UK Antarctic Heritage Trust fills vacancy at world’s most southerly post office, as well as recruiting team to monitor wildlife and carry out buildi

‘Coolest job on Earth’: Antarctica welcomes new postmaster

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2024-10-14 01:30:14

UK Antarctic Heritage Trust fills vacancy at world’s most southerly post office, as well as recruiting team to monitor wildlife and carry out building repairs

As a professional “tent master”, whose work involves building big tops at music festivals, George Clarke has never run a post office – and certainly never counted penguins for a living.

But these and other idiosyncratic tasks will become part of his daily routine when he joins a small team of new recruits to “the coolest jobs on Earth”, staffing the world’s most southerly museum and post office in Antarctica.

The team of five have been recruited by the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust, a conservation charity that cares for historic British bases on the continent. Next month they will travel to a former research station on the football-pitch-sized Goudier Island, off the Antarctic peninsula below South America.

There, for five months of freezing temperatures and near-constant daylight, they will live alongside the resident gentoo penguins while carrying out conservation repairs, monitoring wildlife and greeting cruise ship visitors.