Polar philatelists and penguin lovers, unite! The southernmost operational post office in the world needs our help. The Port Lockroy Post Office is in dire need of repairs, and you can help – while celebrating the base’s 80th anniversary and adding to your collection at the same time.

The Port Lockroy Post Office, affectionately known as the Penguin Post Office, is an integral part of the Port Lockroy historical site on Goudier Island. Opened in 1944 as part of Britain’s Operation Tabarin, Port Lockroy is now recognized as the birthplace of the British Antarctic Survey. The site has served as an outpost for a variety of scientific endeavors over the decades, including its current role monitoring the effect of tourism on the island’s gentoo penguin colony.

Port Lockroy has been registered as a historic site and museum since November 1996, and has been managed as part of the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust since 2006, to great success. Each season, Port Lockroy welcomes an estimated 18,000 visitors who come to visit the penguins, tour the base, and even send a few postcards home – in fact, the Penguin Post Office processes about 70,000 postcards and letters per season.

The Port Lockroy Post Office offers Antarctic tourists, scientists, and explorers the chance to send a letter or postcard from the continent or to pick up a souvenir for friends and family at home. Click here to see 360 ° photos from the site on Google Maps.

Of course, every post office needs a clerk – and since the penguins still haven’t figured out how to operate a cash register, Port Lockroy has to import a few humans to help. Four new workers, selected from thousands of applicants, travel to the site every summer to staff the post office and shop, collect data about the penguin colony, and oversee base operations. The 2022/2023 season team consisted of four women: postmaster Clare Ballantyne, base leader Lucy Bruzzone, wildlife monitor Mairi Hilton, and shop manager Natalie Corbett.

Despite the stiff competition to work at Port Lockroy over the summer, the posting is not a cushy one. In between cruise ship tours, the postal clerks have only themselves and the penguins for company, though their work helps to keep the boredom at bay – they have just one day off every two weeks. Food is largely canned or dried, and the team shares a single bedroom with no running water for five months.

But in recent years, a more pressing threat than boredom or having to shower on a cruise ship has been creeping up on Port Lockroy. Reduced sea ice in Antarctica has created heavier snowfall, and that snowfall is causing additional stress on the roof of the site's historic bunkhouse. Proceeds from the gift shop and post office are typically enough to pay for operations and repairs, but the UKAHT estimates they’ll need to raise at least £50,000 to cover the additional costs of fixing and stabilizing the roof of the bunkhouse.

Here’s where you can help. To help raise the funds (and celebrate the 80th anniversary of Port Lockroy), the UKAHT is offering limited-edition postcards sent from the bottom of the world. For £20 (about $25 U.S.) you can send one of these postcards to yourself or loved ones, sparking joy and supporting a unique philatelic site all at once. 

To learn more about Port Lockroy, purchase a postcard, or make a donation, visit the UKAHT website here.

If you or someone you know purchases a postcard to support Port Lockroy, let us know at digitalcontent@stamps.org — and send us a picture when it arrives! 

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