Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
remaining men were eventually rescued, without any loss of life. This remains one of the
'greatest escapes' from the Antarctic.
European- and North American-sponsored Antarctic exploration, after the hiatus caused by
the First World War, resumed with new interventions in ship-based, and more notably air-
based, discovery. For others such as Argentina, their personnel continued to occupy a
research station in the South Shetlands, and had done so continuously since 1904 after being
bequeathed the base by the Scots explorer William Bruce. By way of contrast, the British
invented a 'Discovery Committee' to explicitly strengthen imperial control over the
Antarctic via polar science.
Established in 1923, as a result of a recommendation by the Iq">C6tonter-Departmental
Committee on Research and Development for the Falkland Islands Dependencies (FID), the
committee was charged with two inter-related tasks. First, to provide accurate and up-to-
date maps and charts of the FID; and second, to assist the whaling industry with the
collection of information regarding stock size and meteorology so that it could manage
whaling rather than being primarily an aid to the whalers themselves. Given that whaling
licences were an invaluable source of income to the FID, it was in the interest of the British
government as well as the industry to ensure its longer-term sustainability. The net result
was to encourage a series of survey voyages designed to study the oceanography of the
Southern Ocean. During this period, the polar continent was circumnavigated, and extensive
mapping was carried out around the scattered islands of South Georgia, the South Orkneys,
and the South Shetlands. This was Britain's 'South Atlantic Empire'.
At the same time as the British authorities were generating information about British
Antarctic waters and their major inhabitant, the whale, there was also a co-ordinated, if
modestly funded, push to consolidate geographical discovery in other parts of the imperial
Antarctic. Science, exploration, and empire were again being brought together to invoke, on
the one hand, imperial authority and, on the other hand, a form of 'environmental authority',
which entailed British administrators managing the marine life of the Southern Ocean for
the benefit of humankind.
Flying over the Antarctic
While ships and sledges dominated the first hundred years of Antarctic exploration and
discovery, the introduction of the aeroplane (and later the helicopter) was significant. The
flight path began to supplement the sledge track. In November 1928, the Australian aviator
Hubert Wilkins introduced the aircraft into Antarctic Peninsula exploration. Armed with a
newspaper deal from William Randolph Hearst, Wilkins took a Lockheed Vega monoplane
