Ice Coffee: the history of human activity in Antarctica

Flying in the Arctic posed a dodgy prospect but faint heart never ended up dead on a tundra. 

With aircraft offering opportunities to keep the feet dry and singalling a possible end to the miseries of sledging in all its forms, key players were keen to get flying. Efforts in the north require some attention as the experiences in the Arctic shaped the approach those key players took when they brought flying machines south.

Sir Ernest makes his final alive foray to South Georgia before making two further Atlantic voyages while dead. 

With Sir Hubert Wilkins set to take a prominent role in several episodes I sat down for coffee and a chat with Jeff Maynard, who knows more about Australia's forgotten polar explorer than I know about most of my family.

Boom! Two episodes in quick succession. Weren't expecting that, were you? I was too excited about sharing the story of Lester and Bagshawe to wait a month to get this out and so trebled the five buck monthly outlay on the hosting service to service my need to let you know about the two and the dogs.  The most disarmingly charming chapter in Antarctic history.  Enjoy.

Many Antarctic veterans served in the First World War.  This episode I outline the military service of several of those veterans who will make return appearances in the south. The Great War also affected the political landscape of Antarctica and that gets some attention, too. How long's it been since I published a short episode? You'll be halfway through some task or errand and you'll hear me maki...

The various parties of the ITAE come in out of the cold and most of them immediately head off to war. 

Frank Worsley knocks it out of the park, navigating across eight hundred nautical miles of open ocean with four sextant shots.  Tom Crean breaks through thin ice for the final time in our saga. Shackleton tries to get back to Elephant Island and the fourth time's the charm.

The Endurance sinks.  Plans form, change, re-form, change again, get discarded, get reinstated and re-form after changing.  Hoosh is the only constant.

Sir Ernest Shackleton returns to Antarctica, this time in the Weddell Sea, where the two preceding voyages got stuck.  Guess what happens.  Go on, guess.

Present day geologists offer their perspectives on the Antarctic Peninsula and I record lots of the bow pushing through loose pack because it's mesmerising.

The Ross Ice Barrier claims its final victim of the Heroic Age as Joyce, Richards and Wild struggle to get the depot party back to safety, then McMurdo Sound takes two more lives when a gamble on the weather goes against Mackintosh and Hayward.

Shackleton's depot laying party head to the Ross Sea and fight to get food and fuel to the foot of the Beardmore.  Part one of a two parter recounting one of the most harrowing chapters to arise in the heroic era.

Hubert Wilkins makes his first appearance in the Ice Coffee narrative, albeit as a supporting character in someone else's nightmare in the Arctic, and I give you the good oil on sticking to tablets and behavioural responses to motion mediated nausea.  The first episode recorded in Antarctica.  Muy excitamento.  Many spanglish. 

I've got a few tidbits left to add about the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, and Mawson will be back in the narrative before you know it, but this ties up some loose ends and resolves the cliff hanger from the end of episode 050.

The Cape Denison denizens get their science on and prepare for the spring sledging carnival. The brown stuff gets closer to the whizzy-bladey thing.

Douglas Mawson gets a lot done in just twelve months.

I've been offered work in Antarctica and urgently need to renew some certs and get my teeth fixed and get a seafarer's medical and plane tickets and some coffee. If you've paid all your bills and put some money aside for a rainy day and donated to some charities and had your fill of the caviar and lobster, please consider flicking a few bucks my way.  Music, soundscapes and broad horizons lie in t...

Prussian Army lieutenant Wilhelm Filchner led Germany's second expedition in the early 20th century.  While the government stayed largely hands off the expedition committee put their oar in enough to see der Deutschland sail under a syphilitic commander whose antics placed everyone's lives in danger and gave us a really good example of the sort of problems split leadership can cause in a high lati...

In April 2017 I reprised my take on William Speirs Bruce's role in our present day understanding of Antarctica at the Spotted Mallard.  The audience were teh awesomes so I let them eat cake.

Dogs make all the difference in getting to the South Pole and back.  With Amundsen's triumph, no-one would ever bother going to the Pole agai... Hey. Wait. Why are people still heading overland to the pole? Have they not heard of aircraft? Do they not heed the reports that the pole is cold and that the view is boring? Turns out being first at the pole was only the first in a long string of polar f...

Roald Amundsen returns to the narrative and takes pole position, showing the world what you can achieve if you don't give a stuff about science or people. 

What's this? Three episodes in quick succession? Blame the hosting service download counter.  I'm now obsessed with topping last month's total downloads.  This was easy when I only had two and a dog listening but now I have to release more episodes to scratch that itch.  Expect shorter and shorter episodes until I'm editing single words and releasing them. Anyhoo, this one explains some clothing t...

Japan comes in out of the cold and heads back out into the cold again. Nobu Shirase - an explorer of honour and determination, now available in ship form.