Were it not for its location, the Damoy Hut might appear to be no more than a glorified bunkhouse. Yet for a quarter of a century, this large shed served as the world’s most remote waiting room and the gateway to Antarctica.
More than a decade after it was saved from demolition, a team of conservation carpenters will head for the ice-clad continent to save the hut and restore it to its former bright orange glory.
The wooden building sits on the western edge of Wiencke Island, off the Antarctic Peninsula, and served as a waiting room for researchers who had flown south until the weather cleared up enough for them to head deeper into the continent.
“It's a box with two rooms, 15 bunk beds in there and a tiny little kitchen with one big stove, and that's about it. So people called it sometimes ‘the prison’, because they could have been stuck there for several weeks,” said Sven Habermann, one of the carpenters.
Flights to Damoy would use a glacier as a “ski-way”, landing uphill before turning around and using the downward slope of the glacier for take-off, hoping to take flight before smashing into the pebble beach.
“It was real Indiana Jones stuff,” said Mr Habermann
He will head to Antarctica alongside Martin Herrmann, a fellow conservation carpenter, on New Year’s Day, or the day after, for a six week project to save the hut.
“The season is quite short, but luckily we have 24 hours of light, so our working days will be very long and seven days a week. So the two of us will hopefully, weather allowing, be able to do a lot of work.”
The trip follows 18 months of painstaking preparation by the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust, including a special “paint cross-section analysis” to determine the authentic shade of orange needed to paint the hut.
For the two decades or so that it remained in use, the hut was a central feature in what Mr Habermann dubbed the “birthplace of British climate science”.
Researchers who pioneered climate science and discovered and documented the ozone hole would have passed through its unassuming doors.
The hut, which sits almost alone on Damoy Point, except for a small Argentinian refuge nearby, fell out of use once sturdier aircraft and better forecasting technology made direct flights to research bases possible.
It then fell into disrepair, exacerbated by Antarctica’s extraordinarily harsh climate. In 2007, proposals were made to demolish it but instead it was designated a historic site and monument under the Antarctic Treaty.
The Damoy Hut remains a time capsule to a previous era of Antarctic research, with the interior exactly as it was on its last day of use. Inside are plenty of shovels and pickaxes for digging out the hut at the start of each summer, while there is also thought to be equipment for dog-sledding as well as unopened tins of food.
To protect the hut from excess moisture, which could accelerate its deterioration, the two carpenters will not sleep in the hut but will instead camp out in tents alongside it.
The intention is for the hut to be preserved as a museum object itself. Tourists will be able to go on guided tours of the interior, although the same strict rules that apply to all visits to Antarctica will be in place.
Damoy Point is less than a mile away from Port Lockroy, another heritage site run by the Trust and the main gateway for Antarctic tourists. It’s home to the world’s remotest post office.
