10th Anniversary Scott Base Celebrations

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31261, 6 January 1967, Page 1

10th Anniversary Scott Base Celebrations

“The Press'* Special Service WELLINGTON, January 5. Ten years of science and exploration in Antarctica will be celebrated by, New Zealanders at Scott Base next week. Wednesday will mark the tenth anniversary of the day the first Ross Dependency post office was opened and on Friday the anniversary of the first flight by a Royal New

Zealand Air Force Beaver aircraft will be commemorated. Then the next Sunday, the official opening of Scott Base in 1957 by the dependency administrator, Captain H. Ruegg, will be re-enacted, and all concerned will sit down to an anniversary dinner. The base was originally intended to house the polar teams led by Sir Vivian Fuchs and Sir Edmund Hillary in 1957-58, and the scientific staff of the International Geophysical Year.

It has now become a permanent base and houses at present about 40 New Zealanders, with .15 more usually engaged on field trips. Many of the men are scientists, but the base has its own team of carpenters, electricians and other tradesmen.

One of the major achievements of the base has been the mapping of 180,000 square miles of the Ross Dependency, including the Ross ice shelf. Mr J. H. Miller, a Wellington surveyor who played a leading part in setting up the base, will return next week with the head of the Antarctic Division of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, Mr R. B. Thomson. The celebrations will last about a week.