Ross Sea huts need to be restored

Press, 3 December 1987, Page 43

Ross Sea huts need to be restored

PA Wellington Decisions should be taken urgently on preservation of historic huts in the Ross Sea area, says the director-general of the Department of Conservation, Dr Alan Edmonds. Dr Edmonds has just returned from the Antarctic where he visited the huts as well as Greenpeace base camp at Cape Evans. The department was keen to do whatever it could to ensure restoration of the huts, he said. In April the Government announced plans to preserve the huts used by Antarctic explorers Carsten Borchgrevink (Cape Adare, 1899), Robert Falcon Scott (Hut Point, 1902, and Cape Evans, 1912), and Ernest Shackleton (Cape Royd, 1908). Dr Edmonds said visiting the Cape Evans hut was “like going back into a black and white film.” It was a “most extraordinary place,” gloomy and stained with soot, he said. The hut was replete with clothing, sleeping bags, beds, plates, other equipment and food.

While the huts were generally in good condition, the fabric of some buildings needed repair and some windows needed replacing.

Decisions were needed on how the huts were to be preserved, and it was important that repairs be done in a way which did not "insult the nature of the buildings.”