The incredible story of Australia's most famous polar
explorer and the giants from the heroic age of polar
exploration
Douglas Mawson, born in 1882 and knighted in 1914, was
Australia's greatest Antarctic explorer. This is the incredible
account of an expedition he led on December 2, 1911, from
Hobart, to explore the virgin frozen coastline below, 2000 miles of
which had never felt the tread of a human foot. After setting up
Main Base at Cape Denision and Western Base on Queen Mary Land, he
headed east on an extraordinary sledging trek with his companions,
Belgrave Ninnis and Dr Xavier Mertz. After five weeks, tragedy
struck—Ninnis was swallowed whole by a snow-covered crevasse, and
Mawson and Mertz realized it was too dangerous to go on. Dwindling
supplies forced them to kill their dogs to feed the other dogs, at
first, and then themselves. Hunger, sickness, and despair
eventually got the better of Ninnis, and he succumbed to madness
and then to death. Mawson found himself all alone, 160 miles from
safety, with next to no food. This staggering tale of his
survival, against all odds, also masterfully interweaves the
stories of the other giants from the heroic age of polar
exploration, to bring the jaw-dropping events of this bygone era
dazzlingly back to life.
