Review and basic Translation of N. Johnson's "Big Dead Place: Inside the
Strange and Menacing World of Antarctica" from German polar research journal "Polarforschung", issue #73.

If you have never worked at Antarctica, you have no comprehension of what
takes place if you're not a member of the scientific or managing group.
This void has now been closed by Mr. Johnson's book, who worked different
jobs for many years at the American station McMurdo and South Pole (the
official) Amundsen-Scott station now telling his experiences in dramatic
language.

Johnson's career began as a kitchen apprentice which carried over to being
responsible for the trash collection.  His view is that of the underdog
who fought the American bureaucracy (continues describing stories in
book).

The author describes his unbelievable stories with notes, emails and
official documentation which he retrieved from the waste baskets and
trash. He looks back at the historical American Antarctic expeditions
from/of Charles Wilkes, Admiral Byrd of Finn Ronne. He also talks about
the real circumstances and rescue of the Station doctor of the South Pole
Station in Oct. '99 who became sick with breast cancer.

58 color photos document the stories. . . (author continues describing
story in the book, joke/emails in 2001 about a lonely laborer titled "The
Ironworker and the Russian bride" and continues on describing high
asbestos levels at the station.)

Mr. Johnson's book is not an exaggeration, says Erik Sonneland, who wrote
the introduction/preface. He skied 3,800 km through Antarctica arriving at
the McMurdo station, met the official station representatives and was
himself disillusioned (or disappointed?)

The book must have surely irked the National Science Foundation as well as
other American publications. The reader will gain insight in an
entertaining dialogue (information) of a strange bureaucratic world of the
American Antarctic stations, where decision-making is done in distant
(strange) places at desks worlds apart from the official voices (she's
referring to the US government or the Foundation, etc.?) managing the
output. Do similar things at other international Antarctic stations occur?