If you love penguins, aspire to polar life, and have plenty of time left, maybe you can try a new job: spend a few months at the Penguin Post Office in Lokroy Harbor, Antarctica, helping to maintain the historical sites there, documenting the number of tourists and boats during the peak season, and counting penguins. Although the job requires candidates to have strong psychological qualities and the ability to survive in harsh conditions, a few years ago, it still attracted many penguin lovers with unique conditions. However, with the advent of the new crown epidemic, the "Penguin Post Office" has also fallen into an operational crisis due to the sharp decline in the number of tourists. Now, at a time when many places around the world are trying to get out of the haze of the epidemic, can the "Penguin Post Office" restore the hustle and bustle of the past?
What is it like working at Penguin Post Office?
The "Penguin Post Office" in Antarctic Port Rockroy, managed by the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust (UKAHT), was originally a research station established by the United Kingdom in 1944, but now has the nature of a museum and post office, and every November to March, UKAHT employs four employees to live on the island.
The four positions open for recruitment are 1 supervisor, 1 manager in charge and 2 mail administrators. Depending on the position, each person's salary ranges from about $1600 (about 10403 yuan) to $2300 (about 14954 yuan) per month. After a successful application, they first need to complete a week of training in Cambridge, UK, and then depart for Antarctica in October, where they will continue to work until March.
Located on the western side of the Antarctic Peninsula, the "Penguin Post Office" on the British Goodier Island is a popular tourist destination with the size of a football field and full of penguins. It is understood that every year in the high season, a total of about 18,000 tourists will be welcomed here. Employees who come to work at the post office are jointly responsible for maintaining historic sites and providing catering services for the tens of thousands of tourists who come by boat. In addition, they are responsible for wildlife monitoring and environmental data collection "to ensure that the environment is properly cared for," including counting the number of penguins and penguin pups on the island. And, of course, there's the job of the "post office": to process the letters that are stamped with a special Antarctic postmark for all visitors to the island, and in 5 months, there are about 70,000 such mails that need to be processed and sent around the world.
"It was a once-in-a-lifetime trip for many people and it was a very special experience to be able to participate in it." Lucy Dorman, who was the 2019-2020 head of the Lokroy Harbor base, said. "You can watch the sun go down and hear the glaciers melt."
"It feels like you're on another planet." Lauren Elliott, from the UK, said she joined the Penguin Post Office in the winter of 2019. "You're standing somewhere on the island, and then the whale suddenly swims past you, or you see the first little penguin that hatches out. Every moment something is happening. If it's sunny, you can see the mountains and they look incredible. ”
But don't think it's a shiny job. On Goodil Island, even when it is hottest there from November to March, temperatures often drop as low as minus 5 degrees Celsius and feel colder in cold winds. Accommodation is also quite limited: 4 employees have to live in a single room with two bunk beds; there is no flush toilet, you have to go to the outside camping toilet to go to the toilet, and you have to clean the toilet every day; there is no running water to shower, you have to wait for the cruise ships that visit every few days to invite employees to take a shower, and sometimes employees may not be able to take a hot bath for two weeks.
Equally bad is the communication problem, since there is no internet and cell phone signal, employees can only communicate with the outside world through expensive satellite phones if needed, so there will be "very little communication with their families". In the event of an emergency, it can take up to 7 days to get to the hospital.
Therefore, "working in Antarctica is a great challenge for both body and mind," the job posting reads.
The troubled Penguin Post Office and the Antarctic Base
Despite the challenges, the Washington Post reports that the Penguin Post Office receives hundreds of registrations each year.
The first craze for applications from the Penguin Post Office came in 2015 — the year before, there were only 82 applicants. UKAHT said the increase in the number of applicants was due to the fact that BBC2 in the United Kingdom aired the documentary "Penguin Post Office" in July 2014. As of March 2015, Penguin Post received a total of 1,500 job applications, equivalent to 375 contenders per position.
However, by 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic had swept the world and the "Penguin Post Office" was in a sharp turn for the worse – the post office was forced to close that year due to the scarcity of tourists, which in turn caused a budget gap of around £1 million for UKAHT, which had been used to protect britain's heritage in Antarctica. "It's a catastrophic loss of revenue." UKAHT's chief executive, Camilla Nichol, has told The Times. In addition to Lokroy Harbor, UKAHT is also responsible for overseeing the conservation of five other Antarctic bases, most of which date back to the mid-20th century.
British explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes launched a fundraiser for the Penguin Post Office. He said that even if Lochloroy Harbor only lost the financial support of tourism in one quarter, it would lead to irreparable damage to those historic sites in the harsh Antarctic winter. "UKAHT has done a lot of work in protecting and maintaining historic sites that tell the story of human exploration in Antarctica and represent humanity's best effort." Fiennes said.
News and image sources: NPR, ABC, Daily Mail, Washington Post, some of the pictures are from the Internet
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