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The first thing which had to be done after the team members had arrived at Utsteinen was the setting up of base camp. And the first tents to be mounted were the "mess" and "office" tents, the two most important rooms of the entire base camp. This is where team members cook, eat, socialise, plan the field work and carry out satellite telecommunications...

Upon their arrival at Utsteinen, the members of BELARE 2008-2009 found the entrance to the garage covered by huge piles of snow. The same was true for everything else left outside from last year's expedition. The snow in front of the garage entrance was piled up almost to the roof. The station, on the other hand, we found to be completely uncovered by snow, just as the wind tunnel tests on a model of the station had predicted.

The BELARE 2008-2009 expedition has now truly begun. The footage in this short movie was filmed upon arriving at Utsteinen. Alain Hubert opens the station's front door for the first time in eight months. In his speech, Alain reiterates the importance of the first "zero emission" research station in Antarctica for future generations.

A scaled mock-up of the Princess Elisabeth station's technical core was built at Laborelec (research centre of the group GDF SUEZ) in Linkebeek. For the past three and a half months, the technical systems allowing the station to reach "zero emission" were pre-assembled inside the mock-up for prior integration tests. Here is a short sequence on the assembly of the ventilation system inside the roof of the station.Copyright credits: Electrabel / GDF SUEZ.

The equipment load necessary to build the station was carried to the base camp, over almost 200 km, using three "Prinoth" tractors and eight sledges. In total, it took the team 18 traverses and over 700 hours to haul all of the containers back to the base camp.

This time, it's for good: night time has returned. When the sun dissapears,the moon comes out to follow the Prinoth convoy returning from the coast. Here is a short movie giving you an idea of what it all lookslike.

The main role of the Utsteinen cooks is to feed the troops and motivate them to work. It is important that the cooks are prepared and on time, but above all the cooks need to make sure that everyone uses the down time they spend in the canteen to rest up so they can return to work refreshed and recharged.

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