Antarctic History

Map of Antarctica

Discovery

• 1773 - Captain Cook - his wooden ship could not penetrate the ice ring.

• 1822 - James Weddell (Sealing)• 1830 - Whalers came• 1911 - Roald Amundsen reaches South Pole• 1915 - Shackleton stuck in ice• 1959 – Antarctic Treaty

Captain James Cook (1772 -1775)

• November 1774 Cook across the south Pacific and arrived five weeks later at Tierra del Fuego. He then sailed in a northeasterly direction into the Atlantic. Unexpectedly, they sighted land and immediately thought they had finally found the southern continent (Antarctica) but instead it was an island, covered in ice, which he named South Georgia. Although his intentions were to continue to England. At the end of January he sighted a group of islands even more desolate than South Georgia. These he named the South Sandwich Islands

Sealing Period (~1780 - 1892)

• Antarctic fur seals were almost totally wiped out at many locations by 1830 leading to a decline in the sealing industry although it continued on a smaller scale well into the 20th century.

Heroic Age (~1893 - 1918)

The Race to South PoleThe BelgicaThe Discovery

Amundsen’s South Pole

Roald Amundsen

• Race with Scott• Dogs instead of horses

and motorized sleds• Ate dogs as supply

sleds didn’t need them• Reached Pole on

December 16, 1911• Placed the flag of

Norway

Robert Scott

• Race with Amundsen• Took Siberian horses• Motorized sleds

quickly broke down• Refused to eat dogs• Horses died• Men had to pull• Pole January 17,

1912• All men died on return

Sir Ernest Shackleton

Endurance departed from South Georgia for the Weddell Sea on 5 December 1914. On 19 January 1915, Endurance became frozen fast in an ice floe. On 24 February, realizing that she would be trapped until the following spring, Shackleton ordered her conversion to a winter station. She drifted slowly northward with the ice for months. When spring arrived in September the ship was crushed by the ice. Shackleton and his men eventually traveled by wooden life boat to Elephant Island. From there, Shackleton used a single life boat to navigate to South Georgia Island. A rescue ship was sent for the remaining sailors. No lives were lost.

Whaling Period (~1904 - 1946)• Antarctic whaling began on a large scale in 1904

with the building of a whale processing station at Grytviken, South Georgia.

•  In 1925, the first "factory ships" were built so that whaling could take place entirely at sea.

• The International Whaling Commission (IWC) was set up in 1946 to "regulate the orderly development of the whaling industry".

Permanent Stations (~1944 - 1958)

A total of 30 countries (as of October 2006), all signatory to the Antarctic Treaty, operate seasonal (summer) and year-round research stations on the continent and in its surrounding oceans.

Treaty Period (1959 – Present)

• The original signatories were the countries active in Antarctica during the (IGY) of 1957-58 The twelve countries had significant scientific interests in Antarctica at the time were Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Chile, France, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States.