One week to go before I begin the long process of finally heading to The Ice. It’s been a more than 3 year process to realize this dream of going to work in Antarctica, the Cold, Dry, and Far South. The dream began with my good friend George Aukon who has gone down there now for parts of 6 seasons.
I like to tell people that our friendship began in a driving rainstorm in a former sugar cane field in Costa Rica in 1991. What drew hundreds of us to the Reventazon was the vision of Jib Ellis. Jib had started Project RAFT, Russians and Americans for Teamwork, in the waning days of the Soviet Union to help bridge cultural differences and make peace a more likely state. The idea was that by putting people in a raft on a river, people would of necessity need to get along well enough to successfully navigate upcoming rapids. George and his fellow team members from Team Riga had left the Soviet Union as Soviet citizens and had arrived in Central America as citizens of a free and newly independent Latvia. We sat in Team Riga’s large tent in the rain and tried to communicate in broken English and fractured Russian. Afterwards I helped bring George and his family to Flagstaff, as well as helping bring Vladimir Gavrilov and his family to California and recommending him to Dick Linford and Joe Daley who own Echo, the Wilderness Company, at the time a large whitewater river trip outfitter with operations all over the West.
Over time George became an American citizen; after working at several jobs he began working for Raytheon at McMurdo Station as a radio technician. During his first season the American icebreaker under contract to clear a channel to McMurdo was unable to break through the ice and a Russian icebreaker was called in. But a Russian- and English-speaking liaison was needed to coordinate the channel clearing and George was the natural choice. To his great surprise, many of the crew members were men he had served with in the Soviet Navy in the Arctic, including in the vicinity of Novaya Zemyla, one of 2 Soviet nuclear testing sites.
I began applying for work with Raytheon in 2008 and was encouraged, but as things dragged out with no final decision made, I was torn between teaching, which I loved, and working in Antarctica, which I wanted to see. With my school needing to know if I would be returning, but no decision on the job on The Ice I was in a pickle. To be fair to my principal I felt I needed to tell him that I would not be back and that I would be retiring after 23 years. Expecting a job offer at any time, I went with that decision and retired.
In hindsight I should have seen that I had interviewed horribly and had poor chances. Time stretched impossibly long that Summer until I finally found in August out that there had been a hiring freeze by Raytheon and the National Science Foundation during that season of $142 oil. The interview must not have helped either. It was too late to rescind my retirement and return to teaching. The position had been filled.
The last 2 years have been an interesting interlude of taking French and German classes, doing presentations on Colorado River Basin and Western water supply issues for Elderhostel, and getting back into river guiding with the Air Force’s Fort Tuthill Outdoor Adventure Program at first and this Spring with both with them and Grand Canyon Youth on the Lower Colorado River from Diamond Creek down to Lake Mead. Fascinating! New rapids forming at points never before seeing whitewater. All the while the idea of Antarctica was receding further and further from my mind.
But George Aukon entered the picture again and he spoke to several people in the Denver office and things heated up this Summer with a number of inquiries on different jobs. While in the Loire valley with Richard and Roselyane Ouillie I had a 1-hour interview for the Vehicle Operator position that I was eventually offered while we were doing our house exchange with William and Elisabeth Dosik in Paris. Dealing with the paperwork, filling out forms, and faxing things took a good long time from the visit but has obviously paid off. Landing back in the States I needed to get an immediate blood and urine test in Portland.
I like to tell people that our friendship began in a driving rainstorm in a former sugar cane field in Costa Rica in 1991. What drew hundreds of us to the Reventazon was the vision of Jib Ellis. Jib had started Project RAFT, Russians and Americans for Teamwork, in the waning days of the Soviet Union to help bridge cultural differences and make peace a more likely state. The idea was that by putting people in a raft on a river, people would of necessity need to get along well enough to successfully navigate upcoming rapids. George and his fellow team members from Team Riga had left the Soviet Union as Soviet citizens and had arrived in Central America as citizens of a free and newly independent Latvia. We sat in Team Riga’s large tent in the rain and tried to communicate in broken English and fractured Russian. Afterwards I helped bring George and his family to Flagstaff, as well as helping bring Vladimir Gavrilov and his family to California and recommending him to Dick Linford and Joe Daley who own Echo, the Wilderness Company, at the time a large whitewater river trip outfitter with operations all over the West.
Over time George became an American citizen; after working at several jobs he began working for Raytheon at McMurdo Station as a radio technician. During his first season the American icebreaker under contract to clear a channel to McMurdo was unable to break through the ice and a Russian icebreaker was called in. But a Russian- and English-speaking liaison was needed to coordinate the channel clearing and George was the natural choice. To his great surprise, many of the crew members were men he had served with in the Soviet Navy in the Arctic, including in the vicinity of Novaya Zemyla, one of 2 Soviet nuclear testing sites.
I began applying for work with Raytheon in 2008 and was encouraged, but as things dragged out with no final decision made, I was torn between teaching, which I loved, and working in Antarctica, which I wanted to see. With my school needing to know if I would be returning, but no decision on the job on The Ice I was in a pickle. To be fair to my principal I felt I needed to tell him that I would not be back and that I would be retiring after 23 years. Expecting a job offer at any time, I went with that decision and retired.
In hindsight I should have seen that I had interviewed horribly and had poor chances. Time stretched impossibly long that Summer until I finally found in August out that there had been a hiring freeze by Raytheon and the National Science Foundation during that season of $142 oil. The interview must not have helped either. It was too late to rescind my retirement and return to teaching. The position had been filled.
The last 2 years have been an interesting interlude of taking French and German classes, doing presentations on Colorado River Basin and Western water supply issues for Elderhostel, and getting back into river guiding with the Air Force’s Fort Tuthill Outdoor Adventure Program at first and this Spring with both with them and Grand Canyon Youth on the Lower Colorado River from Diamond Creek down to Lake Mead. Fascinating! New rapids forming at points never before seeing whitewater. All the while the idea of Antarctica was receding further and further from my mind.
But George Aukon entered the picture again and he spoke to several people in the Denver office and things heated up this Summer with a number of inquiries on different jobs. While in the Loire valley with Richard and Roselyane Ouillie I had a 1-hour interview for the Vehicle Operator position that I was eventually offered while we were doing our house exchange with William and Elisabeth Dosik in Paris. Dealing with the paperwork, filling out forms, and faxing things took a good long time from the visit but has obviously paid off. Landing back in the States I needed to get an immediate blood and urine test in Portland.
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