ANTARCTICA ~ British Territory - Port Lockroy ~

... Great postcard coming from the most Southerly post office of the world the 🐧"Penguin Post Office"🐧... Antarctica’s most-visited tourist spot.... each year, seasonal staff send roughly 70,000 postcards to more than 100 countries, and the revenue helps fund the UKAHT...  Port Lockroy is a sheltered harbour at the meeting point of three seaways which offer some of the most dramatic mountain and glacier scenery on the west side of the Antarctic Peninsula.... for cruise-ship passengers and adventurers, exploring Port Lockroy is an unforgettable experience.... with penguins, ice caps, snowy mountain ranges, and a cool museum, the town’s full of surprises... I love the special penguin postmark... Thanks a lot Rena!!【ツ】

Photographs courtesy BAS archives and SPRI "The United Kingdom Antarctic Heritage Trust aims works to conserve Antarctica's buildings and artefacts, and to promote and encourage public interest in Antarctic Heritage. The Trust is custodian of historic site no. 6, Port Lockroy 64° 49' S, 63° 29' W."
Port Lockroy is part of the Palmer Archipelago and situated on the northwestern shore of Wiencke Island, one of the islands of the archipelago. It was named after Étienne-Auguste-Édouard Lockroy, a politician who funded the expedition that led to the site's discovery in 1904.

It is a former British military base and the first permanent base in Antarctica established during World War II. After the war, it was used as a research station until the mid-1960s. In 1996, Port Lockroy was renovated and turned into a museum and post office.The staff looks after the post office and museum from November to March and receive about 18,000 visitors a year.

There is an ongoing study of the gentoo penguin population. There were no gentoo penguins in the area when the base was founded. The existing colony is believed to have popped up around 1985, establishing a bigger colony on Port Lockroy. The UKAHT has monitored the population’s breeding habits since 1996, including the effects of tourism; as part of the study, half of the island is off-limits to visitors.

Stamp:

Birds - Life Cycle of the Gentoo Penguin
(Issued 13-11-2013)