the French base Dumont d’Urville

Sophie Faille is an emergency physician and was selected to be the doctor at the Dumont d’Urville scientific station in Antarctica. Franceinfo gave her a microphone to tell the story of this extraordinary experience. Arriving in December 2023, she will stay 15 months in this base cut off from the world, which she presents in this 2nd episode.

Today, Dr. Sophie Faille introduces us to the Dumont d’Urville base, this isolated French station in Antarctica, which she discovered after a six-day boat crossing from Tasmania. She has agreed to work there as a doctor for the next 15 months. The “day” lasts three hours, but the sunset at 2:20 p.m. is magnificent, with a gradient of turquoise and pink on the ice.

In the main building, the heart of the base, the meal is over and Sophie Faille takes us to the kitchens. There, the chef explains that fresh produce is delivered by boat five times during the summer, then one last time in March. Then, you have to do without fresh produce for 6 months, says this regular on missions in the French Southern and Antarctic Lands. A little more cabbage, there a cargo of oranges and apples. And then the enormous freezer containing 4 tons of meat, 2 tons of fish and 3 tons of vegetables. All this will last all winter. For water, it is a plant that filters sea water to make it drinkable. This plant also produces electricity and heating.

Around the central living area, Sophie, accompanied by Aubin, an electronic instrumentalist, tours the forty or so buildings that make up the Dumont d’Urville base. Among them, a large part is dedicated to science, with sometimes instructions to follow to enter. For example, before entering the building for the “absolute” measurement of the Earth’s magnetic field, everything metallic is removed.

The polar station was built in the 1950s. It is located on the Pétrels Island, an island that, in the summer, is surrounded by water. But when the ice floes reform in the winter, it is connected to the continent. On the Dumont d’Urville base this winter, summer for us in France, there are 24 inhabitants. In a few months with the return of the boat, the Astrolabe, the workforce will rise to around 80.

“My life in Antarctica”, an original franceinfo podcast by Solenne Le Hen, broadcast by Thomas Coudreuse, to be found on the franceinfo website, the Radio France application and several other platforms such as Apple podcasts, Podcast Addict, Spotify, or Deezer.