New Zealand sub-bases have been:

• Vanda Station (1969-1995)
• Cape Hallett (with the US)
• Butter Point
• Cape Royds
• Cape Bird

Current huts and refuges:

• Cape Royds Hut: (occupied periodically during summer): situated at Cape Royds, Ross Island.
• Cape Evans Huts (occupied periodically during summer): situated at Cape Evans on the West Coast of Ross Island at northern entrance to Erebus Bay.
• Lower Wright Refuge Hut: situated on the south side of the Wright Valley, approximately 1 mile west of the Wright Lower Glacier.
• Cape Roberts Huts: Situated on promontory on south east edge of Granite Harbour.
• Bratina Island Huts: Situated on Bratina Island near the northern tip of Brown Peninsula.
• Cape Bird Huts (occupied periodically during summer): Sited adjacent to Adelie penguin rookeries at the northern tip of McDonalds Beach.
• Lake Vanda Huts: Three relocatable huts opposite the former site of Vanda station, near the mouth of the Onyx River.
• Cape Hallett: sited in Adelie penguin rookery on Seabee Hook.
• Cape Adare: Ridley Beach.

Source

In 1970 a four man party over-wintered at Vanda Station.

Cape Hallett

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Aurora - a treat of the long polar night.

1971 New Zealand stamp - 10th anniversary of the Antarctic Treaty
This stamp never used at Scott Base PO?

FDC of same - with UNICEF stamp (thumbnail)

FDC on 1969 anniversary cover (thumbnail)

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1972

From 1972 a new set of pictorial stamps were used.  The first day of issue was 18 January, the 60th anniversary of Scott's arrival at the pole.

The titles are: Skua, Williams Field, Shackleton's Hut, Summer Support, Scott Base and Tabular ice floe. 

A184 on the 8c value is the Endeavour II.

Williams Field is the McMurdo airstrip. It was originally on the sea ice west of McMurdo Base and lasted several seasons but is now on the Ross Ice Shelf south of Scott Base.  The ice runway on the sea ice is still used today for early season flights before the ice gets too thin to use, usually in early December. It can be used by wheel equipped aircraft. Williams Field is snow covered and requires skis. Ski aircraft have much lower payloads than wheeled aircraft. The Pegasus strip, further distant on the ice shelf, is an ice strip and can be used by wheeled aircraft but not if melt holes appear in it as can happen ion the peak of summer.

There is a complicated historical sequence of airstrips at McMurdo. The ice shelf advances by about 100m a year and eventually breaks away, so there is no permanence in the shelf airstrips. At times there have been two ice shelf strips.

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1973

In 1973 a four man party over-wintered at Vanda Station.

The RNZAF did a winter mail drop for the first time on 1 August.

Letter from Germany to Scott Base (Thumbnail)

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Rough Almanac - Scott Base

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1975

 
Williams Field establishment.

US Expeditions in the Ross Sea Area

	Events and NZ Connections
Byrd Expedition 1928-30	First polar flight 1929. Little America I Base in Bay of Whales. Fokker Super Universal Virginia wreck - photographed 1950/60s. Destroyed by wind on ground Rockefeller Range, March 1929. Story
Byrd Expedition 1933-35	Ships staged via Wellington and Port Chalmers and wintered-over in NZ. Little America II. First inland base established.
Ellsworth Expedition 1933-34	1st attempt to fly across Antarctica. Abandoned in Bay of Whales when the aircraft was damaged. Wyatt Earp through Port Chalmers outward and over-winter.
Ellsworth Expedition 1934-35	Second attempt at flight from the Antarctic Peninsula.  It was due to end at Little America but never got started. Left from Port Chalmers to Little America.
Ellsworth Expedition 1935-36	Successful flight in Northrop Gamma Polar Star to (empty) Little America base. RSS Discovery II through Dunedin on recovery expedition.
US Antarctic Service 1939-41	Byrd in command. Western base in the Bay of Whales, Little America III. Departed Wellington.
High Jump 1946-47	Military operation, Byrd in nominal command. Little America IV on Ross Ice Shelf.  US Coast Guard icebreaker Northwind called at Port Chalmers in 1947 and while there a Sikorski HNS-1 from the ship made the first helicopter flight in New Zealand.
Windmill 1947-48
USS Atka reconnaissance 1954	Inspected Little America IV base at Bay of Whales.
Deep Freeze I	1955-56 Established McMurdo Base.
Deep Freeze II	1956-57 Polar and Byrd Bases established.  First polar landing, R4D Que Sera Sera, October 31 1956.Scott Base established.
Deep Freeze III	1957-58 British TAE expedition.
Deep Freeze IV	1958-59

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1976

Redevelopment of the base commenced.

Algal bloom in the Ross Sea, 2004. These are the food base of Antarctic wildlife.

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1977

Air New Zealand sightseeing flights commenced. They were to end tragically. These covers are from the first and second flights. They overflew rather than landed so have NZ cancels only.

Reverse - Scott Base, dog sled and two US cachets

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The C141 Starlifter was the mainstay of operations to the Ice Runway for many years. KC-10 Extenders were regular supporters of C-121 operations.

The C-17 Globemaster is the new beast of burden.

The C-5 Galaxy is an occasional visitor.

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1979

Thelma Rogers - Scientific Officer - was the first woman to over-winter at Scott Base.

My brother Craig Law with the meteorites (and a cherry pie). K16 was the number of their field party.

Ford Tri-Motor Floyd Bennett, First over the South Pole, 1929.

The Byrd expeditions staged through Wellington (first) and Dunedin (second) on their way to Little America, on the Ross Ice Shelf, but outside the Ross Dependency. The polar flight was made on Thanksgiving Day, November 1st, 1929. Byrd Expeditions

The Floyd Bennett is today in the Henry Ford Museum, Dearborn, Michigan. Photo

Byrd (as leader and navigator rather than pilot) was first to fly over the North Pole in 1926  He was also a rival to Lindbergh in 1927 for the Orteig Prize for a flight from New York to Paris but was beaten after his Fokker crashed on a test flight, finally completing the flight a month after Lindbergh, though to a ditching at the French Coast after finding Paris was under fog.

	US Issue for second Byrd expedition 1934 (Thumbnail). The production of these stamps and their postal use at Little America was of considerable concern to the New Zealand Government. The stamp's design did not acknowledge that the base was within the British claimed (New Zealand administered) Ross Dependency sector. The operation of a post office by a US postal official was a potential act of sovereignty. At the time no New Zealand official had ever been to the Ross Dependency to assert its supposed claim.
	Australian Antarctic Territory 50th anniversary issue, with Byrd and plane (Thumbnail).
	1934 Little America Base cover (Thumbnail).
	1988 US commemorative.

US Research airletter. My brother Craig was at Scott Base in the 78/79 season doing geological research with Waikato University as a student field worker. A meteorite his party found is in Te Papa in Wellington, in the Antarctic Wing of the Canterbury Museum (on display 2008) and another in the Smithsonian. This cover was from him.