Letters from the Loneliest Post Office in the World

[DGUtley]

Letters from the Loneliest Post Office in the World - A story of Antarctic adventure seekers, stamp collectors, politics, and penguins.


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Goudier Island is a windswept speck of dark rock located off the northwest coast of the Antarctic Peninsula. Two prefabricated wooden buildings and a metal Nissen hut, all painted black with red trim, stand near the waters of Port Lockroy. A Union Jack snaps on a flagpole and casts a shadow over dozens of squat gentoo penguins idling around the hut.

In addition to the penguins, Port Lockroy, as the tiny settlement on Goudier Island is known, is home to the world’s most southerly functioning post office. In pre-pandemic times, approximately 18,000 tourists visited the remote location annually. But for some, a short tour of the world’s most isolated mail drop isn’t enough. Each year hundreds compete for four jobs at the post office, for a chance to live on an island the size of a football field for five months at a time, without internet, cell service, or even running water.

The island has always had this mysterious draw; in the 1940s and ‘50s, small bands of British men formed the first generation of Port Lockroy postmasters. “Four things I recall when eventually I arrived at Base ‘A’ in Port Lockroy,” Allan Carroll said of his arrival in 1954. “The outstanding scenery, hideous piles of ashes and empty tin cans a few feet from the door, and the rather odd attitude shown by the people we had come to relieve.” “It wasn’t quite the welcome I’d anticipated,” he told an oral history interviewer. Several men who worked in Port Lockroy shared their experiences of life’s triumphs and tribulations while working on the edge of the world in oral history interviews conducted by the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust and the British Antarctic Survey Club. Almost to a man, they said their time in the Antarctic was the one of the best of their lives.

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https://www.atlasobscura.com/article...ca?position=10

[Collateral Damage]

As always, thank you for interesting bits and pieces to entertain the mind!

[carolina73]

Congrats. You have been promoted to postmaster in a nice quiet seaside community, with white beaches, steady year round temperatures, low work load...

[RMNIXON]

On Catalina Island off California the Mail is delivered by Helicopter unless the weather is bad. They also take passengers for a price although more expensive than the boat rides.

[donttread]

Letters from the Loneliest Post Office in the World - A story of Antarctic adventure seekers, stamp collectors, politics, and penguins.


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Goudier Island is a windswept speck of dark rock located off the northwest coast of the Antarctic Peninsula. Two prefabricated wooden buildings and a metal Nissen hut, all painted black with red trim, stand near the waters of Port Lockroy. A Union Jack snaps on a flagpole and casts a shadow over dozens of squat gentoo penguins idling around the hut.

In addition to the penguins, Port Lockroy, as the tiny settlement on Goudier Island is known, is home to the world’s most southerly functioning post office. In pre-pandemic times, approximately 18,000 tourists visited the remote location annually. But for some, a short tour of the world’s most isolated mail drop isn’t enough. Each year hundreds compete for four jobs at the post office, for a chance to live on an island the size of a football field for five months at a time, without internet, cell service, or even running water.

The island has always had this mysterious draw; in the 1940s and ‘50s, small bands of British men formed the first generation of Port Lockroy postmasters. “Four things I recall when eventually I arrived at Base ‘A’ in Port Lockroy,” Allan Carroll said of his arrival in 1954. “The outstanding scenery, hideous piles of ashes and empty tin cans a few feet from the door, and the rather odd attitude shown by the people we had come to relieve.” “It wasn’t quite the welcome I’d anticipated,” he told an oral history interviewer. Several men who worked in Port Lockroy shared their experiences of life’s triumphs and tribulations while working on the edge of the world in oral history interviews conducted by the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust and the British Antarctic Survey Club. Almost to a man, they said their time in the Antarctic was the one of the best of their lives.

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https://www.atlasobscura.com/article...ca?position=10

@DGUtley I don't know where you find this stuff but please keep posting it. Aside from being interesting it reminds me that there is good stuff going on out there.

[Abby08]

@DGUtley I don't know where you find this stuff but please keep posting it. Aside from being interesting it reminds me that there is good stuff going on out there.

Knowing good stuff is still out there, is needed right now.

I would love to walk outside and have Penguins right there, like that one picture.

Beautiful pictures, I could live there, for the 5 months.

[2cent]

@DGUtley, I don't often post here, but am fond of reading the unusual stories you find.

FWIW, the woman on the left in the pic of two folks in Port Lockroy coats, (the Post Office?), looks quite a bit like Mariette Hartley, dontcha's think?

[DGUtley]

@DGUtley, I don't often post here, but am fond of reading the unusual stories you find. FWIW, the woman on the left of two folks in Port Lockroy coats, (the Post Office?), looks quite a bit like Mariette Hartley, dontch's think?

Yes she does.