Transcript of Module 41 – Sir Douglas Mawson

Sir Douglas Mawson (1) was born on the 5th of May in 1882 (2) in Shipley, West Yorkshire (3), but before he even turned two years old, his family immigrated to Australia (4) and settled (5) in Rooty Hill (6), now in the Western Suburbs of Sydney (7). He attended Fort Street Model School (8) and the University of Sydney (9) where he graduated in 1902 (10) with a Bachelor of Engineering degree (11).

In 1903 (12), he was appointed a geologist (13) on an expedition (14) to the New Hebrides (15), (now known as Vanuatu (16)) and conducted the earliest geological work in Melanesia (17). Soon after, he became a lecturer in petrology (18) and mineralogy (19) at the University of Adelaide (20), in 1905 (21).

Mawson joined the famous British explorer Ernest Shackleton (22) on his Nimrod Expedition (23) from 1907 to 1909 (24) to the Antarctic (25), where he originally intended to only stay for the duration of the ship’s presence in the first summer. Instead, both he and his mentor, Edgeworth David (26), stayed an extra year in the frozen south. As a result, and alongside Allistair Mackay (27), they became the first men to climb the summit of Mount Erebus (28), Antarctica’s most active volcano (29), and to trek to the South Magnetic Pole (30), which at the time was overland (31).

The team managed to get within 180 kilometres (32) of the South Pole (33), reaching a latitude of 88 degrees south (34), which at the time was the closest any human being had ever gotten to the South Pole. During this trip, Mawson sharpened his Antarctic exploring skills (35) and carried out extensive geological (36), zoological (37), and meteorological (38) work.

In 1910 (39), Mawson was invited to join Robert Falcon Scott’s Terra Nova expedition (40) to Antarctica, which had the intention of finally being the first team to reach the South Pole. However, Mawson had other ideas in mind (41).

He was hoping to launch his own expedition in the near future. However, Australian geologist, Griffith Taylor (42), jumped on the opportunity and joined the Terra Nova Expedition (43) in Mawson’s place, a choice that would prove fortunate for Mawson and fatal for Taylor when Scott and his entire Terra Nova team died on their return journey after successfully reaching the South Pole.

Mawson ended up leading his own expedition, the Australasian Antarctic expedition (44), to King George V Land (45) and Adelie Land (46), the sector of the Antarctic continent immediately south of Australia, which until then had remained almost entirely unexplored.

The objectives were to carry out geographical exploration (47) and scientific studies, including a visit to the South Magnetic Pole. Mawson raised the necessary funds (48) within only 12 months from both the British and the Australian governments, as well as from commercial backers (49) interested in mining and whaling.

The expedition, using the ship S.Y. Aurora (50), commanded by Captain John King Davis (51), departed from Hobart (52) on the 2nd of December 1911 (53) and landed at Cape Denison (54), at Commonwealth Bay (55), on the 8th of January in 1912 (56), where the main base was established.

A second camp was located to the west, on the ice shelf (57) in Queen Mary Land (58). Cape Denison proved to be an inhospitable (59) and unrelentingly windy (60) place, where the average annual wind speed was up to 80 kilometres an hour (61) with some winds reaching up to 320 kilometres per hour (62).

Mawson and his team built a hut, which in the future would come to be known as ‘Mawson’s Hut’ (63), on the Rocky Cape and managed to winter through nearly constant blizzards in the first year.

Mawson’s exploration program was carried out by five parties from the Main Base and two from the Western Base. Mawson himself was part of a three-man sledging team (64), The Far Eastern Party (65), with Xavier Mertz (66) and Lieutenant Belgrave Ninnis (67), who travelled east on the 10th of November 1912 (68) with the aim of surveying King George V Land.

After five weeks of exceptional progress mapping the coastline and collecting geological samples (69), the party found itself crossing the Ninnis Glacier (70), 480 kilometres east of the Main Base. Mertz was skiing along in front and Mawson was on his sled with his weight dispersed, but Ninnis was jogging beside the second sled, and due to his body weight on the ice, Ninnis suddenly fell through a crevasse (71) when he breached the snow bridge (72) that was covering it. Along with Ninnis, the massive crevasse swallowed up the six best dogs on the team, most of the party’s rations, their tent, and other essential supplies (73).

Mertz and Mawson were spared, and from the mouth of the icy ravine, they spotted one dead and one injured dog on a ledge 165 feet below them (74). However, Ninnis was never seen again.

After a brief service, Mawson and Mertz turned back (75) immediately. They had one week’s provisions for the two of them, plenty of fuel and primus (76) (a small portable stove), but no dog food for the remaining dogs. They sledged for 27 hours continuously (77) to obtain a spare tent cover that they had left behind, for which they improvised (78) a frame from skis and some surveying equipment.

Their provisions dwindling, they were faced with the unpleasant but unavoidable option of using their remaining sled dogs to feed the other dogs as well as themselves. Mawson later wrote:

“Their meat was stringy, tough and without a vestige (79) of fat. For a change, we sometimes chopped it up, finely mixed it with a little pemmican (80), and brought all to a boil (81) in a large pot of water. We were exceedingly hungry, but there was nothing to satisfy our appetites (82). Only a few ounces were used of the stock of ordinary food, to which we added a portion of dog’s meat, never large, for each animal yielded so very little and the major part was fed to the surviving dogs. They crunched the bones (83) and ate the skin until nothing remained.”

The men’s physical condition (84) rapidly deteriorated during this journey. Both men experienced symptoms of dizziness (85), nausea (86), abdominal pain (87), irrationality (88), mucosal fissuring (89), skin, hair, and nail loss (90), and even yellowing of the eyes and skin (91).

Later, Mawson noticed a dramatic change in his travelling companion. Mertz seemed to lose all will to move and only wanted to stay in his sleeping bag, as his deterioration sped up (92), and he suffered from diarrhea (93) and madness (94). It got to such a point that on one occasion (95), Mertz refused to believe he was suffering from frostbite and bit off the tip of his own little finger. Soon after, Mertz began to enter fits of violent rage (96) and Mawson was forced to sit on his companion’s chest and hold his arms down to prevent him from damaging their tent.

Mertz suffered further seizures (97) before falling into a coma and tragically dying on the 8th of January in 1913 (98). At the time (99), Mawson had no idea what was the cause of their sickness. What ultimately proved to be the culprit was the husky liver (100) they’d been eating, which contains extremely high levels of vitamin A (101). Unknown to them at the time, such levels of vitamin A can cause liver damage to humans, and together the men had consumed six dogs between them, with a liver on average weighing a kilogram. Thus, it’s believed the pair ingested enough liver to bring on a condition known as Hypervitaminosis A (102).

Mertz likely suffered more because he found the tough muscle tissue hard to eat and, therefore, ate more of the liver than Mawson. The sole survivor (103) Mawson continued the final 160 kilometres (104). During this return trip to the Main Base, he was confronted with (105) the same fate of Ninnis when he fell through the lid of an icy crevasse and was only saved by the skin of his teeth (106) when his sled wedged (107) itself into the ice above him. He managed to climb out (108) using the harness (109) that connected him to the sled.

When Mawson finally made it back to Cape Denison (110), it turned out he only just missed the ship Aurora (111), which had departed (112) a mere few hours earlier. It was recalled by wireless communication, however, due to bad weather, the rescue effort was thwarted (113) and the boat was prevented from turning back. Mawson and six men who had remained behind to look for him, wintered a second year in Antarctica until December 1913.

Unlike fellow explorers of the era, Scott and Shackleton (114), Mawson’s life wasn’t destined to be extinguished on the vast frozen southern continent. Once home and recuperating (115), he got to work writing his account of the expedition in his book ‘Home of the Blizzard’ (116), profusely illustrated by the magnificent photographs of Frank Hurley (117). The book is a classic of polar literature and described the first major scientific exploring venture by Australians beyond their shores. His party and those at the Western Base had explored large areas of the Antarctic coast, describing its geology (118), biology (119), and meteorology (120), and more closely defining the location of the South Magnetic Pole.

On his return to Australia (121) in 1914 (122), Mawson received public acclaim for his achievements and even received a knighthood (123). In 1915 (124), he received numerous awards for his accolades (125) and later went on to serve in World War I (126). He became a professor of geology (127) and mineralogy (128) at Adelaide University (129), and also pursued his interests in conservation farming (130) and forestry (131) until the day he died on the 14th of October, 1958 (132), at the ripe old age (133) of 76.

By leading Australia’s first Antarctic Research Expedition, Mawson became an internationally acclaimed scientist (134) and explorer, firmly etched into (135) the legend of Australia.