Yukon’s Pelly Construction Builds for the British Antarctic Survey
Thirty-four years ago Pelly Construction built a runway and airstrip for the British Antarctic Survey at Rothera Research Station in Antarctica
Antarctica Runway
Yukon’s Pelly Construction Builds for the British Antarctic Survey
By Keith Byram and Patricia Cunning
McBride Museum
Color photography by Keith Bryam and Jennifer Bryam
Additional photography by Leanne Brassard
Editing: Ali Nordahl, Karen Bryam, and Lori Bryam Austin and Jennifer Bryam
Design and typeset by Nhesa Patoy, Arctic Star Printing
330 pages
Book dimensions: 30 cm by 30 cm (12 in. by 12 in.)
Weight: approx. 4.5 kg (9 lbs.)
$75.00
Thirty-four years ago Pelly Construction built a runway and airstrip for the British Antarctic Survey at Rothera Research Station in Antarctica. It was quite a feat for the relatively young company whose first large project had been the creation of the Dawson Flood Dike in 1987.
The BBC reported in 2024 that work had begun to upgrade and resurface the runway, but between November 1990 and April 1991, the entire Bryam family was involved with the creation of the original runway.
The station as it currently exists is described on its website: bas.ac.uk/polar-operations/sites-and-facilities/facility/rothera/
“Rothera Research Station, the largest British Antarctic facility, is a centre for biological research and a hub for supporting deep-field and air operations. Situated on Adelaide Island to the west of the Antarctic Peninsula the site includes the Bonner research laboratory, offices and workshops and a crushed rock runway, hangar and wharf.
“Rothera supports a wide range of BAS, UK university and international collaborative science programmes including the Dirck Gerritsz laboratory that is operated by the Netherlands polar research programme.
“Built on a rock promontory at the southern tip of the Wormald Ice Piedmont, Rothera Research Station is situated on Adelaide Island to the west of the Antarctic Peninsula.
“Adelaide Island is 1,860 km south of the Falkland Islands and 1,630 km south-east of Punta Arenas, Chile. The island, which is 140 km long, is mountainous and heavily glaciated. Its highest peak is 2,565 metres.”
The website offers a drone video tour of the entire station, including the runway, as it existed in 2024.
This book covers the history of Keith Bryam’s career, from his early work building runways for the Canadian Air Force, through his work on various projects in Gander, Newfoundland; Chatham, New Brunswick; Gimli and Winnipeg in Manitoba; Comox, British Columbia; Moose Jaw, and Yorkton in Saskatchewan.
The move to Whitehorse in the late 1960s eventually caused him to hook up with General Enterprises, which later led to the formation of Pelly Construction, and its first big project, that dike in Dawson.
It was a year later, in 1988, that Keith first heard about the possibility of the job in Antarctica through an ad in the Journal of Commerce. He was immediately obsessed with the idea. His daughter, Jennifer, recalls “He kept the ad in his pocket. During Christmas celebrations he sat alone in his chair and read the ad over and over again.”
That was the fall of 1988. By September of 1989 he had developed a work plan and a proposal and had succeeded in persuading the British that his company was the one to do the job. In those days before advanced PowerPoint presentations, Jennifer recalls that his pitch to the Brits involved a lot of drawings and photographs fastened to large sheets of cardboard.
This book is heavy reading, and I’m talking about more than just the sheer weight and size, which I’ve made a point of listing for you. To read it you’re either sitting at a table or sitting in a comfortable chair with the volume in your lap.
There’s a lot of information in this book, and a ton of pictures at every stage in the six big chapters. A lot of it is numbers, charts, but the many photographs, and the reproductions of Keith’s, Karen’s, and Jennifer’s numerous journal entries, along with some extended narrative essays, make it easy to follow in spite of the sheer weight of the technical and logistical data.
Fortunately, for the book, the Bryams are all compulsive journal keepers, according to Jennifer. Keith says they tried to photograph the actual journal entries, but it was too messy, so they had to be typeset using different fonts for clarity.
Among the issues that had to be tackled included moving the equipment, supplies and workers from northern Canada to Chile and then on to the site. Three large ships were needed for this chore, as well as aircraft.
It was necessary to maintain a stock of supplies and replacement parts for used and damaged equipment. The book notes that the three new pickup trucks needed on site were “completely trashed” after two summer seasons of work.
Construction of the original wharf, which Keith Bryam says has since been enlarged, required a lot of underwater work, which was very difficult in the Antarctic waters.
The book’s chapters capture the main points quite well: Why Build a Runway in Antarctica?; Who was the Runway for?; Who Built the Runway?; How did Pelly win the Project?; How did Pelly build the Runway?; What was the impact of the runway?
There was a lot of background and prep work for this project and the actual story of the construction doesn’t begin until page 119 for the first season, and page 185 for the second.
The final section of the book is called Stories from the Crew, beginning on page 275. These vary in length from several pages to just a few paragraphs. They serve to underline what Keith says was the life-changing impact of this project. It looms large in everyone’s memories three decades later, but everyone also knows what a mammoth task it was, and when Pelly was approached a few years ago about working on the upgrades that are currently in progress, there was no hesitation in saying that once was enough.
The book is available for purchase at the McBride museum, which reports that there are some copies that remain, and Jennifer Bryam says it seems likely there may be another printing.
