Astrophysicist brings virtual-reality Antarctica to Tairua School

Radio room in Sir Edmund Hillary's Antarctic hut with Ted Gawn and Peter Mulgrew. Photo / Antarctica NZ

From the school library one minute, to the inside of Sir Edmund Hillary's Antarctic hut the next, Tairua students were transported to another world last week.

The only thing missing was the smell of penguin guano.

Scott Base's oldest building, a hut built by a Hillary-led team, came to the school in virtual- reality form through the Antarctic Heritage Trust.

So far, the trust has restored and conserved Scott's huts at Cape Evans and Hut Point, Shackleton's hut at Cape Royds, and Hillary's hut at Scott Base.

It's led to discoveries that include 114-year-old whisky under Ernest Shackleton's hut, a notebook from surgeon and photographer George Murray Levick at Scott's Cape Evans hut, as well as lost Ross Sea Party photographs.

In 2017, conservators discovered a century-old fruitcake and a 118-year-old watercolour among artefacts from Antarctica's first buildings at Cape Adare.

Among those getting to experience the hut virtually was someone who's already been there - school parent Gus Anning, of Hikuai, who helped the trust conserve Hillary's hut in 2016.

He repainted its original colours, which were specially created by Dulux, a major sponsor of the roadshow.

Gus has worked on and off for Heritage Expeditions in New Zealand's sub-Antarctic islands for a decade, and spent many hours painting and varnishing the yachts he's sailed on around the globe.

He learned "conserving rather than restoring" whilst working on the 1950s colours of the hut, which he says were decidedly more exciting than the colour charts of today.

"The goal was retaining the same feel the building had in 1957, but to also "tip our hats" to the 60 years of its use.

"Little details like paint drips were kept intact to form part of the bigger historical picture for future generations".

Gus Anning shares his Antarctic experiences with Tairua School. Photo / Supplied

Antarctic Heritage Trust cares for this hut and four other historic expedition bases in Antarctica, but was left with a conundrum.

How, after all this work, would it showcase this significant heritage at the world's most remote location?

The trust got sponsorship from Ryman Healthcare and Dulux to take a virtual-reality experience of its work on the road, allowing Kiwi students and others to get inside the radio room and Sir Ed's former room in the hut in Antarctica.

Radio room in Sir Edmund Hillary's Antarctic hut with Ted Gawn and Peter Mulgrew. Photo / Antarctica NZ

Using a headset, headphones and hand-held controllers developed with Auckland University of Technology and Staples VR, users gaze outside windows to the icy Antarctic landscape, and can even spy what's on the menu in the kitchen.

"It kind of felt like I was there," said Anika Cameron.

"It does," said Sarah Bouckoms, who is touring schools with the show. "It's eerie. I've done the VR and stood in the hut and you're only missing the smell of penguin guano."

Sarah is an astrophysicist and science educator, with a Kiwi mum and American dad.

She was introduced to the South Pole by visiting the Antarctic Centre with her grandmother in Christchurch.

This led her to further study and research in Antarctica at the IceCube Neutrino Observatory.

In a short break between students' virtual tours, the 35-year-old said what she loved most about Antarctica is the people.

"The place is dedicated to peace and science. It's a continent not a country, nobody owns it. It doesn't matter your race, religion or colour - you are an Antarctican and I think being
half-Kiwi, half-American, that sense of belonging is something I've always wanted and in Antarctica I found it."

She said Antarctica attracts a different breed of person, drawn to taxing, difficult environments.

"Everybody works together. It's absolutely incredible how countries put their differences aside. 1959 is the Antarctic Treaty and it's been that way ever since."

Antarctica New Zealand maintains Scott Base with a crew of "jack of all trades" types, so Kiwis can go down and do scientific work, like studying how glaciers are changing and understanding what the climate was like hundreds of thousands of years ago. Scientists are also looking at microplastics, and how they are influencing animals.

Sarah Bouckoms with students Meika Denton and Anika Cameron experiencing virtual-reality Antarctica. Photo / NZME

But 70 per cent of people who go aren't scientists. And it isn't a place where you feel isolated.

"The first time I went I never saw a single penguin, I didn't see a whale, I was down there with people and it was very hard to find time alone," says Sarah.

They also study astrophysics, which is what Sarah does, with Antarctica providing a base to study what cannot be studied from anywhere else on Earth - one that is a lot cheaper than sending a satellite into space.

At the IceCube Neutrino Observatory: "We were looking at neutrinos, which are a totally different way of observing the universe. It's not a 'this is going to improve your cellphone reception' kind of science experiment, we don't really know where it will lead, it's probably going to give us more questions than answers to our questions. It's more that pure learning."

At this point Sarah reveals a note from student Zoe, who thanked her for visiting and wrote that she was inspired to keep learning about this topic.

"That's gold for me. Inspiring explorers is our mission statement, because Scott,
Shackleton and Hillary were great but we still need those skills in the 21st century more than ever - that Kiwi ingenuity, think outside the box, can-do attitude, and work with what you've got."