Antarctic Transport Over 70 Years

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32286, 2 May 1970, Page 17

Antarctic Transport Over 70 Years

(Contributed by the Canterbury Museum)

Like every area of our globe, the Antarctic region has seen rapid changes in the mode of surface travel. In the 70 years of its exploration transport has progressed from primitive man-hauling to the highly sophisticated machines of today.

The story began in 1899 when Carstens Borchgrevink landed from his ship Southern Cross 90 Samoyed and Greenland dogs to undertake the first exploration of the area around Cape Adare. After the completion of this historic expedition the dogs were landed on Native island in Patterson’s Inlet. Stewart Island, where most were shot but some white samoyed were kept for breeding. Captain R. F. Scott then fame on the scene in 1901 Tdien he took to Hutt Point, in the Discovery, 23 dogs which proved a little difficult to handle and after much bad luck were responsible for Scott’s reluctance to rely completely on animals on his next expedition. Ernest Shackleton in 1907 showed the first real initiative when he took with him in the little Nimrod, one ArroiJohnson motor-ear as well as 10 Manchurian ponies and nine dogs, some in pup, and all descendants of Borchgrevink’s Stewart Island animals. f The ponies and the dogs assisted Shackleton and his party in their bid for the South Pole. Just 97 miles short of their goal they turned back, but the car was less of a success. Steering Trouble This vehicle was of 12-15 h.p. and fitted with a specially designed air cooling system and was four cylinder with a magneto ignition. The carburettor was pre-heated by leading the exhaust around the jacket and* in the process provided a foot wanner.

The front wheels were placed on skis and it was in the steering that the car failed to function very well, and was not of any great use to the expedition. Sir Ernest Shackleton showed great vision in introducing the mechanical age and although his own first efforts to take the hard work out of polar travel were not very impressive he can truly be called the father of modern Antarctic exploration. Captain Scott returned in 1911 aboard the Terra Nova and he brought with him 33 dogs, 15 ponies and three motor tractors to be augumented the following year by seven Indian mules and 14 dogs. The Wolseley 14 h.p. tractors were simply a motor mounted between two, directly driven tracks and

could only be steered by pulling them around by means of ropes. They are claimed as the forerunners of the modern Army tank but for Scott they did not quite measure up. He lost one through the ice on landing at Cape Evans. The other two had mechanical trouble on the great southern journey and were abandoned on the Ross Ice Shelf. Shackleton’s Trans • Antarctic Expedition’s Ross Sea Party in 1914 brought to Cape Evans a primitive tractor which was of little value and is now housed in the Dominion Museum. It is shortly to be presented to the Canterbury Museums Antarctic Department

Mechanical Trouble

All these expeditions had Ito resort to man hauling to achieve their objectives, but with the arrival of RearAdmiral Byrd on the first of his four expeditions in 1928 the' first of the reliable tracked snow-machines were introduced to the area.

Steady progress in mechani-! cal travel of the years has brought to the ice such I vehicles as Weasels, Snow-1 cats, Nodwells and many | others which have earned the i respect of polar explorers,' but it was in three simple Ferguson farm tractors that Sir Edmund Hillary first reached the South Pole in 1958, being the first party to arrive there overland since Captain Scott The use of dogs today is very limited, their place being taken by motor toboggans which are proving extremely efficient An early example of a Polaris 1 toboggan was recently pre-. sented to the museum by the United States Antarctic Research Programme.

This machine can be seen in the Gloucester Street window of David Croziers Ltd. I wonder what Scott and Shackleton would have achieved with such means of hauling. They were the true trail blazers who introduced the age of mechanisation but never truly mastered it— B.N.