Discovering the unknown continent - Antarctica: Global Science from a Frozen Continent - page 14

Figure 1.12 Grytviken, the first whaling station established on South Georgia photographed

around 1920. (Credit: R. I. Lewis Smith)

expeditions World War I severely limited
international interest in the Antarctic. It was during the war that Ernest
Shackleton

After the flush of ' Heroic Age '

s ship the Endurance sank in the Weddell Sea at the start of his
expedition to cross the continent. He and his companions made the heroic boat
journey in the James Caird from Elephant Island to South Georgia in order to

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find help to rescue the crew, providing one of the most adventurous tales of
Antarctic survival and an adventure that several groups have tried to repeat
since. Interestingly, it was at South Georgia that Shackleton finally died in 1923.

Sailing south on the Quest , he had a heart attack whilst the ship was anchored
at Grytviken and was buried on the island.
National interest was, however, still alive in some quarters. The British
Government had decided in 1919 20 to aim for control over the whole

continent through a gradual process of annexation. In 1923 the Ross Dependency
was claimed followed in 1933 by Australian Antarctic Territory, with the BANZARE
Expedition of 1929

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31 led by Douglas Mawson as preparation for this. Indeed, during
a meeting in 1926 the Cabinet discussed the possibility of declaring the whole of
Antarctica British, but decided against it as by then the French had laid claim to
Adélie Land and the United States had begun its explorations with Lincoln
Ellsworth and Richard Byrd. Norway had already expressed concerns that British
claims encroached on areas discovered by Norwegians but did nothing about this
until 1939 when, hearing that the German Schwabenland expedition had set off
for

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' their area ' of the continent, the Norwegian Government finally claimed

Dronning Maud Land.
In 1924 the United States Government applied the so-called ' Hughes doctrine '

to Antarctic claims, which required effective occupation of an area before the
United States would recognise the claim. The British activities did not meet this
strict de nition and thus the United States refused to recognise British claims as

legal, a source of considerable irritation between London and Washington. The
vacillations of the American government over whether or not it would make its own
claim continued for many decades, despite claims being made in its name by Byrd.