by Chris Turney
“Who?” I asked.
“Mawson. Haven’t you heard of him? Oh, he’s an amazing character. Mawson was a protégé of Shackleton and led the first expedition to the Antarctic from these parts. Just a young guy when he set out. He lost two men on the ice and nearly died. It’s an incredible story of survival. Real Boy’s Own Adventure stuff. Wait a moment, I think I have his story somewhere.”
Rummaging through a mountain of books in the lounge room, our friend soon laid his hands on a small paperback.
“Here it is,” he declared triumphantly, handing us a well-thumbed copy of Mawson’s Will by Lennard Bickel. “An absolute classic.”
The back cover told a tale of adventure completely unknown to me. Here was an Antarctic explorer new to Annette and me—a towering figure we had never heard of. We weren’t the only ones. The more I asked around, the more I realized few had. Mawson may have been a contemporary of Shackleton and Scott, but he wasn’t the same household name.
Emigrating to Australia from northern Britain with his family at the tender age of six, Mawson would come to epitomize the spirit of the Empire. By his mid-twenties, he was a towering six-foot figure, athletic and frighteningly intelligent. Fresh out of Sydney University in 1907, he seemed destined to become a field geologist. But fate was to intercede. While mapping outback Australia, Mawson read in the newspapers that his university mentor Edgeworth David, a gentle, wizened-faced professor of geology, was joining Shackleton on the first voyage south led by the Anglo-Irishman: the British Antarctic Nimrod Expedition. Mawson excitedly wrote to his mentor, “I should have dearly loved to have gone myself and shall in any case be with you as far as my imagination can carry me.” David could take a hint, and asked Shackleton whether there might be a place for his former student. Mawson was instantly offered a role. He would one day be a great Antarctic explorer, but for now Mawson was just plain old “Douglas.”
Shackleton’s plan was audacious: an all-out assault on the Antarctic to be the first to reach both the south geographic and magnetic Poles. Nothing like this had ever been seriously attempted before. From his base on the edge of the Ross Sea, the distances were vast, the conditions extreme and in the case of the magnetic Pole, the location not precisely known. While the geographic Pole marks the southern axis of our planet’s rotation, its magnetic sibling had been a scientific enigma for centuries. Thanks to the swirling currents of molten iron within our planet, the Earth’s magnetic field is continuously changing, and with it the pole’s position where the field is vertical to the surface, thwarting the development of accurate navigational charts. We now know that over the past century the magnetic South Pole has moved around six miles a year and is currently over the Southern Ocean. But in Shackleton and Mawson’s day, the compass pointed toward the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. When Shackleton and his companions fell just ninety-seven miles short of the geographic South Pole, Mawson and David were man-hauling a half-ton sledge of equipment and supplies with Scottish medic Alistair Mackay, 7,200 feet above sea level. After 103 days, the three-man team finally reached the edge of the magnetic Pole. Finding their compass dipping almost (but not quite) vertically, the men claimed the area for the British Empire, took a quick photo and with a “Thank God” turned tail and fled back to the coast. Both parties nearly starved in their efforts but returned to civilization as heroes. David afterward remarked: “Mawson was the real leader who was the soul of our expedition to the Magnetic Pole . . . [he is a man] of infinite resource, splendid physique, astonishing indifference to frost.”
Fired by a passion for discovery, Mawson resolved to return to the Antarctic. Shackleton initially agreed to lead a second effort, but dubious business ventures prevented him taking part. Undeterred, Mawson decided to lead his own endeavor instead. After Shackleton’s near-miss in 1909, other expeditions were planning to finish the ninety-seven miles left undone. The British, Germans, and Japanese—and later the Norwegians—were all known to be setting a course south, with Scott even promising Mawson a place on the team that would be first to raise the flag at the geographic Pole. Mawson just wasn’t interested. To him, the bigger question was what lay to the immediate south of Australia. The region was a complete blank, not just on the map, but scientifically as well. The region might hold the key to solving some of the big geological questions of the time and was known to play a major role in Australia’s weather; it was the origin of the southern blasts that regularly struck Adelaide, Melbourne, and Sydney with little to no warning. And of course, who knew what mineral riches waited to be discovered? Apart from a few pebbles collected a couple of decades earlier, no one had any real idea what was down there.
Inspired by his former leader, Mawson wanted his expedition to be sensational. This was not going to be a return to former discoveries: Mawson was heading off the map into largely uncharted territory. There was no doubt it was an ambitious enterprise. He aimed to set up four research bases—the same number of Antarctic bases as those run by Australia today—all in a single field season. This was in a part of the world where the only reports of land had been made by the tough American Captain Charles Wilkes, who had skirted the edge of what he suspected was an entirely new continent. It was to be a complete scientific exploration of the Antarctic region south of Australia.
With a public appeal from Shackleton for the Australian venture, Mawson managed to raise the modern equivalent of over twenty million dollars in just one year. It was enough to buy and provision a vessel; employ a team of scientists, engineers, and ship’s crew; and purchase the equipment and supplies to support a scientific expedition in the deep field for fourteen months, all backed up by the first radio link from the Antarctic.
In late 1911, the Australasian Antarctic Expedition headed out from Hobart on board the steamship SY Aurora. After nine days fighting the wilds of the Southern Ocean, the Aurora reached its first destination, the subantarctic archipelago Macquarie Island, and set down a team with living quarters, supplies, equipment, and a “wireless” station, crucial for keeping contact with the team about to make Antarctica their home. Two weeks later, fully replenished with freshwater, Mawson pushed on south. Recently engaged, the Australian leader regularly wrote to his fiancée, Paquita Delprat, telling her his news and proclaiming his love. Although the letters would not be delivered until the Aurora returned home, they helped keep her close.
Angel, I have been thinking such a lot of you these past few days—between the rolling and pitching of the ship—between watch and watch. How grand it would be to fly back to you, even for a few brief minutes. The discomfort. . . drives all my longings into one channel—peace and you.
Reaching the Antarctic coast, the men on the Aurora were disappointed to be met by cliffs of ice. Mawson rued his dependence on Wilkes’s early claims and couldn’t help but vent his spleen to Paquita:
We met heavy impenetrable pack in several directions and failed to break through to the land. Much of this disappointment and trouble I find today are due to an undue reliance I had placed in the accounts of Commander Wilkes who made explorations here in 1840. His accounts are largely erroneous and misleading.
There was nowhere suitable to set up a base. Mawson was forced to push west, and, with summertime fast disappearing, he grudgingly decided he would have to combine two of the bases at the first possible opportunity. When they came upon Cape Denison, Mawson was ecstatic. Greeted by squawking penguins in their hundreds of thousands:
We were soon inside a beautiful, miniature harbour completely land-locked. The sun shone gloriously in a blue sky as we stepped ashore on a charming ice-foot . . . Behind it rose the inland ice, ascending in a regular slope and apparently free of crevasses—an outlet for our sledging parties in the event of the sea not firmly freezing over . . . As a station for scientific investigations, it offered a wider field than the casual observer would have imagined.
Shortly after their arrival, excitement turned to horror when the team was hit by a series of ferocious cold “katabatic” win
ds that poured off the ice cap. The local topography amplified these gravity-driven dense winds, funneling them straight over Cape Denison. There seemed to be no pattern for when they would strike; the only indication they were imminent was wisps of snow on the upper slopes, warning the men they had just minutes to get to shelter before visibility crashed and the rough waters threatened the Aurora and any small boats relaying supplies to shore. Unfortunately, with the imminent arrival of winter pack ice, Mawson had run out of time to find another location. The Australian leader was committed to set up camp immediately if another team was to be dropped off farther along the coast that season. For good or bad, there was no choice—they had to stay. Hurriedly, foundations were blasted out of the rock, the prefabricated wooden huts were put up, the supplies, science gear, sledges and dogs unloaded, and the Aurora sent on its way. Mawson and his seventeen men were left to face the winter together.
The equipment and men struggled in the conditions. They were here to do science, but it was perilous work. Each time the men left the safety of their shelter, they risked their lives. The wind speed averaged thirty-eight knots, equivalent to forty-four miles per hour. In one twelve-hour period, the wind reached a breathtaking eighty-eight miles per hour, hurricane in strength. With swirling snow, the men often complained of losing sight of the hut within a few yards of the doorway. With the boat harbor only seventy paces outside, a loss of direction could easily end in tragedy. The weather station was relatively close, just 200 yards from the hut, set up high on one of the surrounding ridges, but visits could take hours as the men, dressed in the best windproof gear Burberry could provide, were often forced to make the journey on all fours, heads down against the elements. Sometimes several trips a day were needed to make repairs and keep the gear going in what quickly became known as the “Home of the Blizzard.” No one had ever seen anything like it before.
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Following our public launch, world interest in the new Australasian Antarctic Expedition took off. With the involvement of Google, others proffered support. After several meetings, New Zealand outdoor specialists, Macpac, agreed to supply the expedition clothing and kit, including tents and sleeping bags, all at a massive discount. Satellite company Inmarsat contributed thousands of dollars’ worth of access to its network, giving us a precious communication link from the Southern Ocean (or “comms” as it’s often referred to in the business). All Terrain Solutions in Brisbane provided free training on the tracked Argo vehicle we needed to make the estimated forty-mile sea ice journey across Commonwealth Bay to reach Cape Denison. No less important, we also received field microscopes, lab equipment, and commercial weather forecasting and state-of-the-art drone mapping, all essential for making the expedition a success.
Alongside these efforts, we looked at other means of funding the expedition. Drawing inspiration from Shackleton and Mawson, we offered berths on the voyage for the public to join the Google-winning teachers on board. This was not a cruise in the traditional sense. We had far more research planned than we could ever hope to achieve with the scientists on board and needed paying volunteers: citizen scientists who would help support the work of the expedition during the voyage. In this regard, we were lucky to have Greg Mortimer join us. Quietly spoken and self-deprecating, Greg is an Australian legend in the mountaineering scene and a pioneer of commercial ventures in the south. We first met Greg in the Ellsworth Mountains. He had visited the Antarctic more than eighty times, climbed remote mountains across the continent, been trapped in sea ice, and returned home still smiling. Greg had decades of experience of Antarctica, and his knowledge of commercial operations and easy-going manner would help make the expedition a reality. Without hesitation, I offered to employ Greg and his company Adventure Associates to advertise for the citizen scientists and act as point of contact on all matters, including health requirements, field clothing, and travel insurance, taking a significant administrative burden off our hands.
With Greg hard at work filling places on the expedition, our attention turned to getting approval for the work program. We couldn’t just go where we wanted and do whatever we liked. The Southern Ocean and Antarctic are heavily protected under various national laws and international agreements, including the Antarctic Treaty of 1961, which preserves the continent for science and peace (while also suspending all national claims). Enquiries had to be made, permissions sought, and import permits for all our samples issued. Our offices started to heave with the piles of forms and kit we were amassing. We urgently needed an expedition headquarters—somewhere to handle the meetings, phone calls, and documentation demanded by different authorities while also storing all the ordered equipment now heading our way.
The university was sympathetic and offered us a property. “Eurimbla Avenue,” a white, spacious two-storey house, became Chris’s and my second home over the next six months. We had the conference room covered with maps and planning schedules the first day we moved in. Within a week, most of the offices in the building were occupied, the air filled with the tapping of keyboards, conversation, and laughter as the details of the expedition were thrashed out. After a fortnight, you would have thought we’d always been there.
Slowly but surely, we made progress toward reaching our target of $1.5 million. Following in the footsteps of Mawson, we had hoped to make our departure from Hobart, but my enquiries fell on deaf ears; an alternative was Christchurch’s port at Lyttelton, but it was still reeling from the shocking earthquake that had happened just a couple of years before. In the end, we considered the port of Bluff, near the southern New Zealand city of Invercargill; the only question was the port fees, which threatened to be substantial. I contacted the office of Tim Shadbolt, the local mayor. Tim is a national treasure, a great champion of the region and a professional comedian—Tim’s tours of New Zealand instantly sell out—making him one of the most recognised faces in the country. He’s also remarkably friendly and agreed to meet me. I flew over, and after some discussion Tim offered to waive the port fees and give us storage space on the dockside. It was an incredibly generous offer that would save us tens of thousands of dollars, so Bluff it was. With the daily program of research activities agreed, we homed in on a departure date of 27 November 2013 and planned our return to Bluff for 4 January 2014. Thirty-nine days at sea—enough time to do a substantial amount of work.
The University of New South Wales’ Dean of Science, Professor Merlin Crossley, helped tremendously. Sponsorship requests, email enquiries, and orders were increasing in number, and no matter how much time I dedicated to the tasks in hand, the list of demands only seemed to grow. Merlin agreed to fund a half-time PA position to support the expedition, and the arrival of Jono Pritchard at Eurimbla was a game-changer for us. Within minutes he had set up the coffee machine and was working through the list of tasks I’d been struggling with. Without Jono, I don’t honestly know if the expedition would have ever happened. Joining us, Alvin Stone agreed to be our media contact on shore. We were lucky, and I knew it. With over twenty years in the profession, Alvin is a genius at making science comprehensible to the public. Alongside Alvin, web guru Anthony Ditton designed and administered the public-facing website that would tell the science, adventure, and history of the expedition in glorious images with a real-time map tracking our position. Anthony agreed to join us on the first leg of the expedition to sort out any gremlins, and to continue with the role at home when we carried on to Cape Denison.
But the work didn’t stop there. Now in the public eye, we received a tidal wave of requests for interviews and offers to talk to schools and clubs—all opportunities to shout about the science and chase ever-precious funds. Fighting through the mountain of health and safety paperwork and science-permitting applications, Chris was busy sourcing the gear we would need once we left New Zealand. He was on the phone day and night, calling suppliers, arranging the delivery of equipment we needed to support a team in all conditions, chasing the different science groups about what they needed. The
logistical planning for such a massive enterprise was extraordinary, and Chris dealt with it professionally and without complaint. Slowly but surely over the next four months, more than two tons of scientific gear, supplies, vehicles, tents and sledges made its way through Eurimbla’s doors, and was carefully inventoried and stored away. As the rooms filled with gear, so did the anticipation.
By late October, everything was ready to go. For one last time, equipment was turned on, tents erected and emergency packs checked over. In the blazing heat of the Sydney sun, Eurimbla’s rooms were emptied and the contents tightly packed into a container, locked down and sent off to New Zealand. How we managed to get everything in, I don’t know. My mind was filled with a blur of lists, boxes, fishnets, and traps, and the constant ringing of various phones. The container would be in Bluff by early November, long before our planned departure at the end of the month.
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Alongside our planning efforts, the biggest job of all was finding our Aurora: a ship to take our expedition to the Antarctic. A century ago, we would have visited the whaling and sealing fleets of the Arctic to secure a vessel. Fortunately, in these more enlightened times, we’ve moved on from hunting to tourism. The downside is that almost all ships working in the region are committed for years in advance. Our expedition was a one-off, a job of little interest to most. We needed a ship with no prior commitments—no easy ask in Australian and New Zealand waters.
