One Last Ride for Antarctica's 'Ivan the Terra Bus'

Everyone in Antarctica knows Ivan. Even those that haven’t had the pleasure of riding inside of him—in comfortable seats, surrounded by wood paneling and the pleasant sounds of jazz warbling from his internal speakers as he rumbles slowly along the ice—have heard of him and probably walked right past him, sitting pretty near McMurdo Station’s cafeteria in his iconic orange-and-white livery. Recently, rumors grew that Ivan’s time on the ice was coming to an end, and it was time for the old bus to be retired. This caused an outcry among his longtime fans, who feared that he would end up unceremoniously scrapped for parts—a potentially sad end for such an iconic vehicle. Ivan the Terra Bus arrived in McMurdo Sound in 1994, a shiny new supplement to the existing Delta passenger transport vehicles that had been brought over in the 1970s by the U.S. Navy. This fleet was responsible for bringing people from the runways out on the ice, where passenger planes would land after taking off from ... Read full article.