The Lightkeeper's Wife - By Karen Viggers Page 0,51
There’s been a flush of pups up in Long Fjord.’
In the morning I packed my field bag, roped it to a quad bike and followed her out from station across the sea ice. We spun far out on the frozen waste, whizzing north past two islands locked like black hummocks in the ice. Far out, the sea ice was like a highway. We saw lines of black Adelies as they headed for their rookeries, their feathers ruffling in the wind.
Navigation in the Vestfold Hills wasn’t easy and we had to look for specific landmarks that would direct us to the fjords. Until you knew the characteristics of the hills, they appeared featureless, rolling low and monotonous to the grey dome of the plateau. But once you knew what to look for, the hills became familiar friends, and the frozen fjords were the roads we raced along on our quad bikes.
The fjords were a place of relative protection from the wind and the blizzards; the wind could still barrel down from the plateau and along the valleys between the hills, but there were sheltered areas—often around islands in the fjords—and these were the sites where Weddell seals gave birth to their pups each year in spring. Bull males defended breathing holes where their harem of females hauled themselves out of the water onto the ice.
As Sarah and I drove through the frozen fjords, we passed several clusters of dozing seals. We stayed wide of them, not wanting to disturb them until we returned later with our tagging gear after offloading our luggage at the field hut.
Brookes Hut was a splash of red—a converted shipping container—at the end of a small bay overlooking the sea ice. Sarah and I bounced our quads over the rumpled tide cracks and drove up the track behind a mound of dirty snow to park just outside the hut. We lugged our gear inside where it was dull and quiet and the whine of the wind seemed distant. We stashed our food on the shelves among the existing cans of baked beans and powdered milk, sultanas and frozen cans of beer. Then we tossed sleeping bags on bunks, opened the vents and set up the toilet with a plastic bag that we would take back with us to station to be burned.
While Sarah boiled water for cups of tea, I went outside to watch tiny brown storm petrels flittering over the rocks near the hut. The morning light had shifted to grey and the ice was flat and featureless. Somewhere across the fjord the hollow bray of a Weddell seal echoed. Cold air froze in my nostrils and drew tears. The landscape was beautiful; it was rugged, harsh and wild. And it felt good to be off station, away from the gossip and pernickety human interactions. Sarah was easy to be with. She was undemanding and I knew we’d have a good few days. The mechanics’ shed would survive without me.
After tea and chocolate, we gathered our equipment and set out across the ice, shattering the silence once more with the reverberating noise of our quads. Sarah led the way to the nearest colony—a gathering of dark grey spotted slugs lying stretched on the ice. We cut the engines and stood listening to occasional coughs and snorts. A pup barking at its mother. The hollow echoing bray of another seal, further along the fjord. Then the sound of our crampons, crunching and scratching on ice as we walked towards the group.
We circled the harem, counting pups and cows. Several seals raised sleek pointed heads to look at us, opening and closing their slit nostrils, prickling the air with pale whiskers. One spun to watch us, spreading its hind flippers to reveal a coloured tag in the webbing. The pups dozed, floppy bags of grey-brown fur lying prone on the ice. It’d be my job to dance in and drag a pup away while Sarah distracted the mother with a flag on a pole. While she kept the mother entertained, I would quickly tag the pup and let it go.
We had a successful day, tagging numerous pups and adults. That evening, Sarah cooked dinner with fresh vegies from the resupply ship, and served it with wine. It was a good start to the season. We sat rugged up on the deck watching the sky darken towards a midnight sunset, the air chilling our wine, our gloved hands fumbling with our forks.