Q: Can you tell me about what it was like to be on the geological
expedition? Did you ever bathe? Could you bathe? Were you out for three
months? What was it like for a typical day?
NV: Doctor Gould had a great way for us to keep clean. Before we left he gave
us two suits of underwear. We naturally wore one. Put the other on the sled.
After we'd been out a couple of weeks I said to Doctor Gould one night, gee, I
feel a little crummy. I think I'll change my underwear. It was beautiful day,
night, and he said, no, you won't. You're an explorer. You can't change your
underwear every two weeks. And I said, yes sir, and I went out and took care
of my dogs. Didn't think anymore about it till another week went by and he
said the moon is out, the sun is out, the wind is down. It's only twenty
degrees above zero. A wonderful night. We'll all change our underwear. So
we went out each to our own sled and if you could imagine after hunting for the
underwear we got it out and all of us took our clothes off and put on this
fresh underwear. Can you imagine six people naked in the Antarctic standing
beside their sleds. Well if you can't imagine that let me tell you it was
true, because I saw it. And we were there and it was great that clean suit of
underwear made us feel just fine. We even made five extra miles on our
odometer the next night. I'd like to tell you it was just because of the
underwear but it wasn't. It was because the ice trail was icy that day and our
dogs slipped along. The loads pulled easier and we went five extra miles. And
so Gould kept us with that second new fresh underwear. Had us keep it on just
twice as long as we had the first on, and by then he said, we'll now put our
first back on, and by comparison it was clean, and that's the way we had clean
clothes the whole trip.
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