#Mawson’s Antarctica

[kreuzfahrttester]

Mit Scenic antarktische Höhenluft schnuppern: Exklusive Helikopter-Ausflüge zur Snow Hill Island und in die Trockentäler der Ost-Antarktis

Erleben Sie die Antarktis aus einer neuen Perspektive mit Scenic, dem Pionier für Luxus-Expeditionsreisen. Pünktlich zur Saison 2024/2025 bietet Scenic unvergleichliche Erlebnisse in den entlegensten Polarregionen der Welt. Mit exklusiven Helikopter-Ausflügen auf den Discovery-Yachten Scenic Eclipse und Scenic Eclipse II gelangen Reisende an Orte, die nur wenige Menschen je betreten haben. Vom…

[slidesworthseeing]

An Emperor penguin and three Adélie penguins, near Mawson Base, Antarctica, 1965. Photo by Don Allison

[bluebacchus]

Maybe you sickos will appreciate my mid corporate TikTok skills on here

[johntorrington]

while we’re talking about ninnis’s bitchy diaries being used as a source for why oates wasn’t qualified we also need to talk about madigan’s diaries being used to discredit mawson. can a bitch not complain without it becoming a primary source.

[rarephotovintage]

Frozen Perseverance: The Trials of Early Antarctic Explorers

In the heart of Antarctica, where the wind howls at 100 mph and the cold gnaws at flesh, a group of explorers sought to conquer the unknown. Inside the shelter of the First Australasian Antarctic Expedition (1911-1914), men gathered in their cramped kitchen, melting snow for water and rationing what little food they had. Just outside, Xavier Mertz climbed out through a trapdoor in the roof—the entire building had been buried under snow, leaving only this narrow escape. Survival in Antarctica was not just about endurance but about adapting to an environment that constantly threatened to consume them.

The ice showed no mercy. Cecil Madigan, a meteorologist on the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, stood outside, his face covered in snow, a stark reminder of the brutal conditions they endured daily. Meanwhile, a team of hardy Siberian huskies pulled a sled carrying an expedition member across the frozen expanse, their breath visible in the frigid air. These dogs were more than companions; they were the backbone of Antarctic travel, hauling supplies through the endless ice fields. But even with their help, the journey was perilous, and not all would survive the treacherous terrain.

Disaster struck when Belgrave Ninnis, an officer and surveyor, fell through a hidden crevasse, taking most of the food and supplies with him. With no other option, Douglas Mawson and Xavier Mertz were forced to eat their sled dogs to stave off starvation. The extreme diet took its toll—Mertz succumbed to malnutrition and poisoning from consuming the dogs' liver, collapsing on the ice. As Mawson struggled to make it back alone, another expedition was facing its own catastrophe: Ernest Shackleton’s ship, Endurance, had become trapped in ice in 1915, leaving his crew stranded in the middle of the Weddell Sea.

For months, Shackleton and his men watched helplessly as Endurance groaned under the relentless pressure of the ice. When it was finally crushed and sank, they were left with no choice but to attempt a daring escape across the frozen wasteland. Meanwhile, back on the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, Mawson, now completely alone, carved his way through the ice, leaning into the brutal 100 mph winds in a desperate bid to survive. The fate of both expeditions hung in the balance, as Antarctica tested the limits of human resilience.

Then, against all odds, salvation appeared. In 1916, a small rescue ship finally reached Elephant Island, where Shackleton’s men had been stranded for months. Miraculously, every one of them survived. Meanwhile, photographer Frank Hurley, who documented the Endurance expedition, captured haunting images of the frozen ship just before it was lost to the ice forever. These photographs, along with the stories of Mawson, Mertz, and Shackleton’s crew, remain a testament to one of history’s greatest survival tales—where courage, determination, and sheer willpower triumphed over the most hostile place on Earth.

[spacecoffeeandcartoons]

I just took your uquiz (got Madhouse at the End of the World) and I'm obsessed - I think I might have found a new special interest!!! Please talk polar expeditions to me, I'm foaming at the mouth, absolutely feral. Just infodump like crazy please, I'm on my knees and begging

I'm so glad you liked the quiz!!

Apologies for turning this post into a larger primer!

I hope you enjoy Madhouse--secretly I think it's the best result on the quiz (though it's not my own result; that's A First-Rate Tragedy). Madhouse has a bit of everything & if you're looking for truly insane anecdotes to regale your friends with, it's your best bet. A smattering of what you'll find in Madhouse: an army of rats, toxic gases sickening the expedition leader, scientists drawing cartoons about poop and butts, a man being mistaken for a seal at the worst possible time, brutal disregard for cats by a man who would go on to co-found the International Astronomical Union, the invention of light therapy, really bad uses of petroleum jelly....& that's just scratching the surface! And it all takes place during the first overwintering in Antarctica. thisisfine.gif

The one downside (not a downside depending on your perspective) for Madhouse as a starter book is it has nothing to do with Shackleton or Scott, and you'll soon find the majority of the English-language books on the Heroic Age, for better or worse, relate to those two. Madhouse DOES have a young Roald Amundsen (later the first man to the South Pole), who is a FASCINATING figure, and his first trip to Antarctica was often overlooked before this book afaik.

So I chose my three books for the starter quiz very carefully. Madhouse at the End of the Earth by Julian Sancton, A First-Rate Tragedy by Diana Preston, and Endurance by Alfred Lansing are all accessible secondary sources. They are readable (not overly academic) & don't require background info, doing a good job introducing people and terms (polar exploration has a whole associated vocabulary). Just as importantly, they're all exciting & well-paced & gripping! Once you've found your bearings, there's a whole specialist literature of polar history for polar scholars and enthusiasts. Broadly, I break it down thusly:

- Primary source expedition narratives: firsthand accounts of expeditions by people who were there. Within this there are a few subcategories: books always intended to be written by explorers when they returned home (this was a significant source of income for expeditions), like Scott's The Voyage of the Discovery, Mawson's Home of the Blizzard, or Shackleton's The Heart of the Antarctic. There's books not-originally-intended but the author decided to write them years later (The Worst Journey in the World by Cherry-Garrard, Saga of the Discovery by Bernacchi). And then there's diaries that were never intended to be published--often, they were written for the explorer's family, or perhaps to help the expedition leader write the narrative. But they weren't meant to be published verbatim. Time, fame, tragedy, and general interest sometimes led to them eventually seeing publication--this is especially the case for a lot of the Terra Nova diaries, & was most famously done for Scott's own diary, which he had intended to edit into a book, but not to publish in raw form. Providence, of course, had different ideas.

- Secondary source expedition narratives: Madhouse and Endurance from my quiz both fit this category, for the Belgica and Imperial Trans-Antarctic (better known as the 'Endurance') expeditions, respectively. (First-Rate Tragedy I'd moreso call a Scott biography). These are accounts of expeditions written by authors/historians who were not on the expeditions in question. There's a LOT of these, and they vary widely in quality. Some offer new scholarship or cover something that hasn't been covered before; others are...less rigorous. Have a browse at your local thrift store/charity shop/secondhand bookstore. If you're lucky they'll have some polar books. Flip through and see if there's a robust citations section, or footnotes, and ideally in-text citations for quote attributions. This can give you some sense of the quality as you're wading into the sea of books!

- Biographies: Exactly what it says on the tin! Instead of picking an expedition to focus on, these books are about one explorer and his life (almost always "his", though there are a few exceptions like Ada Blackjack). There are, once again, a lot of these! Scott and Shackleton in particular have a lot of biographies. I personally didn't read many biographies before this obsession, and I find them a really interesting format in which the biographer is important too, not just the subject. I'm developing opinions about when and how biographers should include relevant cultural context, the amount of the author inserting their opinion that I prefer and how it should be indicated in the text, etc. Similarly for the secondary sources above, check the indices and citations. I'm constantly flipping back to check sources while reading, one of the reasons I prefer physical to e-books!

- Other: There's always another category, isn't there? There's tons more! Cultural histories like Spufford's I May Be Some Time: Ice and the English Imagination (I recommend you get a few books under your belt before reading that to get the most out of it), travelogues mixed with history like Sarah Wheeler's Terra Incognita, Bea Uusma's The Expedition which flips back and forth between time periods, & more!

Like any taxonomy, there's flaws with the above, and things that don't fit, but that's broadly how I see the landscape!

Tips, tricks, & things to know:

- Polar books are most often found in the "Travel" or "Travel Literature" section. Sometimes you can find stuff in "History" "Biography" or even "Sports" lol. A parallel interest is Mountaineering, so if a place has Mountaineering books, they may well also have polar.

- It can be very helpful to familiarise yourself with the Edwardian era in general -- it's a fascinating cultural history in and of itself, and its the most modern era before the great global "end-of-innocence" of the First World War. Sometimes the things these guys are up to really ARE crazy, sometimes it's just that they're Edwardians and something is lost in the translation.

- Like many subjects historians have been writing about for over a century, polar exploration history authors have their biases. The most common one is whether or not the author likes Robert Falcon Scott. This goes back to a controversial book called Scott and Amundsen, published in 1979 by Roland Huntford. (It's also found under the title The Last Place on Earth, based on its TV show adaptation.) Huntford retells the "race to the South Pole" elevating Amundsen and in the process doing a very good job of destroying Scott's reputation by debunking him as an incompetent bungler. From what I've heard from others (I haven't read it yet, though will eventually for its historiographical value) it's a good source on Amundsen but everything he says on Scott should be ignored due to highly selective quotations and...well, active malice toward the guy. Basically, it's a callout-post/bombshell of a book that has had almost every subsequent historian touching on the topic going to great lengths to debunk in turn. Fwiw, I've also heard people say Huntford's Shackleton biography is good. Just. Don't listen to him about Scott.

- Imperialism motivated a lot of these expeditions, and frankly in my opinion this is something more of the literature NEEDS to talk about! A few that do a good job are Spufford mentioned above, & Larson's An Empire of Ice.

- I'd actually recommend don't start with diaries, bc they usually need some context to understand. Exception? Scott's final entries.

There you go! Happy reading! Also check out @areyougonnabe, she's got some great polar posts!!

[gulfportofficial]

It's no surprise to anyone, I'm sure, but god it's insane how like all of Antarctica is just named after the same guys and their boats.

Your Ross Dependency, your Ross Ice Shelf, your McMurdo Sound, your mcfuckin' Cape Crozier - the most easterly point of Ross Island. Mountains named after their ships, Ancient Greek Concept of the Personification of Darkness and Howling Dread.

Either that or monarchs. It's just insane. I kept thinking that, watching The Terror, how have these people already fucking named everything? They don't even know what's an Island yet, and it's still all Prince Edward This and King William That. It's the same in Antarctica, of course.

Anyway: Back when I was doing my ESCI paper on Antarctic fieldwork* I didn't think much of it while I was doing my map memorizing and recreations (a requirement of the course), but I DID finally kind of crack and write this mammoth essay about the expedition of Sir Douglas Mawson, who was engaged in mapping the uncharted Antarctic South Coast. He did not, of course, manage it and the two guys with him died, one of them named Ninnis has the glacier he died on named after him.

The thesis of this essay was that Mawson had no business being there besides imperialism and that it was ridiculous to regard people as heroes for willingly putting themselves in situations extremely likely to kill them for the sole purpose of claiming land. Doing this in Antarctica is not as egregious as doing it in the Arctic, of course, as there is no indigenous population to steal from down there especially, but it's still goddamned bonkers. And yet Mawson was so resoundingly lauded simply for not dying that he was at one time on the Australian $100 note.

One point of interest is that while Mawson was criticized for not having his party wear snow shoes (which would have distributed their weight more evenly and made them less prone to falling in crevasses) he absolutely did beat the cannibalism allegations. He was simply too pious a man for anybody to believe he'd've done that. Mertz, the third man in the party**, died either of eating dog livers (concentration of vitamin A will kill you if not careful), or of a broken heart from the loss of Ninnis (listen, I have read the diaries, okay. It was a very detailed and exquisitely researched essay.)*** Like, exploration is so romantic, romanticized, it's so easy to do it, and yet it's like bonkers stupid that there was literally no reason for them to be there but to claim the land. To make the "discovery". To manifest destiny. I've got no point here, I was just remembering how wild it was to remember all the different things named Ross all the way back in my Antarctic Fieldwork 101 paper. And how The Terror was basically made for me in a lab lol. *The school I went to had a really close relationship with Scott Base, and while I'd never be allowed to work down there - people who work down there have multiple graduate degrees, not just undergrad with field assistant training, but I was interested as hell and I learned a lot. Like for example how to put up a Scott - there's that name again - tent in a snowstorm. Remember Scott's expedition? That was the one that had Cpt. Oates on it. Of "I am just going outside and may be some time" fame. **No relation to Shackleton's third man. Another time. *** Also I wrote a song for the banjo about it. This was a long time ago and no records of the song survive.

[bertilakslady]

Typically, there’s no mention of Antarctica in any of the above, even though it’s probably the most hostile environment on the planet. Go read about Sir Douglas Mawson (who, as it happened, spent most of his life in Australia).

Humans Are Weird

So there has been a bit of “what if humans were the weird ones?” going around tumblr at the moment and Earth Day got me thinking. Earth is a wonky place, the axis tilts, the orbit wobbles, and the ground spews molten rock for goodness sakes. What if what makes humans weird is just our capacity to survive? What if all the other life bearing planets are these mild, Mediterranean climates with no seasons, no tectonic plates, and no intense weather? 

What if several species (including humans) land on a world and the humans are all “SCORE! Earth like world! Let’s get exploring before we get out competed!” And the planet starts offing the other aliens right and left, electric storms, hypothermia, tornadoes and the humans are just … there… counting seconds between flashes, having snowball fights, and just surviving. 

[slidesworthseeing]

Found slide: Getting the Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions (ANARE) Volkswagen Beetle ready for glaciologist Gunter Weller (kneeling, left) to set out to get ice core samples, Mawson Base, Antarctica, 1965. The ANARE member standing at right is probably electrical engineer Don Allison (photographer unknown)

[phonemantra-blog]

AdventureSmith Explorations, renowned for its small-ship adventure cruises, is set to redefine Antarctic exploration with its newest itineraries aboard the state-of-the-art expedition ship Douglas Mawson. These immersive trips promise unparalleled experiences in the remote regions of Antarctica, catering to adventurous travelers seeking unique and unforgettable journeys. AdventureSmith Sets Sail New Itineraries and Expeditions Embark on the Douglas Mawson The brand-new Douglas Mawson expedition ship is set to debut in December 2025, offering three epic Antarctica cruises. These itineraries will delve into rarely visited areas, including East Antarctica, the Ross Sea, and the Subantarctic Islands, providing travelers with an exclusive glimpse into Earth's least-populated continent. Epic Antarctic Odyssey: Crossing the 7th Continent Duration: 34 Days Departure: February 2026 Embark on a semi-circumnavigation journey from Dunedin, New Zealand to Ushuaia, Argentina. This once-in-a-lifetime experience includes exploration of the Subantarctic Islands and western Antarctica, offering encounters with diverse wildlife and historic explorer huts. Ross Sea Odyssey Duration: 24-25 Days Departures: December 2025, January 2026 Explore the uninhabited Subantarctic islands, including Macquarie Island, Auckland, and Campbell Islands. Choose between two itineraries, each offering extensive exploration opportunities and visits to significant wildlife sanctuaries and historic sites. Expert Insight and Early Booking Deals AdventureSmith's seasoned travel specialists provide expert guidance and personalized assistance to plan unforgettable Antarctic adventures. Take advantage of the Early Bird Deal, offering savings of up to 20% if booked by June 30, 2024.

[gay-jesus-probably]

JOKES ON YOU MOTHERFUCKER, I HAVE SOURCES. Rations were mainly butter, chocolate, and pemmican, which is about 50% fat and 50% meat, sometimes with dried berries mixed in. Also, it's Antarctica, dude. They stored their food outside, frozen stuff isnt gonna go bad.

Source is Alone On The Ice by David Roberts, covering the Australasian Expedition of 1911-1914, which infamously resulted in expedition leader Douglas Mawson's three man sledging team losing one man (Belgrave Ninnis) down a crevasse, along with the sledge carrying their vital supplies, namely their tent and most of their food, leaving Douglas Mawson and Xavier Mertz stranded almost 200 km from help. Mertz died of starvation almost a month later, but Mawson survived and made it back.

BITCH.

As a general rule, if you're having food cravings, you should probably pay attention to that, because it's usually a sign that your body needs something. Like, if you've just finished a workout and are suddenly desperately craving fries? Maybe you're low on salt, you did just sweat a whole bunch. Period cravings for junk food? Your body's under some stress and working hard, you need energy, and foods with a lot of fat and/or sugar are an easy way to get that.

Back in the early 1900's when exploring Antarctica was all the rage, y'know what was a major part of everyones daily rations? Butter. Just butter. The men out on the sledging teams would have cravings to eat entire sticks of butter with nothing else, so that was included in their rations. And that happened because under those extreme circumstances, their bodies desperately needed as many calories as possible, so their diet consisted mainly of butter, chocolate, and animal fat. Eating entire sticks of butter was the healthiest possible diet for them.

That's an extreme example of course, but my point is, there's no such thing as inherently Good or Bad food. Anything that's edible can be healthy under the right circumstances, just like anything can be an unhealthy choice under the wrong circumstances. Your body knows what it needs. Listen to it. Unless you're actively going through a serious medical situation, you do not need a tightly restricted diet. Diet culture is a scam, body fat is natural and healthy, food is good for you, and calories are the fuel your body needs to power its continued survival.

[news2024news]

Defence completes C-17 Globemaster airdrop to resupply Mawson Station in Antarctica http://dlvr.it/T7kBCn

[petermorse]

Envisioning Antarctica: Mawson's Huts, Cape Denison from Peter Morse Studio on Vimeo.

[rithebard]

On Thursday;  #ChattingWithSherri welcomes back the #awardwinningauthor; #KatherineKovacic on 10/1 9/23 at 7pm pt; http://tobtr.com/12271330 #interview

[ebookdynasty]

Book Review: "The Art of Breaking Ice" by Rachael Mead (@AffirmPress @YourLibraryLtd @LibbyApp)

The Art of Breaking Ice (Affirm Press, June 2023) by Rachael Mead The Art of Breaking Ice, by poet and novelist Rachael Mead, is a fictionalised account of the life of Nel Law, the first Australian woman and female visual artist to set foot in Antarctica, at Mawson Station on February 8, 1961. Prior to that, at the end of 1960, Law visited Macquarie Island, halfway between Tasmania and…