South Pole expedition postponed a year

Press, 20 September 1985, Page 5

South Pole expedition postponed a year

This summer’s joint Brit-ish-Norwegian expedition to the South Pole, 90 Degrees South, has been postponed a year because of health and transportation problems. An expedition member, Dr Neil Mclntyre, said from Surrey last evening that the expedition had been postponed because he had glandular fever; the expedition leader, Dr Monica Kristensen, has been involved in a car accident; and because of difficulties in arranging transport for the expedition from New Zealand to Antarctica. The 90 Degrees South expedition hoped to recreate the historic first journey to the South Pole by Amundsen in 1911. The expedition had planned to leave the Bay of Whales, on the Ross Ice Shelf, with two dog teams.

Dr Mclntyre said the members would now have to go through the process of stopping all the momentum that had built up in preparation for the expedition. They would approach sponsors with a view to getting offers of assistance postponed also. “Then we have to make a fair number of modifications to our plans. On the scientific side, there will be a certain amount of refinement, and we will also continue discussions for air transport,” Dr Mclntyre said. “We will go back to all the parties we had been to before. There has been no impasse with any particular party. “We will go back to the National Science Foundation (of the United States) and just backtrack a little.

We would be interested to hold more discussions with the Antarctic Division of the D.5.1.R.,” Dr Mclntyre said.

He said he had heard that the director of the Antarctic Division, Mr Bob Thomson, would be in Brussels next month for Antarctic talks, and the expedition members would try to hold discussions with him there. The British Antarctic Survey would also be approached again for help. Dr Mclntyre said the postponement was “a little bit of a bitter pill” but it did mean that it would be that much better organised when it did leave. “It might well benefit from being postponed. It is something that we have been working at for three years in one way or another. To suddenly find yourself 12 months from the deadline is not an easy thing to take,” he said.