Antarctic Talk by Courtney Skinner 12-14-2007 at Rendezvous Pointe Senior Center.

Courtney: I came to the conclusion when I was preparing for this….and I want to thank my wife Maria for putting up with me when, at 2:00 in the morning I’m look for things…thank my mother-in-law & fellow workers. I do believe that I am a creature of our environment. The journeys and trips that I’ve taken haven’t been by talent or by education as much as by environment –growing up in Pinedale, Wyoming. At the time of Stan Murdock’s funeral, I was thinking of stories of growing up with Stan & his 3 sisters out in back in the Cooley field with the largest herd of stick horses in this county. But the snow would come & some of the street-crossers over on the other side of Pine Street, who seemed to have a little more wealth than our north side of Pine Street, would come and break them. I have a picture of Bobby Harrower and the snow shoeing and the tripping & the things we would do as kids. I’m sure that put a notch in the floor, an environmental habit of going to Antarctica.

Susan Pape: Someone told me your street never went by without a fight & it was usually between a Skinner and a Feltner.

Courtney: Well, that’s probably true or it was between 2 Skinners! Or 3 Skinners.I come from a family of 6 boys. And they also figure heavily in the story of going to Antarctica. Shelter Park (the north end of Pinedale) was incognito. It was the unknown land. And as you got further towards the CCC Camp & Ponds you were WAY out there. Almost worried your parents would get out a search. And that played a role in my upbringing. So, it wasn’t unusual in 1957 because of Bob Skinner and his military training, that he received a call in the International Geophysical Year – a gathering of scientists from all over the world combining to make studies at 100 different points all over the world – and they wanted Bob to go to Antarctica on a journey for the IGY. At this stage Bob had just started a family and of course, my hands went up. “I’ll go! I’ll go!”

Back to 1957 – lots of money flowing – get the data. Well, Bob didn’t want to go, so I raised my hand and the next thing I knew I was off to the Antarctic continent. I see Rod Rozier (in audience) who has his…(Courtney says sister-in-law but it is Rod’s wife) down there. Rod has been there too. We find that anyone from Wyoming – they LOVE us down there. There are 3 from this town that were there at the same time: Bobby Harrower, my oldest brother Bud Skinner and Courtney Skinner. A story emerges of the 3 of them, all from the town of Pinedale, WY, getting to the South Pole at the same time. I finally arrived on the continent at McMurdo Sound, Antarctica – the largest US base. There was no Antarctic Treaty. There were more Copenhagen cans with a note in them claiming land for USofA across Antarctica than you can shake a stick at. In 1962 the Antarctic Treaty was signed in which you recognized nobody else’s claims to territory. Antarctic was set aside as a scientific laboratory. When they landed on the moon they just took the Antarctic Treaty and changed it.

When I got off the plane in Antarctica my boss was running around in leather shoes. The rest of us 50 were pretty much freezing to death. & wondering how are WE going to be able to cope with it. The book The Frigid Mistress by George Doumani (tells our story). We’re not very far removed from ??, Shackleton, Robert F Scott – the early explorers. Doumani talks about how the Antarctic in its beauty, in its ice, in its isolation and in its very nature is like a mistress calling you back time after time after time. Another favorite book was Innocents on the Ice by John Behrendt. That’s exactly how we were - innocent. Environmentally, if I had not been raised in Pinedale, Wyoming, I don’t know if we would have survived. He (Behrendt) was wooed to the Antarctic continent 16 times. There had been no ladies in Antarctica. In 1947 Norwegian private funded brought 2 women. In 1961 a PanAm airplane landed on the ice runway with 2 or 3 Pan American Hostesses. Now it is wide open.

In 1958 and 60s we started out as IGYs – they called us Igys - for International Geophysical Year. There were a few other words in front of it that we won’t mention. It changed then to US Antarctic Research Program and we become known as U-Sarps. We were field personnel supported by Navy. Some Air force does research.

Geology: Discovery Ridge becomes the precursor for continental drift. George Doumani who wrote the Frigid Mistress. All geology thinking at that time was of land bridge. We knew the continents had drifted, but it wasn’t put into…. Geologist knew the Discovery Ridge and the Horlick Mtns 200 miles away from the South Pole was rich in fossils that were the very same fossils in Africa. And you found those same fossils in Australia. Now, how did they get there? Sitting in the hut discussing this George Doumani, the expedition leader said, “What do you think, Courtney?” I said, “Oh I can’t feature a continent drifting clear across ocean. I can’t see India moving away from Gondwanaland and becoming the Indian subcontinent. I just don’t buy it.” He said, “Courtney, your job is to say that this rock that you picked up equals this rock in West Africa and this rock that you picked up equals the same geology that is in Australia. Let the gd physicists figure out HOW they moved!” And then my whole career changed. It opened a whole, vast vista. One of the things I turned over thousands of cubic yards for – and I thought I was a Michigan backhoe – was a little marsupial called a Mosasaurs – it was a bony animal that couldn’t blow by the wind. It couldn’t stay on a log and drift across an ocean. It couldn’t be picked up by a bird. It had to have been there. For the next 3 years that’s what I did. I looked for that ONE fossil. It had to be in the structure. On Discovery Ridge I had 2000 ft of shale rock that I had to walk along & turn over. I did not find it. But a colleague at Ohio State did by accident in another range of mountains. It was a snowy day. They couldn’t do much work. They said, “Let’s go over there and climb on that mountain for the heck of it”. They were rock climbing – at 32 below zero – and came across one half of a jaw bone of that fossil embedded in this boulder that they were trying to climb. It proved with Ohio State beyond a doubt that the continents DID drift. All because of that one fossil.

Most of the men went back to Ohio State. I wanted to keep looking. So anytime I stopped to visit somebody, there was I with the National Science Foundation. “Well, Skinner will go. Take Skinner”. I got to see a great deal of the continent that way. I stuck around so much that finally the NSF says, “What sense is there in you being a grantee for a university. Why don’t you just go straight to work for us.” One year I said “I know some great people in Pinedale, Wyoming, that would make great Antarcticans for us.” Or, as I was - an OAE. I was an OLD Antarctic Explorer. Once you survived one year you were an OAE. So, Bobby Harrower and our oldest brother Bud Skinner, who was living in NM at the time, decided they would go. NSF hired them. Bud was a great engineer in building buildings and Bobby was an engineer too. They were higher up in Antarctica. Bud put in stations for 1000 miles. He put in stations where the penguins were. I had come off the field doing the geology because the ice runway was going out and everybody had to get the heck off. There were still a few days left in the season. As a reward for the leaders the major personnel were going with a group of senators to the geographic South Pole. (Rod Rozier, Jr walked in. Courtney said, “There he is. Another one of those OAEs”). So, I drove them with a Dodge power wagon – great big balloon tires - out onto the ice runway. The plane is sitting there. They get aboard. I said, “I’m not going to drive back over the ice – it’s one of the dangers.” So I’m waiting and the plane is loaded and the door is close. Can’t figure out why they’re not going. Cuz I’m not going to drive back and then have to drive back & pick them up if they can’t fly and such. Finally an Nodwell – like a Snowcat with rubber tracks– arrives & it’s the Admiral. They were waiting for the Admiral. He says, “Are you going aboard, Sonny?” I said, “No, Sir. I’m not manifested.” So he climbs aboard & the engines start and the door opens & the Admiral sticks his head out and he says, “Get Aboard!” I threw the keys. I don’t know where. Climbed aboard. So, now I’m on a flight to the South Pole with 2 other of my buddies from Pinedale, Wyoming. We arrive at the South Pole. It’s 820 below zero. Just happened to be at the right place at the right time. And THREE, (all from the same town) which is probably unheard of, at the geographic South Pole.

Left my Granteeing job with Ohio State. Worked with the Univ of Calif again trying to prove the drifting of the continents, geologically. National Science Foundation came to me and said there is no sense in you being a grantee. We’re going to let you have your own group and we’ve got a job for you. They said stay up there (in Pinedale) & go elk hunting. We’ll let you know when it’s time. So, I arrived, after elk hunting, in McMurdo Sound. Then I found out it was a very major, MAJOR undertaking. 1500 miles of unknown coastline and mapping and finding everything that we can in that part of Antarctica. I had 16 different disciplines to study. I couldn’t even pronounce them, let alone spell them or know what they did. I had 32 Military personnel and 3 helicopters. And, being part of your environment, you just do it. I was threatened. I was ?? I had international incidents. I had an exchange scientist. It’s JUST about the end of the cold war, but not quite. This Russian was assigned to me & they said, “You let anything happen to him, we’ll have you.” He had a geological hammer that looked like our post pounders. That’s what he took samples with. They had drawn circles in Washington, DC. Some pilot had told them, “Yea, we can fly 200 miles away from a set base.” (Courtney refers to maps). The first year we had 3000 lbs of equipment, gear & food for 5 of us. On the last year of this traverse, I had 962,000 pounds of gear & equipment. I went from eating oatmeal & a mountaineers breakfast & occasionally a can of dehydrated steaks to eating cases of steak, canned lobster, dehydrated shrimp. In the course of 5 years it went from the Admiral Byrd era or the Shackleton era of sledging to a highly developed & costly operation. Don’t say we found anymore rocks, anymore angles for the expenditure.

The first day we made up survival kits. Everybody had to work in twos. You went out with another person. Duffel weighed about 82 pounds. Put in a schnapps and probably weighed 84#. Mapmakers, engineers, elevation, triangulation for towers on the top of mountains. They got out & pulled theirs. Three people - Geologists - off to the base of the mountain to do their work. They couldn’t get back. The weather had moved in. They couldn’t get off the mountain. So now I have 2 people on the mountain. It continues to storm and storm. First question: “Did they pull their duffel bag?” Yes, they did. The day goes by and we can’t do anything. Second day goes by. Protocol in Antarctica called if you do not come on your radio in 3 days time, we will alert air, sea & rescue, which was a major unit of the military support force, to alert. So Day 3 comes and I say to the Captain, “Maybe we should alert the Navy back at McMurdo Sound that we got a little problem”. And he said, “Nope. Fire up the helicopter. Get the APU units out there. We’re going up there and get them”. We flew into action. I said, “I’d better send my chief scientist who knows where they are & we’d better send a medic.” And I did not go. They say, “We see them! The tent is down, but a hand is waving. We’re coming back. We can’t land.” So, they have camp in site and they turn off the radio. I walk out onto the porch of the Jamesway. It’s a canvas hut. And I see the helicopter sit down! I walked back in and said, “I saw it go down.” We turn on the radio. No answer. So, I walk back out on the vestibule and can’t see anything. We’re in trouble. Get the rescue sleds – some of the first Polaris. I stood right where I’d seen them sit down and had them put one flag and then another flag. About 45 minutes later we get to the crashed helicopter. We have a broken back, a broken arm. And I’ve still got 2 people on the mountain. So, now I own another aircraft in Antarctica. Story is, “Now Skinner, you’re going up there and get ‘em. You got us into this, you’re gonna get us out.” So we get a different pilot. Still had one pilot. Difference in the ability of pilots was great. We landed the skid, pulled them aboard.

We’ve got to get back to the penguins. Admiral Byrd describes the Edsel Ford Range as the worst weather in the world. He almost didn’t get to fly to the South Pole by the same, majestic switching, very quick, within an eyelash, of the weather. He had arrived in Antarctic in April, in the dead of winter. Three aircraft are buried under the snow. Geologists talked him into a field trip so late in the season. Now you’re dealing with temperature of about 55 below. But it’s only 100 miles over here to the Edsel Ford Mtns. One hundred miles from Little America. He acquisitions a plane and they take off. Crash. First plane crash. Sends the dog team out. It’s like a good dusk. The dog team is gone a week and only made 45 miles. He digs out another plane and crashes it. He can no longer fly. He digs out another plane & they fly to the Rockefeller Mtns. Fortunately they got back. There are many survival tales.

So, we’re mapmakers. We’re building these little topo stations all the way across the continent. Number 32, number 33…they’re numbered, then they’re named. Now we’re really bogged down & my boss comes back from Wash, DC and wants to know what’s happening. Beautiful sunny day – just a typical, good Wyoming one that makes you enthused. Clear as the eye can see. He lands in the C-130, the Hercules, the “Big Bird”. He sees 2 helicopters sitting on the ground & he sees me. He says, “What in the heck are you doing? Why are you not flying? Why aren’t you getting that traverse done?” And I said, “Well, the weather is bad where we’ve got to work.” It’s pretty hard for him to believe. We go inside this darkened canvas hut called a Jamesway & we discuss each of these little points. Where we are, where we traverse… (Courtney’s voice fades as he talks over by his maps.) He walks out on this same porch and you can’t see your hand in front of your face! Just a stroke of (fate). But the military knew I was getting reamed so they immediately painted a great, big sign on a piece of cardboard that said, “Follow me to the airport.” And he takes off in a complete whiteout, gets back to Washington and sends a telelex: “Keep up the Good Work”.

In those times as we look at things like that, same thing happened on these beautiful, little things of the Antarctic & some of the bigger ones (Courtney has 2 stuffed Adelie penguins he is referring to). There are 17 species of penguins. These are the Adelie. They’re not the cutest, but the smaller they are the more feisty they are. The big ones, the Emperors, the Kings, the ones that came back with Byrd from Little America – they’re the humorists, toughest, tuxedo-dressed ones. One of my years there, there was a biologist Rich …, out of John Hopkins University & he needed help. He wanted to know how a penguin navigated. How does a penguin, like a salmon, find its way back to where it was born? Do they do it by sunshine, by compass, by the wind of their left cheek, by observation of the terrain, by Sastrugi – wind drifts that are harder than concrete. He figured we’d catch a penguin, take him away from where it was born, & turn it loose. You watch what he does. You plot his direction. This is before GPS and collars. Now he needs somebody to catch the penguin while he does his instrumentation. AH! No problem. We’ve got a cowboy from Wyoming! Courtney can go. Everything starts to get further and further. He’s got a white box and we get a ladder so he can track him as far as possible. He’s in white. I’m in white. He’s got a transit bar. The penguin would take off. He (the biologist) would get great joy in wait and wait. Then he’d say, “Go get him, Court!” And zoom, I’d fly off in the snowmobile. Then off & running because they are very fast on their tummy. He did this all the way to the South Pole. When they were released at the South Pole he didn’t wait as long cuz it was about 50 below & if he broke down, could never return. His theory at the end is that they have an internal gyroscope, not a compass, but a gyroscope that tells them in their orientation, where they are.

Another part of that story, because of cowboys - they wanted to know how deep a seal dives. How deep do these 900 pound or 1000 pound seals go. We had at that stage a Bathometer, like our thermometers, that broke at a certain depth & that would record it. The seal would dive and the glass would break. So, Doctor Carlton said, “I need help. I want to see how deep a seal goes in breathing.” Remember they are mammals & they’ve got to get oxygen and can’t stay under too long. I brought down some of these bathometers. But how am I gonna get them on? Well, no problem! We got 2 cowboys from Wyoming! Bobby Harrower & Courtney Skinner! They’ll rope ‘em! They’re used to Team Tying. That’s no problem, no problem at all. And so our boss assigns us 2 ropes & gives us about 16 Navy personnel and says, “Now, here’s the deal. You get that seal head & tail & somebody’s gotta go up like a good bulldogger & take a darning needle or gunny sack needle, run it through their back, tie it off with the Bathometer & you’re all done.” Well, we headed the seal all right & we managed to get enough of us on, holding the rope, to keep his head away, that a bunch of ‘em jumped on his tail. We didn’t have to rope the tail. I had the dubious honor of running out there & sticking this needle through his back & tie a knot in the leather shoelace. Well, we were pretty proud, clapping ourselves. The seal took off, found a hole, went under the ice and all we had to do was find him again. We hadn’t thought of that part. Every cotton-picking time that seal would even see anything that looked like a human, it was under the water. We finally, in lots of work and labor, catch it & get this thing off, cutting it with a knife. It went to 200 feet & broke. Later they find out they go down for almost 22 minutes and come back for air and get to depth of almost 800 feet. But, another instance of your environment – no problem. We’ve got 2 cowboys from Wyoming. Everybody’s a cowboy from Wyoming.

One of the hardest journeys – in fact it’s called the worst journey in the world – was the Emperor (Penguin). Scott Expedition in 1909, 3 of them went across 35 miles to a rookery. The same rookery at Cape Crozier – to get an Emperor Penguin, like the movie “March of the Penguins”. They are the most amazing of creatures. They are very ancient & very old, back from the time of the dinosaurs. They have lost their ability to fly. Their speed is on their bellies & on their big flippers. The Emperor lays one egg in the dead of winter & it must not ever touch the ground or immediately it will freeze. It is the dead of winter, dealing with temperatures of 60 & 70 & 80 below zero. After the egg is laid by the female it is placed on the feet, with a big type of marsupial pouch, of the male. The Emperor male walks around a little bit, not dropping that egg, huddled in colonies for at least 6 weeks while the female goes 100, 200, 300 miles across frozen ice, to get into the water to feed, to bring back to feed the chick. It’s an amazing process, repeated year after year, time after time. We didn’t get to do much, just watching them, because of it not being wintertime. (Courtney tells of a group that went there last winter).

On the Adelies we were putting arm bands and taking a leather punch, depending upon the year & punching a hole between their fingers & part of their web. Our object was to band 5000 of them each year, so we could get a count on their mortality & such. So, 7 of us went over to Cape Crozier & started on the banding. About 15 days into getting the bands on their flippers & such, a large storm moved in. Before the storm there were 360 some thousand penguins in this rookery. The storm. We could hardly go outside. The air would be sucked out of you. The whiteout conditions. Fifteen days we had to stay in that canvas hut pretty much. It killed well over 100,000 of these penguins. We probably got 2600 penguins banded that year & it was over. (Talks about the title of the talk “Do Penguins Have Square Eyes”). The Adelies are different than the Emperors in that they lay their eggs during the summer. Usually 2, sometimes 3. The male does sit on the nest while the female goes off to the sea to feed. Their mortality – if they get one that gets through the molting stage - they are perfectly happy. The Adelie relies upon stones to build it’s nest. The stone is all important because the nest must be elevated above meltwater. So, stones become valuable. They are also used in the courtship. The male picks up a stone after they have gone 5 years. They come back to the place where they were born. They live about 15 years. Because of all the others, they have to go way the heck up on this cliff. They’ve got to build their own nest & they’ve got to mate. They mate for life. They climb up out of the ocean, up 1500 vertical feet. Now they finally find a spot, but first they have to find a mate. So, the male picks up a rock and he walks through all these 360,000 and he drops that rock. And if that bird, if it is a female, picks it up then they mate.

END OF TAPE SIDE A

Then they get lots of rocks and build a nest. A little display on the back of their heads and a mating call. (Courtney refers to his 2 stuffed Adelie Penguins). Only way to really tell the difference in sex is by dissecting. They can’t really tell if they are male or female, unless they are in a static display…they strut and call. I thought they lived 15 years - the Adelies. Emperor may be less – they live a hard life. They eat krill, a minute shrimp. They have a lot of enemies. The main one is the Leopard Seal. The Leopard Seal is a vicious, 1000 pound seal with big canine teeth. He likes to play with them. He will kill one & throw it in the air. Going down to the sea to feed the Adelies are sitting on the edge of the escarpment and they’re watching & looking for any danger, particularly the Leopard Seal. They’ll reach over and push one (of their own) in! If a seal gets it, then they don’t go. If that one starts swimming, then they all go. Well, the Leopard Seal gets smart also. It knows that if he holds his hunger a little bit then he’ll have better pickings.

(The Pucker Pete Story) Well, you see 2 specimens here. I wanted an Emperor Penguin. I had talked to the head of the mapmaking out of Wash, the reason I wanted to take one home. I had no qualms – these (2 Adelies) have been in the 2nd grade classrooms in Pinedale for 30 years and have been petted, loved, held, looked at & enthused. But I wanted an Emperor. Since I had a Russian (in camp) I had to be extremely careful. So, one day the helicopter is coming back and (one of the crew) says “Courtney, meet me at the tie downs. I got a present for you.” And he hands me GI Army duffel bag with a penguin -–LIVE! So I run quick to my tent and I’m in there trying to strangle it and the penguin is kicking the heck out of me and they come by and say, “Courtney! They know you’ve got it!” Now, I’ve got a live penguin, 300 miles from it’s rookery. What am I gonna do. So, I can’t get out of it. I take it out and (say) “Look what Charlie brought us back so we can all see a penguin.” There’s people that have been to the Antarctic 5 times and never seen a penguin. So we build a corral out of 55 gallon fuel drums. The cook says, “I’ve got lots of dehydrated shrimp” - for Pucker Pete (what we named him). So, they’re going back that way. We put him in the duffel bag and get him on the helicopter. They come back. They unload him. Eighteen times! That penguin flew more than any penguin has for 250,000 years! Finally I said, “I’m going”, and we flew Pucker Pete in the duffel bag. He’s our camp mascot. And we load him and we get him back. Coming in you see what looks like a barnyard, what looks like dung, or poop. But, it’s penguins. We land & get Pucker Pete out. There’s 2-3000 penguins and I turned Pucker Pete out of the duffel – shake him upside down. Bid him good-bye. Within 3 minutes 2 adults have found him and it was his mom and dad and off they went. They recognized him!

Slide Show begins. Captain Cook was later killed in Hawaii. Robert Scott arrived at the geographic South Pole 3 weeks after a Norwegian, named Roald Amundsen, (in 1911) had beaten him using dog teams. Walking for 90 days and seeing a speck and arrive and find that your geographic prize has been taken by a Norwegian. And Scott lost his life on the way back. First Skidoos. That (picture) is worm-beating sandstone. 3 great dumps in the world. One was McMurdo Sound in Antarctica, the South Col of Mt Everest and until a few years back, Pinedale, Wyoming. This happens to be a dump in the moraine. (Slides) The furthest rock south in the world. The arrival of Bud Skinner, Bob Harrower and Courtney Skinner to the South Pole. Mr Rozier will say it has changed a bit. These early snow toboggans were certainly better than man-hauling. But every time you turned downwind you were in trouble because the Wisconsin motor was on the back. Vistas & views unimaginable. Glaciers 800 miles in length. In the first years of our geology we didn’t have the helicopters. The US had dogteams until about 1956. One of the most famous things I participated in was a coal mine. We wanted to get a fresh sample of coal that was not weathered. So we had to dig a mine & we took a sample of coal 18 feet high and about a foot in diameter to look to see when that coal was formed, what fossils were in it. It had just been too weathered. It never came out much. In most of the geology I was in I was sedimentary in which the basement or granite was all flowing underneath & pushing to the top. So, everyday I had to push my spine to the top of the mountain as opposed to the hardrock geologist. Penguins: Band on wings & leather punch. The Adelie stays in the Antarctic Circle. The skua (bird) is also one of the enemies of the penguin. It’s a scavenger like a raven & the head of the project was always catching me shooting them with slingshot. We were 1000 miles from the ocean & they came in & landed. (Coal Mine): I was the Shot-Off (?) for Dirty Diamond Mine #1. My job was to set the explosive to blast the coal. Memorial to Robert Falcon Scott & his 4 men. A quote -I can’t remember the author: To Strive – To Seek - & Not to Yield. Another explorer is Steve Mackey of Pinedale. He went the year after I left. People in Washington say, “This is the best. Give me Wyomingites. Give me those people to match my mountains.” We are a little bit different breed of cat. Rod Rozier: (who has been to Antarctica) Leslie (his wife) landed at the South Pole a couple days ago. Courtney: Oh! She’s a big gun! She’s the cream of the crop! She has joined the elite. That makes 4 of us from Pinedale who have been at the South Pole. The average mean temp at the SP is 5320 below zero. The coldest was 1250 below zero. When we were there it was 88 below. Planes never shut off. I stored my drinking whiskey with the bread. ROD: Leslie is providing medical care there for 2 months.

Maria Skinner: My husband will not tell you. Besides all the fun he had in Antarctica he must have done something right. Congress recognized him with a Congressional Medal & he has mountains named after him in Antarctica. So, you have a little piece of Pinedale that is in Antarctica.