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King Baudoin Station
last update: Jan 24, 2008 05:54 PM
Belgium's Antarctic station till 1961.
Sixty years after the Belgica left the port of Antwerp for his historical journey to Antarctica, a new Belgian Antarctic expedition was prepared. Reason for this was the International Geophysical Year. Between 1 July 1957 and 31 December 1958 twelve countries set up geophysical observation programs in Antarctica. In this period there was a great sun activity. Also Belgium participated in the project. Gaston de Gerlache, son of Adrien, commanded the second Belgian Antarctica expedition in history.
On 12 November the icebreaker Polarhav and the sealer Polarsirkel left the port of Antwerp. Aboard were three tractors, a plane and a helicopter. On 26 December 1957 both ships arrived in Queen Maud Land. During the next two weeks the members of the expedition built on 70°25'33" South the first Belgian scientific station: King Baudoin Station. After that the most important work started: scientific observations. Jacques Loodts observed the aurora australis, Henri Vandevelde studied the ionospherical layers in the atmosphere, Luc Cabes was interested in earth magnetism and Edgard Picciotto studied snow and ice.
Apart from scientific research on the base itself, the scientists explored the region from time to time. The Antarctic inland was for a great part still terra incognita. In December a part of the expedition visited the Belgica Mountains. While Loodts and de Gerlache stayed in their camp, Antoine de Ligne and Charles Hulshagen made a flight with the plane on 5 December. But the plane hit a too steep sastrugi. The landing gear came off and the plane made an rough landing on the ice. The four men couldn't do nothing else than walk the way back to King Baudoin Station (250 kilometres). Due to the great amount of crevasses, the men covered only twenty kilometres a day. In King Baudoin Station people got worried. Xavier de Maere sent SOS messages to the Norwegian, American and finally to the Russian base. Although situated at more than 2800 kilometres, the Russians let know they would sent a C47 to search for the missing Belgians. On 15 December the four men were found.
On 2 April 1958 the first Antarctic expedition of Gaston de Gerlache arrived in Ostend. One man stayed behind, Tony Van Autenboer. This geologist would stay on the ice until 1961. He welcomed his new colleagues and his new boss, Frank Bastin. Before his departure Bastin had founded the National Centre of Polar Research (NCPO). Van Autenboer spent most of the time in a tent in the mountains. The third Belgian expedition in King Baudoin Station (March 1960 - March 1961) was commanded by Guido Derom. He discovered a new range of mountains: the Queen Fabiola Mountains. Not all scientist stayed in Antarctica the whole year. Some of them had only the time to spent just the summer in King Baudoin Station. The were called the tourists and formed the summer expeditions IRIS I and IRIS II.
The National Centre of Polar Research (NCPO) couldn't find enough money to continue the Belgian Antarctic Programme. On 31 January 1961 King Baudoin Station closed down.
