Norwegian Prime Minister Ceremony Round 1

Currently the Norwegian Prime Minister is here to mark the 100th anniversary of Roald Amundsen and his crew being the first humans to make it to the South Pole. A number of activities have been going on in relation to it, and there are currently about 100 people living outside of the station. The station's population is 233 right now, so it is a sizable group. There will be a gala function in the gym in the station tonight that I was not invited to, but there is a ceremony at 4am tomorrow morning to mark the time that Amundsen arrived. I will probably go to it, and thanks to the current schedule for satellite passes, I should be able to upload some photos from it tomorrow morning.

Here you can see a brave soul playing the Norwegian national anthem when it's -28F out with windchill bringing it down to -44F. I didn't hear grumbling from the Norwegians so it was probably a fair rendition.















Here you can see the Prime Minister giving a speech. His English was quite good, as it seems to be with a number of Europeans. I heard that it was being broadcast live in Norway, but the rumor mill here is quite productive. It was filmed though.















He also unveiled a bust of Roald Amundsen made out of ice.














Here is a close up of it. I will go back out for more photos at another time as everybody else was trying to get shots of it afterwards. There is also a second bust in case this one means an untimely end.















Here you can see a Norwegian explorer who followed in Amundsen's footsteps and had arrived hours earlier. I had heard yesterday that they were still a few days out, and that originally the Prime Minister was to travel out a ways and meet them so he could ski in with them. Again I don't know how much of any of that is true but the speaker did acknowledge that there were still others out there. He also noted that they traveled at almost half the pace of Amundsen with Amundsen being at a technological disadvantage, traveling into uncharted territory, going both ways unsupported, and diligently taking regular measurements to establish latitude and longitude. However, Amundsen did use dog teams to get him here and ate the dogs along the way.















Here is the Prime Minister giving the Norwegian flag to the Station Manager.















Here you can see the crowd gathered around the ceremonial South Pole marker as well as the temporary visitor's center that has been set up for them. I'll have to remember to get a photo of their camp tomorrow before they break it down.















Lastly, a shot of the actual South Pole, well now it's about 30 feet away, but you may notice that a new sign was installed.