Antarctic Partners: 50 Years of New Zealand and United States Cooperation in Antarctica, 1957-2007

'A partnership well worth celebrating' is how Sir Edmund Hillary sums up the way New Zealand and the United States have worked together in Antarctica over the 50 years since their stations were established on Ross Island in the Ross Sea Region south of New Zealand. Sir Edmund, the leading New Zealand figure at the outset of the partnership in the 1956-57 summer, describes the partnership as unique among the 28 nations active today in the world s coldest, windiest, highest, driest, loneliest and last-discovered continent. This book is a richly illustrated and at times dramatic account of the dynamics of New Zealand-United States cooperation in Antarctica the way people get to and from Antarctica by air and sea, the day-to-day reality of living and conducting science in a frozen desert, diplomatic links through the Antarctic Treaty System, the need for search-and-rescue capability, and the extraordinary collaboration between Antarctic scientists from the two nations. The history of the partnership is trace from that first summer when United States Rear Admiral George Dufek and Sir Edmund cemented a productive friendship to the present day. New Zealand's Scott Base, a compact cluster of buildings, was erected just three kilometres/two miles from McMurdo Station, America's main base in Antarctica and the continent's only town. They are genial and accommodating neighbours in the least hospitable place on Earth.