| Description |
160 pages : illustrations (some color), portraits ; 26 cm |
| Contents |
Includes index |
| Summary |
"Douglas Mawson was Australia's greatest Antarctic explorer. Virtually alone among his contemporaries, he saw the strategic importance of the Antarctic continent to Australia, and its potential marine and mineral wealth. He was not interested in racing to the pole like Amundsen and Scott - he wanted to chart, measure and record. His explorations were to lay the foundations for Australia's current claim to forty per cent of the continent. He did not seek fame, but found it on a journey that began as a routine search for facts and turned into an epic struggle for survival. Douglas Mawson was a young man of 29 at the time of that journey and was on his second Antarctic expedition. His first voyage south was in 1907 with Ernest Shackleton. Then Mawson was a member of the first party to reach the South Magnetic Pole. On his second voyage south Mawson was leader of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition (A.A.E.). In the spring of 1912 he set off on a dog sledge journey with two companions. One fell down a crevasse with most of the supplies, and the other slowly died of vitamin A poisoning. Mawson surmounted inhuman odds to fight his way back. After thirty-one days of tortured travel he came within sight of the base just in time to see the relief ship that had come to pick up his party disappearing over the horizon. With the men who stayed behind to wait for him, Mawson had to live through a second Antarctic winter. His tale of courage and endurance was to make him a public hero, but to him the important result was that the expedition was counted a scientific success. Mawson was to return to the Antarctic in the summer of 1929 and again in 1931. He charted the coastline and claimed vast tracts of the continent for king and country. By that time he was Professor of Geology at the University of Adelaide and he pursued the theme that had fascinated him ever since his early trips as a young geologist to the Flinders Ranges. This theme was the geological link between the ancient sun-blasted mountains in South Australia and the frozen continent far south. This link pointed to a one time union of Australia and Antarctica. It was in the Flinders Ranges that we began our own voyage of discovery for a television documentary film produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) Natural History Unit to mark the centenary of Douglas Mawson's birth. The film was built around a reconstruction of the fateful sledging journey and interwoven with testimony from family, friends and colleagues. It sought to give a portrait of Mawson the man as well as Mawson the scientist. This book presents the essence of the Mawson story as it was told in the film. The truth of a man is elusive and can never be fully told. We hope we have achieved a portrait that is true to the spirit of Mawson who was unquestionably a great Australian." -- introduction, pages 7-8 |
| Analysis |
Antarctica. Discovery and exploration. Australian |
|
Explorers. Australia. Biography |
|
Mawson, Douglas, Sir, 1882-1958 |
| Notes |
Available from The Manager, Alella Books, RMB 4329, Morwell, Vic. 3840 |
|
From the ABC-TV Grand Prix winner Melbourne Film Festival 1983 |
|
Includes index |
|
Map on lining papers |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (page 158) and index |
| Subject |
Mawson, Douglas, 1882-1958.
|
|
Explorers -- Australia -- Biography.
|
| SUBJECT |
Antarctic Regions -- Discovery and exploration http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85005493 -- Australian
|
|
Antarctic Regions http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85005490 -- Australian exploration
|
|
Antarctic Regions -- Discovery and exploration.
http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85005493
|
| Genre/Form |
Biographies.
|
| Author |
Parer-Cook, Elizabeth, author
|
|
Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
|
| ISBN |
0949681016 |
|
9780949681010 |
|
