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It was snowing sideways again. The wind chill was creeping towards the 50 below mark, and I pulled my fleece gator up over my nose, a meager defense against the 30-knot winds. As I walked home from work I could hardly see the road in front of me, due to the total darkness and blowing snow. All in all, it was fairly typical weather for an afternoon in June.

June marked my seventh month at McMurdo Station, a research facility nestled on the edge of the Ross Sea in Antarctica. It had been four months since the last northbound flight of the summer season took off, leaving 119 people in a town that feels not much larger than a parking lot. There was a champagne toast on a deck as the last plane flew overhead, circling and dipping its wings as a final salute. The beginning of the winter season was marked by the buzz of new faces, the excitement and apprehension of looking around at the other 118 “winterovers,” knowing that these would be the only people I’d have face-to-face contact with for the next six months.

For most people, Antarctica seems like a grand, if not daunting, adventure, and it is this image that certainly drew me there in the first place. For me, the idea of Antarctica was one of a wild and untouched place, remote and extreme, and my curiosity was driven by tales of Antarctic explorers like Shackleton and Amundsen.

But life at McMurdo, especially in the winter months, can be extremely mundane. Everyone worked 60 hours per week doing more or less the same thing, with very little variety. Life at the bottom of the world becomes remarkably simplified. Housing and three meals a day are provided. There are no bills to pay; even the laundry is free. There is nowhere to go, save Castle Rock, an outcropping that sits an hour and a half on foot from town, reachable by a flagged trail. Everything I needed was a short walk away, with nearly all of my friends living just down the hall.

Soon amidst the monotony, the little things became of utmost importance. Everyone had the small things they loved, things that could change their whole outlook. No one knew this better than the galley staff—what was served for lunch could make or break someone’s day, and you could bet the cooks would hear about it. The lack of peanut M&M’s in the station store would ruin the local lineman’s day. The day we ran out of Butterfinger pieces for the soft serve ice cream was a very dark day for my roommate. And for one friend, the baker’s signature pistachio mousse made any day the best she’d ever had.

After the sunlight left us completely in May, all that remained of the “freshies”—beloved, fresh produce flown in from New Zealand during the austral summer—were onions, potatoes and a couple of boxes of shriveled apples. Our only source of fresh food throughout the winter, primarily greens, was a small and aging hydroponic greenhouse tucked in amid the cargo yards.

On one particular blustery June afternoon, I walked down the hill from work and, like every other day, trudged down the road to building 155, home to the galley, barber shop, computer kiosk, ATMs and dozens of dorm rooms, including mine. Before exchanging my boots and overalls for sneakers and running shorts, I stopped by the galley. When I walked in, I was met with an overwhelming array of colors and smells of fresh produce! Bright orange carrots and purple cabbage, pungent cilantro and ginger, huge red and yellow peppers. It seemed the galley staff, the sly and wily crew they are, had stashed a few items aside, and the greenhouse had cranked up production for the upcoming midwinter dinner. At that moment, Johnny was slicing tomatoes. Real live, fresh, juicy tomatoes. Before I could say anything, he pressed one into my hand and sent me on my way. Due to the scarcity of such treats, I felt lucky to get a slice or two of tomato on the increasingly occasional salad nights, but here was a whole tomato! All to myself! The best part of this particular tomato was that it had never seen a refrigerator. Fresh off the vine, it still had the stem attached. I could smell the greenery, the scents of summertime and childhood vegetable gardens. In a place where there is nothing to smell, thanks to the total lack of vegetation and humidity (Antarctica is the driest place on earth), any smell that wasn’t my work boots at the end of the day, or diesel from the loader I drove was much welcomed. But a tomato! A homegrown tomato. Well, it was nearly too much. I walk back to my room, grinning, my precious tomato in hand, holding it up to my nose, inhaling its scent.

Certainly there were bigger events in the year I spent at McMurdo, but few brought me more pleasure and joy than biting into a ripe, homegrown tomato in the middle of winter in Antarctica.
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