My Mystery Time — Mysteries and More by Bruce Wetterau

I walked around the world–without getting my feet wet

In this age of Social Media’s brash statements and wild imaginings, the above headline probably rates only a skeptical, “Yeah, sure.” But it happens to be true.

No, I didn’t spend years trudging over hill and dale, and I definitely can’t walk on water. But think about it. Where in the world can you walk around the world in just a minute or two?

That’s right, at the poles–if you can get there. I got there in 1969 as a Navy journalist escorting a group of dignitaries celebrating the Fortieth Anniversary of Admiral Richard E. Byrd’s historic, first-ever flight over the South Pole back in 1929. Byrd’s feat was a significant first in Antarctic exploration and quite a coup for Byrd and the US Navy.

Byrd and his crew got there–flying over it without ever landing–aboard his Ford Trimotor airplane dubbed the “Floyd Bennett.” We (myself, the dignitaries, and others) got there forty years later aboard a Navy turboprop LC-130 cargo plane equipped with skis, then the workhorse of Antarctic air travel.

We landed that November 29, 1969, on a snow runway at the South Pole Station, a lonely dot of civilization on the vast snow-swept. ice-covered Polar Plateau that wasn’t there when Byrd flew over the pole. I remember the awesome feeling of being surrounded by a rippled snow-white sea stretching as far as the eye could see. There was no perceptible horizon, the pale blue of the sky and the glaring white of the land disappeared in a zone of invisibility a few degrees above and below where the horizon should have been. And yes, it was cold as hell frozen over.

Pole Station, having been built on this ice-covered plain in 1956, was all but covered with ice and drifted snow by the time we got there. And it had moved–with the ice beneath it–some distance away from the actual geographic South Pole. No problem, after an official reception we all piled into a Sno-Cats for a short ride out to the actual location of the pole.

When the Sno-Cats finally jerked to a stop there was no missing the big, striped barber pole that had been set up for our benefit at the South Pole’s exact spot. The barber pole bore road signs pointing to the world’s major cities, complete with mileages. After marveling at the amusing sight of a barber pole at the bottom of the world, we all proceeded to march around it in a circle. Some official words commemorating Byrd’s flight were probably spoken out there, but I don’t remember that now. I did feel a bit silly about taking part in what was an obvious publicity stunt, and yet couldn’t help being taken by the enormity of just being there in that vast, desolate place at the bottom of the world.

I was a young man then and it was easy to take the experience of being at the South Pole for granted. So it wasn’t till years later that, remembering the publicity stunt, I conjured up my bon mot about having walked around the world–without getting my feet wet.