The Mary Arctica, successor of the Ivan Papanin, has arrived at Crown Bay on December 25th, 2009 after nine days at sea. The BELARE 2009-2010 team went down there to help the ship soft deck and start the offloading of 15 containers (more than 90 tons of material in total).The offloading happened without any problem or injury in less than 24 hours thanks to an extremely motivated team. Waste containers were then loaded on board before the ship got back on its way.

As the Lidia (from ALCI) lands at Utsteinen, it brings a new group of visitors to the Princess Elisabeth Station. Among the newcomers are Johan Berte, the new kitchen crew, and the members of different scientific teams (BELDIVA, DELAQUA, and HYDRANT).

This is the message T.R.H. Prince Philippe and his daughter Princess Elisabeth of Belgium addressed to Alain Hubert, the International Polar Foundation (IPF) and to everyone having participated in the Princess Elisabeth Station project. This message was filmed and pre-recorded in the IPF offices of Brussels and was broadcasted during the official inauguration of the station in Antarctica on February 15th, 2009.

There's no improvising the building of a "zero emission" station. Aside from having to determine the various ways of producing energy, you also have to find a way to store the energy and a way to coordinate the sources supplying the base. Ecological research is therefore, in addition to being a model for the future, a lesson in energy management and logistics.

Although the Princess Elisabeth Station is now finished and the last members of the expedition have just returned from Utsteinen, the story isn't over yet. The actual life of the station has just begun, showing an example of how to face the challenges of the future. Next season, the station will accomodate new scientific research teams.

Everyone at Utsteinen has just woken up, yet the village is already full of activity. First on the agenda is the station, where we find the ingredients to fix lunch and dinner. Meanwhile, Koen and Benoît are mounting the solar panels on the station.

Jean- Louis Tison is a Glaciologist, and the Co-director of the Glaciological Laboratory of the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences (Université Libre de Bruxelles). This season will be his fifteenth time in Antarctica. Joining the BELARE 2010-2011 expedition, he will be heading the BELISSIMA (BELgian Ice Sheet-Shelf Ice Measurements in Antarctica) to study the interaction between the ocean and the ice sheet.

Thanks to the joint efforts of all members of the 2009-2010 BELARE team, the construction of the fuel platform next to the Princess Elisabeth Station on Utsteinen Ridge was completed in just under four days.Despite strong winds, the team kept on digging, drilling and bolting to install some sixty meters of steel on the ridge, making sure there will be a safe storage platform for fuel barrels for the vehicles.

This video goes over the different steps of the construction of the Princess Elisabeth Station. The International Polar Foundation would like to thank MDW Productions for making this movie in a very short timeframe.