The Heroic Era


Carstens Borchgrevink 		The first party to land on the continent beyond the Antarctic Peninsula, was part of a whaling expedition aboard the Antarctic. Led by Norwegian Henrich Bull, they rowed ashore at Cape Adare in January 1895. A dispute later arose as to whether it had been Bull or another member of the party, Carstens Borchgrevink, who had been the first to land.
The first great scientific expedition of this era began in 1897, lead by the Belgian, de Gerlache. Among his ship's complement were Roald Amundsen, Dr. Fredrick Cook and Henry Arctowski, all of whom were later to make a name for themselves in polar exploration. Their ship, the Belgica, became icebound off the Antarctic Peninsula, and they were forced to spend thirteen months drifting in the pack-ice.

This expedition is credited with being the first party to winter in the Antarctic, albeit unintentionally. The privations of this enforced stay were severe; one of the crew died of a heart attack and two more were committed to an asylum on their return. They endured inadequate food supplies, little heating and low morale on a vessel ill-equipped to face the Antarctic winter. Dr. Fredrick Cook, a seasoned Arctic explorer, coped best and took unofficial command of the party.



The first expedition deliberately to spend a winter on the continent itself established its base of prefabricated huts at Cape Adare, North Victoria Land in 1899 from the vessel the Southern Cross. The party was led by the same Carstens Borchgrevink who had previously landed at the same site with Bull four years earlier. One of their hut's still survives intact at Cape Adare and is now an historic monument.

The Race for the South Pole

At the turn of the century the race to reach the South Pole became the focus for explorers and this rapidly caught the imagination of the European public. Not the Magnetic Pole this time, but the true Geographic Pole, the point about which the earth revolves. The first assault came in 1901, when Robert Falcon Scott led a British naval expedition to the Ross Sea. After wintering at Hut Point on Ross Island, Scott and five men pushed inland to within 450 miles (720 km) of the South Geographic Pole but finally had to turn back in despair. At the end of the first winter one of Scott's party, Ernest Shackleton, was sent home on the re-supply ship, reputedly suffering from scurvy. His sense of honor tarnished, he decided to return at the head of his own expedition. In 1907 Shackleton led the British Antarctic Expedition (BAE) back to the Ross Sea. After wintering at Cape Royds on Ross Island, Shackleton and a team of three sledged to within 97 miles (155 km) of the South Geographic Pole. Along the way, Shackleton's expedition made the first ascent of Mount Erebus, the 12,448 ft (3794 m) active volcano on Ross Island. But realizing his party had insufficient supplies to reach the Pole and return safely, Shackleton opted to stop short of his goal rather than risk disaster.

While Shackleton was engaged with the South Geographic Pole, other members of his expedition, including the Australians Douglas Mawson and Edgeworth David, and a Scottish doctor Alistair McKay, also set out from the winter quarters on Ross Island. A series of adventures and misadventures dogged them throughout their journey, but on January 15, 1908, they raised the British Flag over the geographical anomaly known as the South Magnetic Pole. Their journey of over 1200 miles on foot, without animal support.

In 1911 Scott returned to the Antarctic for a second attempt to reach the elusive South Geographic Pole. Further to the east, and unbeknown to Scott, a Norwegian party was also wintering over with its sights firmly fixed on reaching the Pole first. Its leader was Roald Amundsen, a dedicated explorer with considerable polar experience from de Gerlache's historic expedition in 1897.


His team had several factors in their favor. Their base at the Bay of Whales was 69 miles (105 km) closer to the Pole than Scott's on Ross Island. The Norwegians set out 13 days before Scott and had the added advantage of 59 husky dogs hauling their sleds and the skill to use them to maximum advantage. Scott, on the other hand, had opted to use ponies as well as dogs; but the ponies were not able to the haul in soft snow, and the dogs were used only in support. In short, Amundsen's party were better managed and able to move more swiftly.

On 14 December 1911, after 57 days on the move, Amundsen, four companions and 18 dogs (out of a total of 59) finally reached the South Geographic Pole, pioneering a new route onto the polar plateau. Amundsen's party returned to the Bay of Whales without mishap and set sail north to Australia to inform the world of its triumph.


The second group consisting of Robert Falcon Scott and his team Bill Wilson, Henry 'Birdie' Bowers, Edward Edgar Evans and Lawrence 'Titus' Oates finally reached the Pole themselves a month later, only to find the tent Amundsen had left behind flying the Norwegian flag. Inside Scott found letters for the King of Norway. Scott noted in his diary "This is an awful place and terrible enough for us to have labored to without the reward of priority."

Scott and his team, bitter with disappointment and debilitated by frostbite, headed set off to return to their base on the coast. On the way back, in a classic case of self-sacrifice, 'Titus' Oates realized his weak condition was slowing the party down, and walked out of the tent never to be seen again. The rest of the party struggled on, but was eventually pinned down for eight days by bad weather, ironically just 11 miles (18 km) from their "one ton" supply depot. There they all perished.
Their fate was not discovered until the next summer when the search-party dug out their almost completely buried camp. It was a tragic sight. Among their possessions were 35 pounds (16 kg) of rock samples - a testimony, either to their dedication to science, or complete fool-hardiness.

Douglas Mawson's Struggle

Countless other stories of such extreme hardship and privation in the name of science and exploration emerged throughout these early years of Antarctic exploration, involving many nationalities. But few stories are as dramatic as that of Australia's Douglas Mawson, the driving force and leader of the 1911-14 Australasian Antarctic Expedition (AAE). The team spent two winters at Commonwealth Bay, the place Mawson later made famous in his book The Home of the Blizzard, the windiest place in the world.


Douglas Mawson
It was on his first expedition with Shackleton on the sledging journey to the South Magnetic Pole in 1908 that Mawson conceived the idea of organizing his own expedition to explore the area of Antarctica due south of Australia, about which very little was known. The Australasian Antarctic Expedition is today regarded as one of the greatest polar scientific expeditions of all times because of the detailed observations in magnetism, geology, biology and meteorology that were made.

However, more than anything else, it was Mawson's personal struggle against almost overwhelming odds during the course of the AAE that secured him a place in history. He overcame starvation, poisoning, blizzards and innumerable falls into gaping crevasses as he struggled back alone to the Winter Quarters at Cape Denison, following the deaths of his sledging companions Xavier Mertz and Belgrade Ninnis.


While on a sledging expedition to the east of the main base, Ninnis, six dogs and the sled containing most of the parties food and equipment were lost down a bottomless crevasse. Short of supplies, Mawson and Mertz began an epic trek back to their base. With little food and only a makeshift tent, one by one they were forced to kill and eat the remaining emaciated huskies to survive. One hundred miles (160 km) from Cape Dennison, Mertz became delirious and eventually died. Mawson too was very ill, from what was later diagnosed as Vitamin A poisoning contracted from eating the husky dog livers.

Mawson finally struggled back to Cape Denison to see the relief ship, the Aurora, disappearing over the horizon. Mawson and six volunteers who had stayed behind endured a second winter at the windiest place in the world before being finally rescued the following season.

Other Challenges

Although the South Geographic Pole had been won there was still a great deal about the Antarctic that remained to be discovered, and great challenges to be found.

On the eve of the First World War, Shackleton returned to the Antarctic. His goal on this occasion was to traverse the entire continent with an expedition that consisted of two teams. The support party traveled to Ross Island aboard the Aurora , the same vessel that had carried Mawson's Australasian Antarctic Expedition to Commonwealth Bay in 1911. Its task was to establish supply depots on the route to the South Pole for the main party approaching the continent via the Weddell Sea.


In 1915 Shackleton's main party was still aboard their ship, the Endurance, when it became frozen in the sea-ice long before they reached their landing point. The ship was forced to become their winter quarters, but gradually the pressure of the ice began to crush the vessel. Eventually all 28 men pitched tents on the ice and watched as the Endurance gradually broke up and disappeared beneath the pack-ice.

In 281 days they had drifted 15,000 miles (24,000 km) but were still 350 miles (560 km) from the coast. After several attempts to walk and haul their lifeboats towards open water, they eventually made camp and waited until the pack-ice broke up in the spring. The entire complement then set sail to Elephant Island where, under the leadership of Shackleton's devoted second-in-command, Frank Wild, most of the party spent the 105 remainding days of the bitter winter living under upturned boats and eating seal meat.

Soon after arriving at Elephant Island, Shackleton and a devoted crew of five set out on one of the most astonishing small boat journeys of all time. Buffeted by mountainous seas they navigated 800 miles (1300 km) in the 18 foot (6 m) James Caird to South Georgia. Landing on the wrong side of the island, they crossed the mountainous spine with virtually no supplies or climbing equipment to reach the Stromness whaling station.

Shackleton then immediately set off in a Norwegian whaler to rescue the rest of the party from Elephant Island, but again pack-ice prevented them from reaching their goal. On a third attempt in the Chilean steamer, Yelcho the whole team was eventually rescued. Amazingly, not a single life was lost during the entire epic.

The Ross Sea support party fared much worse. Their ship was blown away from its winter moorings and the shore party was left with almost no supplies, save what remained in the hut from previous expeditions. The following spring those left ashore still managed to lay out re-supply depots of the rations they had pieced together, unaware of the fate of the Endurance party on the other side of the continent.

In the process of returning to their winter quarters one of the Ross Sea support party died of scurvy. Later, two more attempted to beat a path back to Cape Evans across newly formed sea ice and were never seen again. The party was eventually rescued by the Aurora in January 1917.

The saga of Shackleton's failed Trans-Antarctic Expedition has become a classic tale of leadership and heroism, more famous even perhaps than Amundsen's achievement in reaching the South Pole. In 1921 Shackleton was once more drawn back to the Antarctic in an attempt to map 2000 miles (3200 km) of coastline and conduct meteorological and geological research. Although he was only 48, he died of a suspected heart attack on board the Quest. Shackleton was buried on South Georgia and his death brought to a close the "Heroic" or so called "Golden Era" of Antarctic exploration.



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