Antarctica Toilet Paper from the Jano's at McMurdo Station
One thing leads to another
In January 2012, our toilet paper collection was featured on the the show Bizarre Collections for the Travel Channel. Several of our local newspapers picked up on the story. On the show and in the article we mentioned several locations we were lacking including the space station and the Antarctic. A few weeks later we got an email asking us if we were still looking for Antarctic toilet paper. Mary McClintock from a neighboring town had seen the article and thought, "I can do that!". Mary's friend Anne Dal Vera works at McMurdo station, though she had just left for the season. Of course we told her we'd love to get her friend to send us some toilet paper, and what seemed to happen at internet speed, Mary let us know that Anne and her janitor friends had come through.
In less time then it takes to unwrap a new roll of toilet paper, Mary had mentioned to the editor at the Greenfield Recorder what she'd been up to (Mary's a food writer there), then she got her own article about the collection.
Imagine you're on a remote outpost and the last mail of the season is about to go out. What would you wrap a precious roll of toilet paper in? The Janos (janitors) rewrapped the toilet paper roll in the original paper wrapper and made sure we'd check out the roll, wrote, "Open Me!" … then they put the rewrapped prize in a pink and white makeup case. THEN, they put the makeup case in an inside out plastic store shopping bag (that's recycling at it's finest) - labeled it AND for the Piece de resistance, they marked on the custom form (it had to go via New Zealand), "Returned Merchandise ... description of contents Toilet Paper"
Click here to see the whole roll with in all it's cleverly signed glory.
Used to have this as a slide show but it wasn't mobile friendly - anyone have a suggestion to remedy that?
McMurdo Station is a U.S. NSF research center on the southwest tip of Ross Island, a New Zealand territory. It is the largest community in Antarctica, capable of supporting 1,200 residents.
For a webcam of McMurdo and to see the current conditions follow this link: USAP Web Portal - the official site for the U.S. Antarctic Program. The site provides an abundance of information about the U.S. presence in Antarctica, including the mission of the program, science discoveries, recent news, and facts about the continent.