Doing a Winter Over Is Not Easy

Each year dozens of people, mostly researchers and operations staff, do these winter over is willingly. You're stuck in this vast, unforgiving landscape with only a small group of other people. If something happens, you get sick, it's pretty much impossible to get help on another continent. In 1998, a doctor named Darry Nielsen diagnosed herself with breast cancer while she was doing a winter over  and had to treat herself until she could catch a flight in early spring.