Russia to me. :^)

(Pretty much everywhere else I've been, too. Perhaps something's wrong with my lifestyle.)

Funny, alcohol seemed like the year-round UK entertainment to may limited experience there.

I know it's a lot to expect from "drinks digest", but the rampant alcoholism in Antarctic research communities is notorious.

I'm not wagging a finger here, not really, I won't blame people for responding to inhuman conditions with (copious amounts of) antifreeze, but it's jarring to see a puff piece about the fun cocktail bars which doesn't mention the accidents, assaults, and rapes, which trace directly back to drunkenness.

This was published barely two months ago on that subject:

https://www.npr.org/2022/09/01/1120518369/antarctica-sexual-...

> doesn't mention the accidents, assaults, and rapes, which trace directly back to drunkenness.

What a bizarre assertion. The number of "accidents, assaults, and rapes" across the entire continent can each be counted on one hand. It's one of the safest places in the world.

It's pretty misleading to say that without mentioning that there's only 1000 people on the entire continent, over the winter.

I'm on my phone so I don't have the actual numbers, but hypothetically, if Antarctica had one single reported rape every winter, that would be a yearly rate of 100 per 100K, comparable to some of America's worst cities.

It's very misleading to talk about "rapes" when the list of all crimes over all time in Antarctica is literally 5 items long and does not contain any rape.

What is the rate per capita? How does that rate compare to other places?

Be careful before relying on data, particularly data for crimes like rape. Incidents are often not reported and going solely off data, one would conclude that regions like India and sub saharan africa are safer for women than places like Sweden and the USA.

What else is there to rely on, if not data? "Lived experience" is just allegations without proof, and in aggregate it's data.

Anecdotes? The word of activists that insist that a fifth of men are rapists?

It's fine to say the data isn't reliable, but unreliable data about sexual assault in general isn't reason enough to conclude that McMurdo is a place overrun with rapists

It is very obvious that your comment is from the perspective of a man. It is important to empathize with women and realise that “data” is not the ultimate source of truth as many supposedly data-driven but racist AI algorithms will show.

Women face many structural and social objectives that make “aggregate” data on sexual violence almost meaningless and often counter-intuitive.

> conclude that regions like India and sub saharan africa are safer for women than places like Sweden and the USA.

Do you have a reliable source for concluding either way? I ask because I've seen conflicting information about per capita statistics (pointing to India and Sub-Saharan Africa indeed being safer) and arguments that the incidences are orders of magnitude higher than reported.

Rate per capita is a rounding error. It's better to talk about the total number of crimes in Antarctica across all stations, since the first crime in 1959. That total number of crimes is 5.

Just want to remind everyone that downvotes on HN are not for "expressed opinion I disagree with".

They are for "contravened community guidelines".

Don’t know why you got downvoted but here are some relevant links about legal complications [0][1], sexual assaults [2] and alcoholism [3] on Antarctica (data mainly from US-based stations).

[0]https://archive.ph/dgKwt

[1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Antarctica

[2]https://nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=305782&org=OPP

[3]https://www.wired.com/2015/10/scientists-antarctica-drink-lo...

Some of these read exactly as you would expect:

> He stabbed Oleg Beloguzov (Олег Белогузов), a 52-year old welder, in the chest multiple times. According to some sources, the attack occurred because Beloguzov was giving away the endings of books that Savitsky checked out at the station's library.

Was that the one where the victim testified afterwards that he had it coming?

If you, like me, have read latest brr.fyi post [1] and were wondering how bars in Antarctica look like. :-)

[1]: https://brr.fyi/posts/credit-card-shenanigans

I always imagined working in Antarctica to be like working on an oil rig. Alcohol is generally completely banned on such facilities.

There's a lot of safety concerns, but not exactly the same level of danger.

I suspect the biggest danger, is passing out, and dying of exposure.

That also happens here, in New York. Every winter sees a few corpseicles.

Drunk people freezing to death on the street is common everywhere, even in Europe.

One of my friends last winter, walked back home super drunk and passed out on the street. Instead of being happy he didn't freeze to death, he was angry some people called the ambulance for him that took him to the hospital, and got a €600 bill for it.

I'd guess that the €600 was not for the ambulance itself, but for a place where they put them to get sober afterwards.

I am not sure what's the common term for such place in English, Wikipedia is suggesting "Drunk tank": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drunk_tank

Police takes you there if you're too drunk to be on your own, it's paid (and pretty expensive).

>I'd guess that the €600 was not for the ambulance itself, but for a place where they put them to get sober afterwards.

No, it was for the ambulance ride. The socialized public insurance doesn't cover your drunk night out alcohol abuse.

“Drunk tank” is what it was called in the U. S. jail when I visited one during my misspent youth. :-)

I thought health care was free in most of europe.

It's free* with many caveats.

*Emergency services are free in Austria but only for valid medical emergencies. If you voluntarily drink yourself to death like my friend did, they don't cover that and will send you the bill.

You're expected to have private accident insurance to cover such incidents and various sports and free time injuries that are also not fully covered by the mandatory government insurance.

Maybe he's not a citizen or has whatever national insurance? I had a family member (US citizen) have to pay for hospitalization in belgium. On checking out the staff were apologetic. "This is going to be expensive...". It was somewhere around a few hundred USD for him being in for ... 3-4 days, IIRC. It was insanely nothing. "Maybe you can contact your employer for reimbursement" he was told a couple of times.

Less than the $3500 bill I received for taking an ambulance in SF several years back. And that was with health insurance.

It depends per country, generally its free or super cheap, but there are some exceptions to services covered and ambulance can be one of them (its around 500$ in Switzerland - this still could lead to paying 0$ for patient depending on situation, don't know about other countries).

And dental care is probably not free anywhere anymore that I am aware of, but its still cheaper to take trans-atlantic plane to get some more complex work done in cheaper places here than doing it in bigger cities in US.

The UK has free dental for those who qualify [1].

[1] https://www.nhs.uk/nhs-services/dentists/who-is-entitled-to-...

> I thought health care was free in most of europe.

In countries where it's "free" one pays high monthly insurances, in countries with dysfunctional public healthcare systems services cost a fraction of what you'd pay in US but the salaries are proportionally lower.

I thought health care was free in most of europe.

Ambulances can be private. In Spain, if you contact the Social Security and it's them that send the ambulance, I understand it will be free. But if you call a private service, they will charge.

In a case like that, I would have called police instead. It's the safest option.

Indeed, it can happen during ski holiday: https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2009/dec/09/ski-holiday-d...

> "Drunk people freezing to death on the street is common everywhere, even in Europe."

Probably not so much in Southern Europe.

It can get very cold down here, too.

Where in Europe bills you to use an ambulance?

Austria. You get billed if you misuse the emergency services.

Norway has an airport and a tax free shop in Antartica. The commercial airliners from Boeing and Airbus lands on the ice. Many nations has stopped using the Russian airport in Antarctica. This has increased the traffic in Norway’s Troll airport lately.

Two people I know met their partners while working at Antarctica. Plenty of social life I guess.

A relative of mine has applied to work there. He told me in all seriousness that he wanted a place where women couldn't get away from him. Thankfully, he was not selected.

I guess the implication scene in Sunny in Philly was not fiction.

Yikes! I understand the psych testing is quite thorough before you can work there, so that's a good catch.

its been a few years since they did any psych testing for mcmurdo or pole

Why would they end it?

sorry for the late reply. but basically it simply wasn't helpful. good people got screened out, bad people still got thru.

I also know of a couple like that. Apparently cross dressing is a staple of the social culture, I wish I could elaborate.

I’ve been to the bars in McMurdo (coffee house has the best vibe by far of the official bars), and Vernadsky. Vernadsky is a characterful place - the bar was built by the Brits in the 80’s out of a shipment of lumber that was intended for a new pier, and the Ukrainians turn a significant portion of their potato rations into rather stonking zamagonka - the kind that has you deciding to go frolic with the penguins and then jump in the banya - and at the time, speaking crappy Russian and having a shared interest in gravity waves with a couple of the guys there was enough to make fast friends and the moonshine flow freely.

I only spent a few days at/around Vernadsky, but the guys there were ridiculously hospitable - it probably helped that we were the first new faces they’d seen in a month.

Vernadsky is much easier to get to than McMurdo, there are some vessels which go there from Ushuaia on 3 or 4 day trips to the peninsula - McM, you’ve either gotta go with NSF or a contractor, or find a tourist boat that goes there - although the latter is a “once every five years” type affair, and I’m not sure anyone is going there at the moment. Or of course you can take your own boat/charter, but most of the year you’ll also need a helicopter to get to shore at McM - the sound is iced over most of the time.

I feel like the CO2 footprint for living there must be super high

Yup. Most stations are diesel powered - McMurdo is no exception, and their brief experiment with nuclear power there was a total disaster.

Which just makes Antarctica a more hospitable place in the long term.

sure but not with 10 billion people, same for Siberia, easy to forget it's not as large as it looks in flattened maps

Yes - though since much of the science that's performed there is focused on climate, it may be a worthwhile tradeoff. Much like the carbon invested to fly world leaders around - small relative to its global importance.

Wouldn’t all the bars in Antarctica be cool?

The article features a few that are inside stations that are presumably heated. They do still look cool, but in theory they could be lame.

Thermologically true :D

> Whichaway Camp, one of only two luxury hotels on continent

The fact that there are more than zero is shocking to me! Looks like this one is in the range of $5-$10k per night.

Conflicting - looks like an extraordinary experience but oh boy, the hotel starts with a private jet to Antarctica from Cape Town. Can't we at least agree to keep everyone out except the scientific crews?

https://white-desert.com/adventures/south-pole-emperors/

There are somehow 73 cases of covid there too

https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/one-earths-remo...

Here's one of my favorite HN submissions, written by a bartender in Antarctica https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5951227

With the banning of homebrew at the station being rationalized as a safety issue, do they have actual instances where someone got drunk on homebrew and froze to death outside? Because that seems pretty far-fetched. I've never been so drunk that I didn't notice sub-zero temperature.

I don't think most individuals (sober or drunk) are typically wearing clothing that keeps them at an appropriate temperature outside for multiple hours while sitting still, since that's not what they usually plan on doing.

I suspect if these circumstances occur, as the article describes, people are venturing outside drunk and feeling the cold as they normally would expect but caring less about its consequences and then just passing out.

> I've never been so drunk that I didn't notice sub-zero temperature.

I once laid down outside on my way home in a drunk state at winter.

It wasn’t that I didn’t notice the cold, or that I didn’t know of the danger. It was me in my drunk state thinking “I’ll just lay down for a little while to rest and then I’ll get up and walk the rest of the way home.”

Thankfully, almost as soon as I laid down someone who was driving past me saw me laying down, stopped, and insisted that they drive me home.

Probably the same kind of thinking which I experienced is what happens to some of the people that freeze to death while drunk.

I don't think the homebrew itself is the problem, it's the quantity of booze they can create. Plenty of people die to exposure while drunk, here's one of the first examples I could find https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2019/02/05/autopsy-college...

Antarctica is still really dangerous when you consider how few people work there on average. This makes people very safety conscious even over seemingly unlikely events.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_disasters_in_Antarctic...

It's pretty silly, I think, to claim weather and safety. The Australian stations are only about 67° south, just inside the circle, and about the equivalent of Bodø in Norway.

Or perhaps you have but didn’t notice it?

"For years, Australian Antarctic expeditioners have been making home-brewed beer in Antarctica, but the tradition was recently banned."

Is there literally nowhere on planet Earth people can go to be let alone to do as they please?

Is it still the case an appendectomy is required before spending time there?

https://www.bmj.com/content/339/bmj.b4965

IIRC, it's only required for surgical doctors overwintering but wouldn't be very surprised if the policy varies by base.

Well, I wouldn't expect there to be hot bars.

Hi, dad.

I wintered over at Palmer Station. Drinking increased heavily during the dark months.

Thats how environmental scientists spend funding, huh?

Individuals using drugs in a remote facility where screwups can lead to fatal results is a terrible idea. Yes, alcohol is entirely comparable to opiates, it has a similar endorphin-like effect. Beer is like opium, wine is like morphine, liquor is like heroin. As I see it, you might as well have photos of an opium den with some heroin needles lined up for the customer's use.

> As I see it, you might as well have photos of an opium den with some heroin needles lined up for the customer's use

Clearly you have never been in an opium den (nor have I, but I know people who have). The patrons smoke the opium (not heroin) from pipes.

I agree that alcohol can be just as destructive and life altering as opiates. But, there does seem to be a higher percentage of alcohol users that can remain at least somewhat responsible users, perhaps some biological or other factors.

I'm also confused by the categorization of beer->opium, wine->morphine, liquor->heroin. A dedicated alcoholic is able to get as drunk as they need to with any of the three. Sure, the alcohol content is higher as you move right, but beer is potent enough to do the job.

There is also a larger percentage of the population in general that use alcohol, mostly due to drug scheduling

Well here's one guy I wouldn't want to have a beer with, in Antarctica or elsewhere.

More reasons to not normalize alcohol consumption:

> "People with alcohol dependence often experience "brain shrinkage," which is reduced volume of both gray matter (cell bodies) and white matter (cell pathways) over time."

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33424857

Makes sense to want to ban alcohol if no one wants to have a beer with you, it's okay.

I don't think any drugs (including alcohol) should be banned at all, except in places where the consequences of being drunk/stoned/doped/disoriented could be very serious - operating ships (Exxon Valdez's drunk captain), for example. I can imagine people holed up in a insulated box for months during the Antarctic winter would want some relief, but maybe playing video games is a better option than booze or other drugs.

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