Wooden boats, Iron men

It was 100 years ago today that Australian scientist and explorer Sir Douglas Mawson set sail from Hobart to begin an expedition that would ultimately claim the lives of both of his companions but in so doing secure his place in the annals of Antarctic exploration. On the same day in December 1911, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen was just 12 days away from reaching the South Pole, while his adversary Scott toiled across the Ross Ice Shelf on a fateful journey in which he and all his men would perish.

Mawson’s own epic survival journey featured starvation, blizzards, debilitating cold, and ultimately, following the consumption of the sled dogs, the death of his remaining companion.  Alone, Mawson then faced ferocious winds, near-fatal crevasse falls, and terrible debilitation, all compounded by the loneliness and danger of solo travel. When he finally stumbled through the door of the hut weeks later against all the odds, his men asked, ‘Which one are you?’ his physical state rendering him unrecognisable.

Tim Jarvis on expedition recreating Mawson's journey, 2007

As I finalise plans to retrace the journey of Ernest Shackleton in 2013, it’s apparent how Mawson went on to achieve greater things in the fields of science and exploration than many of his more famous contemporaries. For this I hope he gets the international recognition he deserves and that my journey to retrace Mawson’s in 2007 played some small part in this.

Surely they had Mawson in mind when they coined the phrase that sums up the heroic era they travelled in wooden boats but they were iron men.