Douglas Mawson

Sir Douglas Mawson was an Australian scientist and explorer. Born in Yorkshire, England in 1882, he was always a high achiever earning himself a bachelor’s degree in mining engineering and even a doctorate in science, but his true love was with exploring, and nowhere fascinated him more than Antarctica.

In 1910 Mawson turned down an offer to join the Terra Nova Expedition led by Robert Falcon Scott and instead decided to launch his own expedition into King George V land and Adelie land, areas of the Antarctic directly south of the continent of Australia which at the time were completely unexplored.

His expedition was known as the Australasian Antarctic Expedition and after a short funding period managed to gather the resources for 8 small teams who would conduct geographical surveys and scientific experiments within different areas of the region.

The expedition set up 3 bases and sent out 5 groups from the main base, 2 groups from the western base, and one from its eastern base, which was the group that included Mawson and 2 others named Xavier Mertz and Lieutenant Belgrave Ninnis.

The team headed east on the 10th of November, 1912 to survey an area of King George V land. 5 weeks went by relatively well, with a huge amount of the coastline being mapped and no accidents, however, they soon came to the Ninnis Glacier, a total of 480km east of their main base.

(Mawson and his team before setting off)

When crossing the glacier Mawson and Mertz were on their sleds but Ninnis was jogging beside the second sled and suddenly fell through a snow bridge. 6 of the dogs, their tent, and most of their food supplies were also dragged into the hole. Mawson and Mertz could only watch as they looked down the seemingly bottomless abyss that had just swallowed their friend up and reported being able to see a couple of the dogs on a ledge more than 150 feet down, but Ninnis was never seen again and remains there to this day. After the expedition, Douglas Mawson named the glacier in Honor of their lost friend.

After their loss, they decided they should turn back immediately and return to a location where they had left behind a spare tent cover, but at this point, they only had a week of food for themselves and nothing for the dogs. They ended up having to kill some of the dogs for food for the others, the quote below is from Mawson about the consumption of dog meat.

“Their meat was stringy, tough and without a vestige of fat. For a change we sometimes chopped it up finely, mixed it with a little pemmican, and brought all to the boil in a large pot of water. We were exceedingly hungry, but there was nothing to satisfy our appetites. Only a few ounces were used of the stock of ordinary food, to which was 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 and ate the skin, until nothing remained.”

By the time the two were 100 miles away from their base, their health had deteriorated to a point that Mertz could not go any further. Both men were suffering greatly but Mertz was in a much worse state. It was not known at the time but too much vitamin A can damage someone’s stomach and liver, and Mawson recalls how Mertz preferred to eat their dog’s livers instead of the meat as he found it too tough. Husky liver contains a dangerously high amount of Vitamin A which causes a condition called Hypervitaminosis A.

Mertz died at their last stop 100 miles from base, and after he died Mawson set off alone, through the horrors and beauty of the continent with only a third of the food he needed to complete the journey.

When he was close to rescue his worst fear came true and he too stepped on a snow bridge and fell through to the abyss below. Fortunately for Mawson the weight of his sled on the snow above was enough to stop it being dragged in and so he was able to climb back up on the harness attaching him to it. Having come within inches of dying he continued his journey and finally made it back to Cape Denison where he hoped their ship, the Aurora would be waiting for him only to find it had departed a matter of hours prior to his arrival believing him dead.

Mawson and 6 other men who had stayed to look for him were forced to remain at their frozen base until the following winter when they could be rescued, and in December of 1913 rescue finally arrived.

Douglas Mawson wrote a book about his adventure after getting back to Australia and was awarded the “Founders Gold Medal” by the Royal Geographical Society in 1915 and the “David Livingstone Centenary Medal” by the American Geographical Society in 1916 for his surveying work of the continent.