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Sir
Douglas Mawson is Australia's most famous Antarctic explorer.
His story reveals a man who gave his energy and almost his
life to explore and study the coldest place on earth.
Born in Yorkshire, England in 1882, Douglas was
just two when his family moved to Australia. For young
Douglas, the deserts and rugged coastline of this ancient
continent sparked a fascination for nature and a keenness
to learn how the earth was formed.
At school, he was a bright
student and was only 16 years old when he started at the
University of Sydney.
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He graduated
in Engineering and Science and got a job at the University
of Adelaide lecturing in petrology - the study of the origin
and structure of rocks. On field trips he took students
to the Flinders Ranges. These ranges were partly sculpted
by glaciers millions of years ago and he began to wonder about
the unexplored frozen land known as Antarctica where glaciers
still existed.
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.
This new frontier had Mawson in its spell and he knew he had
to return.
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 coastal area of Antarctica 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.
From their camp in Spring 1912 several parties of explorers
set out on foot.
Mawson took with him, Swiss scientist Dr. Xavier Mertz and
Lieutenant Belgrave Ninnis and a team of Greenland huskies
pulled their sleds. Film maker, David Parer, re-created
their journey in his film 'Douglas Mawson The Survivor'.
Mawson's party traveled east for over a thousand kilometers
mapping the coastline, collecting geological samples and discovering
huge glaciers. But despite their success the journey
proved tragic.
Fighting appalling weather and poor light, the trio had to
drag themselves and their supplies around crevasses and slippery
ice covered rock. 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.
In 1914 he married Paquita
Delprat the woman he often thought of throughout his Antarctic
ordeal. Mawson loved to have his family around him
and his two daughters came to know the qualities that made
him a great leader.
"He was always interested in anything we were doing...really
interested in promoting our activities without bossing us
around." (Patricia Thomas, Daughter)
In 1929 and 1931 Mawson headed two more voyages to the Antarctic.
This time concentrating on oceanography and marine biology.
They resulted in Australia claiming 42 percent of Antarctica
as Australian Territory - an area the size of Australia
without Queensland.
For the rest of his life Sir Douglas worked as Professor
of Geology at the University of Adelaide and was involved
in forestry, farming and the conservation of the unique
wildlife in our oceans.
He died in 1958 at the age of 76.
Sir Douglas Mawson's research has contributed to our knowledge
of the world... his life has taught us something about the
strength of the human spirit.
Courtesy of: Australian Broadcasting
Corp
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Learn
more...
Related Products
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Mawson
(CD-ROM) -
An exciting, pictorial account of
Sir Douglas Mawson and the Australasian Antarctic
Expedition. |
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Mawson's
Will -
The most outstanding solo journey
ever recorded in Antarctic history. The Australian
Antarctic Expedition in 1912-14. |
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