I didn't do survey work, but I flew a season (1995) for the National Science Foundation out of Christchurch, NZ down to McMurdo Station, Antarctica.
It is quite a trip to land a C-141B Starlifter on the ice runway after flying for about 7 hours into relatively unknown weather. You must have 3000/3 at 3 hours out or you are supposed to turn around at the PSR.
Of course, the McMurdo guys fudge the 3 hour weather reports and about half the time, the weather was almost down to PAR mins on arrival as there was no ILS.
We rotated about 140 very happy to get the hell out of there personnel back to the world on every trip. The C-5s carried all the heavy stuff, we mostly took the pax.
South NZ was very fun to spend any length of time. Great beer, great people.