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Chapter 17.
last update: Jan 24, 2008 06:55 PM
The Home of the Blizzard.
The geographic South Pole had been reached, but there were still great parts of the Antarctic continent that were still unknown, and the Australian geologist Douglas Mawson wanted to do something about it. Mawson, who participated in the Nimrod expedition of Ernest Shackleton and was a member of the party that was the first to reach the magnetic South Pole, declined the invitation from Robert Scott to join the Terra Nova expedition in 1910. Mawson wanted to organise an expedition himself: the Australasian Antarctic Expedition.
Douglas Mawson
On 2 December 1911 the Aurora left the port of Hobart, Tasmania. The ship first set sail to Macquarie Island where a group of scientists would study the island for one year. When they went ashore on 11 December, they were surprised to be welcomed by a group of men who happened to be castaways. Their ship had been wrecked during a storm the previous day, and had never thought to be saved so quickly. The following day they were picked up by the Toroa, a ship that came to supply the scientists on Macquarie Island.
The Aurora arrived in Commonwealth Bay on 7 January 1912. A part of the expedition, commanded by Mawson, went ashore in Cape Découverte in the east of Adélie Land. This was the first time anyone had set foot on this part of Antarctica. Cape Découverte was later renamed to Cape Denison. A third group, under the command of Frank Wild, was dropped off on the Shackleton Ice Shelf in Queen Mary Land on 19 January, more than 2000 kilometres from Cape Denison. The remaining members of the expedition stayed on the ship and researched the ocean between Australia and Antarctica.
Cape Denison turned out to be one of the windiest places of the continent – out of 365 days, 295 days were windy (sometimes the wind speeds exceeded 200 km/h). Mawson later nicknamed Cape Denison the “Home of the Blizzard”. So, obviously, setting up radio masts would be a difficult job: they started on 4 April 1912, and succeeded only on 1 September. 13 February 1913 became the day where the first wireless communication to and from Antarctica was used.
In November 1912 five parties left the Main Base: one to the magnetic South Pole, one to the West and three to the East. The party travelling south was commanded by R. Bage. On 21 December they were roughly 150 kilometres from the Pole, but Bage decided to turn back. Frank Bickerton was in charge of the group that travelled west. They progressed slowly because of the heavy wind, therefore having little success except for finding the first meteorite in Antarctica.
Xavier Mertz
Mawson, Xavier Mertz and Belgrave Ninnis formed the party heading east. On 14 December Ninnis disappeared together with his sledge and six dogs by falling in a crevasse. Mawson and Mertz stood there for three hours calling his name, but he never answered. The only thing they saw was one of the dogs lying there with a broken back, so they gave up all hope. Their journey would be more difficult because most of the food, the tent and spare clothing were on the sledge Ninnis had with him, and they were still more than 500 kilometres away from the main base. The only way for them to survive was to eat the remaining dogs, causing Xavier Mertz to have heavy stomach aches, eventually leading to his death on 7 January 1913. Mawson was now on his own and he eventually fell into a crevasse, but somehow he managed to get himself out of it.
Mawson reached Cape Denison on 1 February, but saw that the Aurora had left. For some or other reason six men were left behind, and the Aurora was called back by radio. Because of the stormy weather, however, the ship couldn't reach Cape Denison anymore and Mawson therefore had to spend another winter in Antarctica. On 26 February 1914 Mawson was back in Australia. Even though he had a hard time in Antarctica, he still turned back.
