Tonight is Christmas eve here at the South Pole, unique in that I’m going to sleep at 3 AM, and it is still early morning on the same day back home. It was a beautiful night, gathered with friends who have become family, great food, good wine, even better conversation, and a late-night dance shindig until the whee hours. Now that the satellite is up on station (solidifying our connection to the internet and the world), nearly every available phone is in use to call home to relatives back stateside. It’s what I’m off to do momentarily.

What catches me, though, as I walk to a phone, across the snowfield between Summer Camp and the new station, is the silence. There are no shifts working, no heavy equipment operating, no tools tearing at metal… There is only the gentle thrum of the generator that keeps us warm and the crunch of our footsteps in the snow.

Out there, in the near silence, if you listen carefully, you can hear the sound of the sky too.