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ANTARCTIC
EXPLORERS |
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.Sir Douglas
MAWSON 1882-1958 |
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Sir Douglas Mawson was one of Australia's greatest explorers,noted primarily for his extensive work in Antarctica. His exploration of the continent spanned the years between 1907 and 1931. Born in Yorkshire, England in 1882, Douglas was just two when his family moved to Australia Where he grew and went on to study geology at the University of Sydney. |
| His first chance to visit this cold continent came when he was twenty-six. He joined an expedition headed by British explorer Ernest Shackleton. The team was the first to climb to the top of Mount Erebus, Antarctica's active volcano, and the first to reach the magnetic south pole. |
And in 1911 when he was 30, he did just that - as leader of the first Australasian Expedition to Antarctica. His aim was to map and explore the unknown Antarctic coast closest to Australia. .Mawson selected his team and in the ship 'Aurora' they sailed through 1,500 kilometers of pack ice to the Antarctic coast. Their first job was to build a hut which they named "Home of the Blizzard" because three hundred kilometer per hour winds blew men off their feet. They were the most fearsome gales on the planet. |
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| Just five weeks into the journey Ninnis disappeared down a deep crevasse with a team of dogs and the sled carrying most of the food. Mawson and Mertz had to turn back and in order to survive they were forced to shoot and eat the remaining huskies. Mertz became sick and increasingly weak and he too died. Mawson was near death - his feet were bloody, his skin was falling away and he had lost a lot of weight.He would never know that what killed Mertz and made him sick was toxic levels of vitamin A from the dogs' livers they had eaten. When he feel into a crevasse, he was saved by a rope. He later wrote in his diary he felt tempted to give up - to cut the rope that held him.But time and time again Mawson felt the presence of a spirit and found the strength to continue. He sawed his sled in half and dragged his poisoned body over more than one hundred and sixty kilometers of blizzard-swept ice and snow...to finally reach the safety of expedition headquarters.His epic trek was described as the greatest story of lone survival in polar exploration. When he returned to Adelaide, he was knighted for his contribution to our scientific understanding of Antarctica. | |
| Excelent Links | |
| In the footsteps of Mawson. http://www.mawson.sa.gov.au/ie.htm | |
