MUSEUM PIECES Belgians made impact in Antarctica

Press, 3 December 1987, Page 17

MUSEUM PIECES Belgians made impact in Antarctica

Not known as well as it should be, the role played by Belgium in furthering exploration and research in the Antarctic is considerable. The Belgian choice of an area of Antarctica for their activities on the opposite side to the Ross Sea area familiar to New Zealanders is a reason for that lack of knowledge. The visit this week of King Baudouin and Queen Fabiola to the Canterbury Museum and the Antarctic wing serves to focus public attention on the polar past of this modest European kingdom. During 1895 at the sixth international Geographical Congress in London the world’s foremost geographers resolved that the exploration of the Antarctic was the most pressing requirement. All nations were urged through their Governments to mount expeditions to examine the nature and extent of the Antarctic. Great Britain and Germany were the only countries whose governments responded, and * then only after four privately sponsored expeditions had entered the field, the first of which was from Belgium. Led by a naval officer, Lieutenant Adrien de Gerlache de Gomery, the Belgian expedition was designed to be as international as possible. The Norwegian-built steam sealer Patria, of 244 tons, was purchased with money from private sources in Belgium. Renamed Belgica she was destined to leave her name on several features of the area then known as Graham Land and now referred to as the Antarctic Peninsula.

De Gerlache assembled a truly international group of scientists many of whom were destined for tame in a variety #f fields. All are commemorated in place

names m the peninsula region. Lieutenant Lecointe as cartographer and the magnetician E. Danco carried the flag for Belgium, while Henryk Arctowski and Antoine Dobrowoloski, from Russia, carried out meteorological and geological duties. A Rumanian, Emile Racovitza, was the naturalist, and Frederick Cook, both surgeon and photographer, was from the United States. The chief officer of the Belgica was a young Norwegian seaman, Roald Amundsen.

Leaving European waters in 1897 the expedition sailed across the Atlantic and down the South American coast, across the Drake Passage, and into the uncharted waters of Palmer Land. They discovered a deep open channel between the mainland and a group of large islands which they called the Belgica Channel. This is known as Gerlache Passage and, as one who has sailed through it, I can vouch that its beauty is unmatched anywhere in the Antarctic. The islands were named after Belgian towns, Liege, Brabant, Gand and Anver being some. Anver on which the United States station of Palmer now stands is more than a thousand square miles in size.

Before the end of summer the little ship was beset by ice and remained firmly held in its grip for 13 months during which it travelled many miles in a circular movement and always out of sight of land. The coming of winter was not viewed with any joy from the members of the expedition, and their hardships and deprivations match anything experienced by later and better recorded expeditions. Food was limited and there was little to ward off the dreaded scurvy. When the magnetician, Danco, died in June be was buried with due ceremonpfthrough a hole cut in the ice, the first Belgian to die

in Antarctica and possibly the only one. The Danco coast is named in his . honour. Struggles through the long winter nights established strong bonds and none was more firmly forged than that between Amundsen and Dr Cook. Later this was to be put squarely to the test. The return of the sun caused a rise in spirits and Cook records the event “For minutes my companions did not speak, indeed we could not at that time have found words with which to express the buoyant feeling of relief and emotion of the new life which was sent coursing through our arteries by the hammerlike beats of our enfeebled hearts.” They had made history, having spent the first winter in the Antarctic recorded by man. Their records aljd information proved of great wlue to subsequent expeditions.

The ship left Antarctic waters after being trapped for 13 months. Her bows turned northwards carrying among her crew the destined conqueror of the South Pole, Amundsen, and the claimant ahead of Peary of the North Pole. Dr Cook’s claim to have beaten Peary was not accepted by the world but was by Amundsen who stuck by his friend. He was to pay dearly for that loyalty. Cook harboured a puissant imagination and it seems that the great and trusting Norwegian was misled. So ended Belgium’s first Antarctic venture. New names had been added to the map and man’s knowledge of the continent greatly improved. One of the original 12 nations to sign the Antarctic Treaty, Belgium sent in 1957 an expedition led by de Gerlache’s son, Gaston, to East Antarctica where

a station was set up on the Princess Raghild Coast. Named after the monarch, Roi Baudouin, this base operated until 1961 When it was abandoned. A year later a joint Dutch-Belgian team ■ remanned it for the season and then it was finally closed. Belgium has maintained a strong influence on events in Antarctica through international forums to a degree that surprises many. Therefore the royal visit bestowed not only an honour on the museum, but it also allowed us to share the polar experience with the first citizen of a country that helped shape the history of the southern ice regions. The museum’s archives hold very little from the expeditions of Belgium, but a fine collection of photographs of the Belgica trapped in ice and taken by Dr Frederick Cook are among our treasured collections. I

BY

BADEN NORRIS