Part I: Seals teeth and whales ears - Scott Polar Research Institute ...

spacious loft above for storage purposes. We had fitted benches and cupboards; and
we used it as a workshop in addition to its intended use as a lab. Unfortunately, as
the ship did not return that season, it was to lack any kind of heating. Consequently
in winter the temperatures inside frequently fell to below -17°C which made it
impossible to work there. Our hope was that the ship would deliver a stove the
following spring. It was expected to heat a greenhouse, which we would erect when
the ship brought the rest of the timber and the missing glass! Then we would be
able to grow flowers and fresh vegetables. I missed flowers and the scent of flowers
almost more than anything else in the next two years.
We built a deck of boarding on the south side, while Ralph glazed more lab
windows. The biological collecting tanks and jars were moved into the loft where
they were out of the wet; then we laid the bearers for the deck, which would be a
useful place to stack stores. I intended to construct a rough workbench for rough
cleaning of skulls and messy dissections and planned to erect walls and a roof over
this area.
By the middle of March the roof was dry so we patched up the tears made by
the recent gales, tarred the seams and fitted the ridge plate. We made the whole
structure weatherproof, using hessian and a liberal application of tar. Derek and I
cleared a drainage channel and made a beginning on a graveled space around the
building; we burned most of the rubbish. A few days later we had also completed
the flooring of the lab. It looked very homely with light streaming from the
windows in the dusk.
Finally on l9 March we cut a hole into the main hut where the glazed connecting
door was to go and were shocked to find that there was no insulation in the walls of
the living hut. The timber had been brought down to the island as deck cargo,
which was soaked with water on passage and swelled. Our living hut was of frame
construction, with an outer layer of this initially wet timber, covered with roofing
felt. On the inside of the frame there was only a thin layer of softboard. The planks
of timber had dried out as the hut warmed up, so we found 1 2 inch gaps between
them. The result was that the protection from the elements was in large part merely
a thin layer of roofing felt, and one of softboard! Later in the year this was to be
reflected in the very low temperatures we experienced in our living quarters.
A new glazed door almost doubled the amount of light coming into the living
hut, which was a very welcome improvement. By 1 April the new ‘wing’ was
almost ready for occupation. I carried in chemicals and equipment and it now began
to look more like a laboratory. One calm morning we melted down more pitch for
the roof and hammered down the ends of the ridge piece.
Two days later dawned as a beautiful still morning with not a breath of wind
and the Coronation peaks were clear of cloud. By noon, however, Ralph and I were
working in the teeth of a blizzard ‘tarring and sawdust-ing’ parts of the roof: the
sawdust acted like straw in bricks to hold the tar and make it more weatherproof.
Ralph and I began stripping the weather-boarding from the remaining sections at
the Norwegian hut. Eventually the laboratory walls had three thicknesses of
boarding, together with a layer of sisalcraft and four inches of good insulation – a
great improvement on our living hut!
130