Getting Mail from the Antarctic

March 25, 2005 5:23 PM

Do you know where I must send mail to get it forwarded from the British Antarctic?

The other day on TV I caught part of a documentary which showed that the Royal Mail for the British Antarctic Territory seems to provide some kind of mail forwarding service whereby you can send them your mail and some $$$ and they will forward it to the addressee with a stamp and postmark for that territory.

I've looked around the net for specific details of how this works and where I need to address the post to + price but drawn a blank. Anyone know?

posted by missbossy to Grab Bag (3 answers total)

This seems to be the service you want:

The Falkland Islands Philatelic Bureau act as principle agent for the Government of the British Antarctic Territory who are administered from London. All philatelic service requests are handled through the Philatelic Bureau with all items being sent to the relevant base when required for cancelling. All official First Day Covers are cancelled in the Territory, returned to the Philatelic Bureau in Stanley and then distributed.

posted by reynaert at 6:06 PM on March 25, 2005

Alternately, you might be able to do this much more cheaply if you just find someone down there. I know that there are now blogs of people who are stationed in Antarctica [the ones I know are Americans, but there must be some British folks as well (I hope these are jokes)] and they have email. You can send mail to them [and a few $$] and, likely, have them send it right back out again. When I sent mail to my friend who was down there, I could use US postage because it went to some US location before being all bundled together and sent to Antarctica. I have some neat postcards with Antarctica postmarks.
posted by jessamyn at 6:15 PM on March 25, 2005

I live just about 300 yards from the Falkland Islands Philatelic Bureau and I'm happy to investigate. I don't know much about their services, but my email's in the profile if you'd like to drop me a line and let me know what you're after. I know they do stuff for South Georgia, which is *sort of* Antarctica.

A friend of mine is currently the post mistress at Port Lockroy, though she's due to come out any time soon for the end of the season (within a few weeks noone and nothing will be entering or leaving Antarctica, including post, until about September/October).

I think she stamps and posts stuff for cruise ship visitors, though it probably all comes through here (Stanley) anyway.

She works for the British Antarctic Survey so you might also find some information there. Drop me a line though and I'll see what I can find out.
posted by penguin pie at 7:28 AM on March 26, 2005