are spread out as a precaution against fire.
The campus is extensive enough to provide
the infrastructure required to produce world-
class science in a hazardous—and beautiful—
environment. The soldiers clear runways, fuel
airplanes, clean barracks, secure food shipped
on cargo planes and retrieve water from a glacial
lake nearby, and repair equipment. In winter the
six of them—eight if you count the dogs—are
alone for months, with a satellite connection
that allows for basic email and text messages.
Everyone gets a monthly call allowance. It’s
more work to shut the station completely during
winter than to keep a skeleton crew to look
after things.
From spring through fall, they host a rotating,
Jesper Juul Hansen,
station leader at the
time, says hello to Trille,
one of the station’s two
Greenland dogs, out-
side the kitchen build-
ing, while researcher
Tobias Donth looks on.
The dogs are critical
to soldiers’ emotional
well-being. “They give
something,” Hansen
says. “They are so
happy, always.”
international community of up to 60 people—
teams of scientists, support workers, pilots, engi-
neers, and military personnel.
The community has a culture of its own. If you
are late for a communal meal, you are expected,
at some point, to bake a cake for everyone. Every
Saturday night is feast night, with a three-course
meal. Everyone must wear a necktie or a skirt,
and if you didn’t bring one, as most first timers
don’t, you may use the station facilities to make
one out of anything you can find, including
wood, electrical wire, books, or tea bag wrappers;
real examples are exhibited on the kitchen wall.
On Saturdays, soldier Mads Adamsen says,
you feel like you’re “coming home to your family
from another place.”110 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC