Toast on Ice: The Ethnopsychology of the Winter-over Experience in Antarctica

Ethnographic fieldwork conducted in 1992 at McMurdo Station in Antarctica, a US military base with 257 civilian & military personnel, is drawn on to describe the microculture that develops as a result of the "winter-over," 6 months of night during the winter. Psychologists have consistently identified a winter-over syndrome, characterized by depression, sleep difficulties, & cognitive impairment among crew members at the base. In their folk culture, station personnel describe this distress as "toast." Differences between the psychological explanation of the winter-over syndrome & the folk conception of the toast trope are identified, using data from debriefing interviews with 40% of the civilian personnel & 10% of the Navy crew. The toast concept did not include depression, but had social implications, so it was not a substitute for the winter-over syndrome; neither was it similar to the metaphor "burned out." The toast concept was richly figurative, rather than literal, & was learned & orally transmitted by those directly experiencing the winter-over. 1 Figure, 39 References. M. Pflum