Into the Antarctic: the remarkable Sir Douglas Mawson

At the South Australian Museum is the permanent exhibit called The Mawson Gallery, which focuses on the achievements of Sir Douglas Mawson. Mawson travelled to the Antarctic Region – known as the South Pole – and extensively explored its flora and fauna. His legacy is the scientific knowledge of the Antarctic Region.

The Mawson Gallery contains many of Mawson’s personal belongings – such as his sled, scientific tools, boots, camel-hair sleeping bag, mittens, and balaclavas – as well as other artefacts and specimens. There are also specimens of letters, papers, photographs, and a model hut where Mawson and his team lived while in the Antarctic. Mawson’s half sled and knife, which are on display in The Mawson Gallery, were included in the BankSA Heritage Icons list in 2005.

Mawson first went the Antarctic with the British Antarctic Expedition in 1907-09 led by Ernest Shackleton. Mawson returned to lead the Australasian Antarctic Expedition (1911-14) to King George V Land and Adelie Land in December 1911.

Mawson landed in Cape Denison in January 1912 and established the main base. Winds ranged from 50-200 mph with almost constant blizzards. Following the death of his two companions during a surveying expedition – Lieutenant Belgrave Edward Sutton Ninnes in December 1912 and Xavier Mertz in January 1913 – and finding himself alone and in a seriously depleted physical state, Mawson used his knife to saw his sled in half to lighten his load. He then dragged the sled with geological specimens, but minimal food, 160 km back to the base at Cape Denison. The ship, Aurora, had left Cape Denison only hours before he returned on February 1, 1913, so Mawson and six men had to stay until December when the next ship could take him off the Antarctic.

He did return for another expedition in 1929-31. He is buried at the cemetery of Saint Jude’s Anglican Church in Brighton, near Adelaide in South Australia.

Mawson was also the Chair of the South Australian Museum Board from 1951 to 1958.

http://www.samuseum.sa.gov.au

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