A “Church in Antarctica” as well as any other signs or place of worship in any corners of the Icy Continent are the most sincere examples of faith and genuine places of worship; they deserve to be known.
is officially considered the largest desert in the world, but even in this icy barren landscape, the explorers and scientists braving the harshest of climates, have still found time for religion. What the Polish researchers and technicians have done at Arctowski is really a touch of devotion !
The attached pictures are taken in Arctowski Station (WAP POL-Ø1) by the personnel who are working there. They show in a kind of niche, carved into the rock, a small statue of the holy Madonna, 
facing the Station buildings. A second bigger one, is sets little lower. Both statues are located in the great rock on which the lighthouse stands out (62°09′28″South 58°27′56″West), and people at Arctowski, call this corner “Chapel”.
About the second (bigger) statue, there is a story associated to it: Around 1980, the staff employed at the station, wanted a sign of religiosity to stop by for a moment of recollection. At that time in Poland, we had a communist regime and the government banned the creation of a space for worship. 
No way to put a statue on cargo ship that brought the supplies to Arctowski. The workers hid the statue of the Virgin in a deep cargo box and smuggled it out of Polish border. Now both signs of devotion are proudly on the site that Polish staff did choose for them.
Well, we are grateful to Sebastien Gleich SQ1SGB and Margaredth Witczak who did help WAP in searching of worship sites in Antarctica.
In the area, there is also the grave of Polish wildlife photographer Wlodzimierz Puchalski, surmounted by an iron cross, stands on a hill to the south of the station. Puchalski died on 19 January 1979 in the course of filming a nature documentary in the vicinity of the station. The location of the grave and cross has been designated a Historic site or Monument (HSM 51), following a proposal by Poland to the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting
Norbert Maibaum (DL SWL), from Bonn, Germany is a very active Antarctic Chaser.
Republica del Ecuador it’s an Antarctic Refuge located at Hennequin Point, 62°07’16” South, 58°23’42” West inside the Admiralty Bay on King George Island (or 25 de Mayo Island). It was installed by the first Antarctic expedition of Ecuador and inaugurated on January 13, 1988 with the assistance of delegations from Germany, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, United States, Poland, Russia and Uruguay, which have Bases, scientific stations and shelters in the island. Its first occupants were Ecuadorian scientists who performed hydrographic and geological works. Republica del Ecuador Refuge consists of a six-meter container that has basic medical supplies, non-perishable food and two bunk beds with a capacity for four people. It is for researchers and tourists who want to rest or study the area.
stop on Republica del Ecuador Refuge on Febr.22, 2009 just before landing on Macchu Pichu Base (WAP PER-Ø1).
INOCAR (Oceanographic Institute of the Navy), performed the integral maintenance of the Refuge including graffiti, repair of walls, ceiling and floor.(pic on the right)
“Sun or not, the view is magical”.
Mizuho Station 70°41’58’’South, 44°16’52’’East was established as a summer Base in July, 1970 on the Mizuho Plateau, 2230 mts above sea level, 270 km south-east of Syowa Station (WAP JPN-Ø3). Mizuho Station (WAP JPN-Ø2) in one of the fourth Japanese scientific installations in Antarctica.
occupied for meteorological and glaciological observations.
Larsen cairn, 64°14’13” South and 56° 35′ 7″ West, is located 2 kilometers from the facilities of Marambio Base (WAP ARG-21)direction E-N-E (76˚) and 230 meters to the S-E-S of the Chavez lighthouse, 40 meters above sea level and 70 meters from the coast.
For this reason, the footprints of the first Antarctic pioneers have an extraordinary heritage value for all mankind. The historical sites of the sixth continent are so scarce, that, in all its extension, including the surrounding islands, we find less than one hundred of them, however, a new site has been added to that select list thanks to the work promoted by the Argentine Antarctic Program, promoted by the National Antarctic Directorate (DNA), through the Argentine Antarctic Institute (IAA).
The “Capilla Cristo Caminante”, is located up in the hill behind San Martin Station (WAP ARG-Ø8). The pics aside show the closest shots of the Chapel of which, so far we do not have better visualizing.
Mr. Fabricio Tavares from Brazil, is the responsible of a Twitter account which loads so many useful Antarctic information; he wrote: – Congratulations for the important job WAP website accomplishes! Feel free to use any info WAP may wants from my Twitter account-.
Amateur Radio Circle of the Army Telecommunications School, set a test in the field, to evaluate response capabilities in case of Emergency. They did install stations Emergency communications and test transmissions in HF, VHF, UHF with its repeaters and Digital voice systems in DMR, managing to communicate with more than a hundred stations.
d; nevertheless the emergency practice can be exported in Antarctica as well where the situation is sometimes worse than in the Continent!
A cooperation agreement between the Portuguese Polar Program (PROPOLAR) and the Bulgarian Antarctic Institute has been signed at the University of Lisbon. The occasion was the tenth anniversary of the start of Bulgarian-Portuguese studies in Antarctica and the establishment of Portugal’s National Polar Program.
WAP is looking for some pics of Refugio Cabo Gutierrez Vargas (WAP CHL-NEW) which is located 1Km close to the Presidente Aguirre Cerda Base (WAP CHL-Ø4). On several websites it is reported that ruins of the Refuge are still in place. On last 2011, Mehdi F5PFP was very close to it, when he did activate Presidente Aguirre Cerda Base (CE9XX, see QSL on the side); Mehdi reports to have seen the remaining of this Refuge but he did not take direct picture of it!
Refugio Cabo Gutierrez Vargas so called in memory of the aviation Captain who died on December 30, 1955, was located at 1 kilometer (0.62 mi) from Aguirre Cerda Station and was inaugurated on February 12, 1956. Its purpose was to serve as a Refuge for the members of the Station in case of fire.
Mobile networks have been assisting scientists with Antarctic research.
In 1955 Chile inaugurated its station Pedro Aguirre Cerda at Pendulum Cove (62°56 South, 60°36 West), to increase the Chilean presence in the sector claimed by that nation.
In 1969, a violent volcanic eruption demolished the Chilean stations Pedro Aguirre Cerda and Gutierrez Vargas Refuge. Remains at Whalers Bay include rusting boilers and tanks, an aircraft hangar and the British scientific station house (Biscoe House), with the middle torn out by the 1969 mudflows. A bright orange derelict airplane fuselage was removed in 2004. Deception Island has become a popular tourist stop in Antarctica because of its several colonies of chinstrap penguins, as well as the novel possibility of making a warm bath by digging into the sands of the beach.
In 1819, the Sailing Vessel San Telmo, commanded by Captain Joaquín de Toledo y Parra, was the flagship of a Spanish naval squadron under Brigadier Rosendo Porlier y Asteguieta bound for Callao (Peru) to reinforce colonial forces there fighting the independence movements in Spanish America. Damaged by severe weather in the Drake Passage, south of Cape Horn, it sank in September 1819.
an Telmo Island off the north coast of Livingston Island is named after the ship.
On WAP website, we have recently add a new page called “Arctic & Antarctic Global Program”, a French proposal for Hams, launched years ago by F
, Port Mikkelsen bay, Trinity Island, one of the Palmer archipelago. It was inaugurated by the Argentine Navy on December 10th , 1954. Its original name was Port Mikkelsen Refuge.
Volker Strecke, DL8JDX (pic taside) informs that next 14th November 2019 in Dresden, Germany there will be an Antarctic Meeting of many Polar Veterans on the occasion of 30th Anniversary of the border opening between former East and West Germany and the later reunification as well as the related impressions from that time at Georg Forster (WAP DDR-Ø1)and Neumayer II (WAP DEU-Ø2) Stations.
Scott Base (WAP NZL-Ø1) is getting old. Antarctica NZ wants a complete replacement; to dom that plan, Antarctica New Zealand must raise $50 million in charitable donations as part of its $250m Scott Base rebuild.
Mehdi Escoffier F5PFP has just published the 2019 Antarctic and Arctic Challenge ranking and the Polar Trophy score, a kind of an adventure shared by Old Timers all over the world.
Never too late … Let’s once again join the guys in Antarctica in the celebration of Mid Winter!
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June 21, in the northern hemisphere the sun will rise at 5.36 and set at 8.51, remaining in the sky for 15 hours and 15 minutes, while between the Arctic Circle and the North Pole it will not fade at all. The Northern hemisphere will live the longest day of the year.
Professional news media invited to apply to visit jointly funded US and UK research on Antarctic Thwaites Glacier.The National Science Foundation (NSF) and the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration (ITGC) are accepting written proposals from media professionals to visit a “deep-field” camp on the remote Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica in December.
Media will be free to interview Thwaites research teams as they deploy through that camp. A visit to an additional Thwaites Glacier field camp will be highly dependent on weather and logistical variables, and, while possible, cannot be guaranteed.
Located at 74°20’South, 165°08’ East, Edmonson Point is a rounded, largely ice-free point lying below Mount Melbourne along the west side of Wood bay, Victoria land.
uins and south polar skuas. The site contains a diverse range of freshwater habitats ,terrestrial vegetation and invertebrates are abundant. Weddell seals breed on the adjacent sea ice.
An old collection of Magazines (
Argentina reaffirms sovereignty over the Argentine Antarctic Sector extending between the 25th and 74th meridians of west longitude, south of the 60th parallel of south latitude.
Ross Island turned green in the weekend! This epic shot of an Aurora Australis captured by the winter Leader Jonny Harrison.
http://www.antarcticanz.govt.nz/scott-base/
Now the news is official: Icebreaker “Laura Bassi”, former “Ernest Shackleton” of the British Antarctic Survey, is the new OGS ship that will work for PNRA to replace the glorious Italica!
The Our Lady of the Snows shrine is one of the many memorials atop hills along McMurdo Sound to men who lost their lives in Antarctica; this one is farther up the trail from Hut Point. The Shrine is dedicated to Richard T. Williams, US Navy – Seabees, who lost his life at McMurdo Sound on January 6, 1956 during initial construction of McMurdo Station.
Stamps issued by the Argentine Post Office whose vignettes have designs related with the thematic of the Argentine Antarctic and the Malvinas Islands are always a source of great interest, whether it is a commemoration of special events, expeditions, scientific activities, Antarctic bases, Argentine ships that sail in the Antarctic waters.
Last Antarctic Activity Week (Febr.2019) has seen a great participation of Hams from several countries WW. Since 16 years, François F8DVD, one of the most active Antarctic enthusiasts, takes part in the event with a special callsign as usual.
Europe’s dedicated polar-monitoring satellite has produced its sharpest view yet of the shape of Antarctica.
all. “So, the benefit in the Antarctic Peninsula for example promises to be massive,” says Dr Noel Gourmelen from Edinburgh University and the UK Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling (CPOM).
A new postal emission for the fiftieth anniversary of Marambio Base foundation 
Bob Hawke maintained that Antarctica was too important to the whole global ecosystem and that mining would always be catastrophically dangerous in that environment …
Doctor Guillermo Mann Base (formerly Camp Shirreff) is the second of the three research Bases that INACH (
Doctor Guillermo Mann Base (WAP CHL-Ø8) has allowed to generate knowledge in terrestrial and marine biology, and disciplines such as geology and glaciology.
Over the weekend, brilliant auroras lit up the skies above Macquarie Island, (
Shirreff Base (official name Cape Shirreff Field Station),is located at 62°28’12” South, 60°46’16” West, on the East side of Cape Shirreff on Joannes Paulus II Peninsula on Livingston Island of the South Shetlands. It’s a seasonal field station operated by the United States, opened in 1996 .
studies at Cape Shirreff field Station.
Base Antarctica Belgrano I was located on Piedrabuena Bay on the Filchner Ice Shelf at 77°46’ South, 38°11’ West. At the time of its inauguration in 1954 it became Argentina’s southernmost permanent base. It was shut down in 1980 over safety concerns due to it being built on increasingly unstable ice, which endangered both personnel and equipment.
On 
the sea. The unloading of the materials, equipment, tools, instruments and consumables was conducted from ARA General San Martín. The team built a main house, four quonset huts, food stores and hangar. They left on the new base enough fuel for three years.
As the white continent warms, shrinking sea ice is changing life for
scientific research in Antarctica. The Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) as the national co-ordinator, enables Germany to fulfill this role by its research, long term monitoring and survey activities. It provides the main mobile and stationary infrastructure for Antarctic research, and thus maintains the permanent German presence in Antarctica. The new institute was named after one of the really prominent German polar researchers, who developed the first in-depth ideas about continental drift.
tion. A location on the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf at 77°36’South and 50° 40’West was selected as a first choice.
Planned under the supervision of Hartwig Gernandt, Neumayer III Station (70°40’S and 08°16’W) 
Gene Spinelli K5GS (pic aside: Left-Gene K5GS, Right-Steve W1SRD) did respond to the question we put him about next planned South Orkney Expedition. We recall him that: –The 3 locations: Cummings Hut, Foca Hut and Gourlay Huts (
General Artigas Station (WAP URY-Ø1) is the larger of the two Uruguayan scientific Research Stations in Antarctica, the other one, is Elichiribehety Base (WAP URY-NEW)
awarded in September of that year with this title by Pope Francis, begins by referring to request that came from people linked to the Artigas Base of Uruguayan Antarctica.
Windless Bight (77°42’00”South, 167°39’48” West) is the prominent bight indenting the South side of Ross Island Eastward of Hut Point Peninsula.
The camp consists of two Polarhavens and six individual mountain tents. The team remains at the field site but will intermittently return one or two team members to McMurdo Station for supplies and overnight stays. The USAP also provides year-round on-site support from a support contractor research associate (RA), who occasionally visits the site during winter months for maintenance and troubleshooting.
Antarctica, the coldest continent on earth, has served as a scientific research zone since the signing of a 1959 treaty. Recently, Turkey and Belarus signed an agreement that covers scientific cooperation on environmental conservation and study of Antarctic geology; the cooperation on Polar research, happens months after Turkey completed its third National Antarctic Science Expedition.