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Another Antarctic Winter

EXPLORER DOUGLAS MAWSON WAS STRANDED ON THE ANTARCTIC ICE WHEN HIS COLLEAGUE FELL INTO A CREVASSE. WITH FEW PROVISIONS HE WAS FORCED TO EAT HIS HUSKIES TO SURVIVE. HE TREKKED 480 KM (300 MILES) BACK TO BASE ONLY TO MISS HIS SUPPLY SHIP BY HOURS, FORCING HIM TO ENDURE ANOTHER WINTER OF BRUTAL CONDITIONS.

DATE: 1912–13 SITUATION: ANTARCTIC EXPLORATION CONDITION OF CONFINEMENT: STRANDED ON THE ICE DURATION OF CONFINEMENT: SEVERAL WEEKS MEANS OF ESCAPE: TREKKING, EATING HUSKIES NO. OF ESCAPEES: 1 DANGERS: FREEZING TO DEATH, STARVATION, FALLING INTO A CREVASSE, VITAMIN A POISONING EQUIPMENT: HUSKIES, SLEDGE, SOME PROVISIONS

Australian geologist and Antarctic explorer Douglas Mawson (1882–1958).

Way down south

The average wind speed at Cape Denison was 80 km/h (50 mph). It regularly gusted at 320 km/h (200 mph). But Douglas Mawson and his colleagues would have to get used to it. For the next two years this was going to be their home.

Mawson was born in Yorkshire in 1882 but grew up in Australia. A geologist by education, he had been bitten early by the exploring bug. He was the principal geologist on an expedition to the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu), and he wrote one of the first major geological studies on the area. He was just 21 at the time.

The early twentieth century was the age of the great Antarctic explorers. In 1910 Mawson had turned down an invitation from Robert Falcon Scott to join his ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition.

Instead, Mawson organized his own adventure, the Australian Antarctic Expedition. This would carry out geographical exploration and scientific studies of King George V Land and Adelie Land, the part of the Antarctic continent directly south of Australia. At the time this region was almost entirely unexplored. Mawson also wanted to include a visit to the South Magnetic Pole.

The Australian Antarctic Expedition

Mawson and his team departed from Hobart on 2 December 1911, on board the SY Aurora. They landed at the wind-buffeted Cape Denison on Commonwealth Bay on 8 January 1912, where they built the hut that would serve as their Main Base for the expedition. They also established a Western camp on the ice shelf in Queen Mary Land.

Mawson had initially wanted to explore the area by air and had brought the first aircraft to Antarctica, a Vickers monoplane. But it suffered damage and the engine struggled in the cold. All their exploring would have to be done on foot, with dogs and sledges. However, by the time they had fully established their camp, the weather was worsening and it was soon too severe to travel in. The men stayed in the hut to see out the long, dark months of an Antarctic winter.

Sledging to disaster

By November 1912, the nearly constant blizzards had eased and the exploration program could begin. Mawson divided the men into seven parties: five would operate from the Main Base and two from the Western camp.

Mawson himself would lead a three-man sledging team along with Xavier Mertz and Lieutenant Belgrave Ninnis. They set out east on 10 November 1912, to survey King George V Land. For five weeks all went smoothly. They mapped the coastline and collected many fine geological samples. Then, as they were crossing what was to become the Ninnis Glacier, disaster struck.

Mawson was driving the sledge, which spread his weight evenly over the ice, and Mertz was skiing. But Ninnis was on foot and his weight breached the surface. He plunged into a snow-covered crevasse, taking the tent, most of their rations, and the six best dogs with him. Mertz and Mawson could see one dead and one injured dog on a ledge 50 m (160 ft) down the massive crevasse, but Ninnis was gone.

A long way from home

Mawson and Mertz said a brief service for their colleague and then turned back. They had a primus stove and fuel but only one week’s provisions and no food for the dogs. They were separated from home by 480 km (300 miles) of the most brutal terrain on earth.

Their first goal was to get to a spare tent cover that they had stashed behind them on their journey. To reach this they sledged continuously for twenty-seven hours. They rigged up a frame for this outer shell of canvas from skis and a theodolite.

Douglas Mawson peering over the edge of the crevasse into which his comrade Lt. Ninnis has fallen along with his sledge, dogs and supplies.

Mawson’s teams had explored large areas of the Antarctic coast and discovered much about its geology, biology and meteorology. They had also accurately determined the location of the South Magnetic Pole.

The trek back was slow going and they soon ran out of food. They had no choice but to kill their huskies one by one and eat them. There was hardly any meat on the animals, and even though they mixed it with a little of their tinned food, the men were almost constantly hungry. The bones, guts and sinew that they could not digest they gave to the remaining dogs.

Poisoned

Mawson and Mertz were so desperately hungry that they ate the huskies’ livers. Unfortunately, these contain a toxic concentration of Vitamin A. Although Vitamin A was only identified in 1917, Inuit peoples had long known about the poisonous nature of these organs. The livers of polar bears, seals and walrus are similarly dangerous.

The two men got very ill very quickly on their journey back. They were racked with sickness, diarrhoea, abdominal pain, dizziness and became irrational. Their skin turned yellow and began to peel from their muscles. Their hair and nails fell out.

Mertz ate more liver than Mawson because he found the dog’s tough muscles too hard to eat and he suffered the worst. As well as the physical deterioration, he became gripped with madness. He would lie curled up in his sleeping bag refusing to move, or would rage violently. At one point Mawson had to sit on Mertz’s chest and seize his arms to stop him wrecking their tent. He even bit off the tip of his own frostbitten little finger. After several major seizures, Mertz finally fell into a coma and died on 8 January 1913.

Walking home alone

That left Douglas Mawson to trek the last 160 km (100 miles) alone. At one point he tumbled into a deep crevasse. He was only saved from plummeting to certain death by his sledge, which jammed itself into the ice above him. He then hauled himself back up the slender rope that attached him to the sledge.

In 1916, the American Geographical Society awarded Mawson the David Livingstone Centenary Medal. He was later awarded the OBE and was also knighted.

Mawson finally made it back to Cape Denison in February, but further misfortune awaited him. The Aurora had sailed away just a few hours before. Mawson and the six men who had stayed behind to look for him were forced to spend a second winter in the brutal arms of Cape Denison until they were finally rescued in December 1913.