Port Lockroy is a beautiful natural harbour on Goudier Island
Like many sites currently occupied in Antarctica, it was used by the whaling industry after its discovery in 1903.
A British base was established in 1944 (British base "A") and it is now designated a "historic site" under the Antarctic Treaty. Since 1996, the base has been opened during the summer months by British Antarctic Survey under the guidance of the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust (UKAHT). It is possible to look around the renovated buildings and museum and get a flavour of what life used to be like in Antarctica on a base in the 1950's.
There is even a gift shop and Post Office where cards and letters can be franked before being placed on the next available ship for transport to their destination via Britain. Port Lockroy is currently the most visited site in Antarctica with about 6000 tourists each summer. Post office diary
An environmental monitoring programme was established when the base began being manned in 1996 to to investigate potential visitor disturbance to the rookery of gentoo penguins nearby. It appears that so far, the large numbers of visitors have had no discernable impact on penguin breeding success, which is more closely linked to local environmental conditions, such as snow cover or the availability of krill.
There are also relics from the whaling days at Port Lockroy such as a massive fin whale skeleton. The fin whale is the second largest whale (after the blue whale). Each year the skeleton is reassembled after the weather blows it apart all winter. This particular whale has even been shown to have had arthritis because some of its bones show deterioration in the same way that arthritic human bones do.