Antarctic Season Opening 2017

With temperatures that can fall to -60 degrees celsius, months without sunlight, and a desert landscape nearly devoid of moisture, the continent of Antarctica is perhaps the most desolate place on earth. Yet every September, foreign scientists and military personnel descend upon the city of Christchurch in preparation for their journey to this frozen landscape. In doing so they are continuing a tradition which is well over a century old.

Situated at a latitude of 43.5321 South, Christchurch is one of the five official world gateway cities for Antarctica. By the end of September, the first flights to the ice start to depart from Christchurch International Airport. The city marks this occasion with a series of programmes and events known as Antarctic Season Opening.

Passengers leaving Christchurch for McMurdo Station, Antarctica, on NZ LC130, 22 November 2005. Photo by Mike Rodgers, CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 NZ license.

Historic beginnings

Christchurch was first used as a port of call for scientific teams journeying to the Antarctic during the British National Antarctic Expedition (1901-1904), also known as the Discovery Expedition. Led by Robert Falcon Scott, the Discovery arrived in Lyttelton on 29 November 1901.

During his time in Christchurch, Scott was a guest at the Rhodes family home in Merivale, Te Koraha. To assist the expedition, a magnetic observatory was constructed in the Christchurch Botanic Gardens to allow the members to conduct magnetic surveys. Quail Island in Lyttelton Harbour was used to keep the expedition’s 23 Siberian dogs in quarrantine. The kennels where these dogs were housed have recently been restored.

Prior to his departure, Scott wrote a letter to the Town Clerk of Christchurch, thanking the people of Canterbury for their hospitality and the donation of sheep to his expedition. The city remained in the memory of the men during their time on the ice, with fish trap hole number 3, used by marine biologist Thomas Vere Hodgson to capture samples of marine life, being renamed “Christchurch”.

Ernest Shackleton, who had served on the Discovery Expedition, also made use of Lyttelton during his Nimrod Expedition (1907-1909). As with the previous journey, Quail Island acted as a quarantine station for the expedition’s dogs and Manchurian ponies.

The Nimrod leaving Lyttelton for the Antarctic, 1908. Mary Boyle, CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 NZ.

Historic footage shows the ponies being loaded on to the Nimrod against the backdrop of Lyttelton port. Departing from Lyttelton on New Year’s Day 1908, the Nimrod was towed to the Antarctic Circle by the Koonya which had been loaned by the New Zealand Government. Shackleton’s Whisky from this expedition was recently discovered in 2007 and thawed out in a temperature controlled room at the Canterbury Museum. On his return from the Antarctic, Shackleton donated money raised during one of his lectures to the foundation of the Christchurch Girls’ Training Hostel.

Robert Falcon Scott returned to Christchurch in October 1910 at the beginning of his ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition (1910-1913). Mules from the hill station of Simla in India were donated by the Indian government in 1911 and housed on Quail Island prior to the expedition’s departure. Following the death of Scott, a statue carved by his widow, Kathleen Scott, was shipped to New Zealand in 1916 and unveiled on 9 February 1917.

Later that month, on 24 February, after returning from his Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (1914-1917), Shackleton planted an oak on the grounds of Christchurch Girls’ Training Hostel.

International Geophysical Year 1957

In preparation for the International Geophysical Year (IGY) 1957 various nations prepared to send teams of scientists to the Antarctic. The cooperation of the nations would eventually lead to the establishment of the Antarctic Treaty of 1959.

New Zealand contributed to the IGY by playing an important role in the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition (1955-1958). Sir Edmund Hillary led the New Zealanders who oversaw the establishment of Scott Base. While laying supply depots for the British party that was crossing Antarctica from the Weddell Sea to McMurdo Sound, Hillary, Murray Ellis, Peter Mulgrew and Derek Wright reached the South Pole on 4 January 1958 in converted Ferguson tractors. This was the first overland expedition to reach the pole since Scott and Amundsen. The Tucker Sno-cat, named Able, which was used in the crossing by the Trans-Antarctic Expedition leader, Vivian Fuchs, is now housed in the Canterbury Museum.

Deep Freeze hangar, by David O’Malley is licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 NZ License.

Known as cheech to the Americans based there, Christchurch became the base for the United States own contributions to the IGY. Between October and December 1955, US aircraft arrived at Wigram to prepare for Operation Deep Freeze I (1955-1956). On 10 December, the US navy icebreaker, USS Glacier departed from Lyttelton Harbour. On 20 December, in the early hours of the morning, two ski-equipped Lockheed P2V-2N Neptunes took off from what was then Harewood airport (now Christchurch International Airport). Fourteen hours later, the first of the two Neptunes successfully landed at McMurdo Sound, Antarctica.

For its role in Operation Deep Freeze, the United States gifted the Native American totem pole (carved in 1959) which stood in Little Hagley Park until 1980 when it was transferred to the entrance of the airport.

Wishing to highlight the strategic role it played in Antarctic operations, the Christchurch International Airport opened the International Antarctic Centre, with its main feature, the Antarctic Attraction, in 1992.

Despite many different organisations with connections to Antarctica being based in Christchurch, there was no local body to act as a mediator between them. In order to coordinate the efforts of these various groups, an Antarctic City Strategy was developed by the Christchurch City Council which, in 2016, led to the establishment of the Antarctic Office.

Find out more

• Antarctic themed activities for the October school holidays.
• Books about Antartica for children.

 

100 years ago today: Antarctic explorers remembered

A hundred years ago, on 9 February 1917, two very different Antarctic stories were being celebrated in New Zealand.

Robert Falcon Scott memorial, Scott Reserve, corner of Worcester Boulevard and Oxford Terrace [ca. 1917] File Reference CCL PhotoCD 4, IMG0033

In Christchurch on 9 February 1917 a statue to honour the Antarctic explorer Robert Scott was unveiled.

The Scott Memorial Statue stood on the corner of Worcester Street and Oxford Terrace and had been commissioned by the Council in 1913. Sculpted by Scott’s widow Kathleen, the 3-tonne, 2.6 metre high white marble statue of Scott in polar dress stood on a plinth inscribed with words from Scott’s farewell message ‘I do not regret this journey which shows that Englishmen can endure hardships, help one another and meet death with as great fortitude as ever in the past.’ A bronze plaque records his name and those of his companions who died on the expedition to be the first to reach the South Pole.

Scott’s statue remained in place until it was thrown off its plinth and damaged during the 22nd February 2011 earthquake. The broken statue was removed and in January 2016 it was put on display again at Canterbury Museum’s special exhibition, Quake City. Today, on the centenary of its unveiling, restoration plans for the repair of the statue were announced.

Meanwhile in another part of New Zealand a group from a very different Antarctic expedition were being welcomed to Wellington. On 9 February 1917 the Aurora arrived in New Zealand after returning from a rescue mission of the Ross Sea party from Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Trans-Antarctic Expedition.

This group had been tasked with laying a series of supply depots for the final part of Shackleton’s proposed route across Antarctica, with the Aurora used for transport and carrying supplies. While anchored at Cape Evans in May 1915 the Aurora became frozen into the shore ice and after a severe gale it broke its moorings and was carried out to sea attached to an ice-floe. This left a ten-man sledding team marooned ashore where they would remain for nearly two years. The Aurora eventually broke free from the ice but then had to sail to New Zealand for repairs.

The ship Aurora at Port Chalmers. Ref: 1/2-012189-G. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. http://natlib.govt.nz/records/22592954

In December 1916, after repairs, and under the command of Captain J.K. Davis, the Aurora returned to rescue those left behind, leaving Port Chalmers bound for McMurdo Sound. The Aurora arrived at Cape Evans on 10th January 1917, and found seven surviving members of the Ross Sea party. You can read news reports of the ship’s arrival on Papers Past.

Further information

• See photos of the Scott statue on Flickr
• Read about the Scott statue and other notable statues in Christchurch
• Find out more about the Shackleton’s Trans-Antarctic Expedition

Podcast – Antarctica

Christchurch City Libraries blog hosts a series of regular podcasts from New Zealand’s only specialist human rights radio show Speak up – Kōrerotia. This show is created by Sally Carlton.

The latest episode deals with issues relating to Antarctica:

• Ice melt
• Climate science and climate change – ice core research
• Antarctic Treaty and international cooperation
• Antarctica as a place – vistas, cold etc
• The role of New Zealand and Christchurch in Antarctic exploration

This show was recorded at the Centre of Contemporary Art and includes discussion with Bryan Storey of Gateway Antarctica, University of Canterbury, Dan Price (Pole to Paris) and Karen Scott from University of Canterbury Law School.

Transcript of audio file

Find out more in our collection

• Find titles about Antarctica and climate change
• Find titles about discovery and exploration of Antarctica
• Find titles about Christchurch and Antarctica

     

More about Speak up – Kōrerotia

• Our page on Speak up – Kōrerotia
• Speak up – Kōrerotia on Facebook
• Contact the host of the show via speakupkorerotia@gmail.com.

The show is also available on the following platforms:

• Plains FM website
• SoundCloud
• iTunes

The Lyttelton Report: the old, the new, and the canine

It’s all go portside at the moment, as we at Lyttelton Library watch the repairs proceeding apace from our temporary perch up the hill in the Recreation Centre’s Trinity Hall on Winchester Street. The in-progress library now has a dashing white coat of paint (goodbye pink!), lovely new double-glazed windows, and a smart new resident outside…

This gorgeous bronze sled dog, nicknamed Hector, was sculpted by Mark Whyte and stands guard by what will be our new customer entrance. He’s looking towards Quail Island, where his real-life predecessors were housed and trained. Hector is there to recognise and celebrate Lyttelton’s contribution to exploration in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean and he symbolises the courage, commitment and comradeship of all those involved. (He’s also a hit with local kids and tourists – it seems the thing to do is have your selfie taken with Hector wearing your sunglasses!)

Meanwhile, inside the library, the new spaces are starting to take shape. Here are a few shots of the work in progress:

Looking at the new children’s area (old entrance on London Street).

Looking at the new entrance on the corner of London and Canterbury Streets.

Main library space with newly opened up porthole view over the harbour.

We’re enjoying our current sojourn in sunny Trinity Hall (particularly with Jenny the giraffe watching over everything) and looking forward to next year, when we’ll be back in the heart of things (and the Saturday market) again!

Lyttelton Library is due to reopen in March 2017.

Lyttelton Library’s temporary home, watched over by Jenny the giraffe.

More information

• Opening hours of the temporary Lyttelton Library
• Photos of the temporary Lyttelton Library
• Antarctic exploration and Christchurch

Jo,
Lyttelton Library

Photo Hunt October: Open Day, 1955

Highly commended entry in the 2012 Photo Hunt. File ref: RM-2012-PH-101; CC-BY-NC-ND-3.0 NZ

United States Navy Icebreaker Open Day at Lyttelton in 1955.  As the 2016 Antarctic season opens, this is a reminder of the length of the association between Christchurch and the U.S. Antarctic progamme.

Highly commended entry in the 2012 Christchurch City Libraries Photo Hunt.  The judges commented that “This colourful and action-packed shot shows the strong and enduring connection between Christchurch people and those heading down to the Antarctic.”

Christchurch City Libraries has been running an annual Photo Hunt in conjunction with the city’s Heritage Week since 2008. The 2016 Photo Hunt is running again from 1 – 31 October. During the month of October we will be posting a series of images from earlier Photo Hunts.

Enter the 2016 hunt online or at your local library.

Kete Christchurch is a collection of photographs and stories about Christchurch & Canterbury, past and present. Anyone can join and contribute.

Tales from the Ice – WORD Christchurch

With the WORD Christchurch Writers and Readers Festival winding down, this was an event to cool our heels on.

Matt Vance, Alok Jha, Rebecca Priestley, Simon Wilson

Tales From the Ice was brought to us by Dr Rebecca Priestley (VUW NZ) – Dispatches from Continent Seven; Matt Vance (NZ expedition leader) – Ocean Notorious; Alok Jha (ITV science corresponder) – The Water Book and chaired by Simon Wilson (Metro magazine). These books collect experiences of the fragile, beautiful, brutally unforgiving Antarctic Southern Ocean, and the element that makes it all possible; water.

From explorers Captain James Cook  and Robert Falcon Scott, early and modern scientists, to modern writers from the Artists to Antarctica Programme such as Bill Manhire and Gregory O’Brien, Dispatches from Continent Seven makes fascinating reading with a scientific flavour.

In Ocean Notorious Matt Vance shares his own experiences of lonely Southern Seas and the Islands and of taking refuge there. Along the way he gathers tales of heroic explorers, sailors, wartime coast-watchers, wildlife and conservationists.

Alok Jha shared the incredible fact that water on Planet Earth originated from meteorites crashing here. By default all life on Earth is Alien!

This panel conveyed a real sense of adventure from the sunny warmth of my festival seat.

Last words:

“Run the World like we run Antarctica – a co-op.” – Matt Vance.

“Stop (Antarctica) melting. There is still time…” – Rebecca Priestley.

“Help me get back there!” – Alok Jha.

WORD Christchurch

• Moata’s post about Alok Jha’s session, Water
• WORD Christchurch website
• Our WORD Christchurch 2016 overview
• Our posts about WORD Christchurch 2016

Water: Alok Jha – WORD Christchurch

How often do you think about water? Every now and again when you suspect the hot water cylinder might not manage another dishwasher load? Occasionally when you note how much a bottle of it costs at the dairy?

Alok Jha (image supplied)

Journalist (and ITV science correspondent) Alok Jha suggests that we should all be paying a bit more attention to this miraculous and yet thoroughly prosaic substance. After all our planet is “a blob of water with a few dry patches”. It’s one of the most important things on our planet and all life relies on it. Worth more than a passing thought, once in a while, surely?

In order to turn us to his way of thinking he provides us with an background on the science of water. Had any of us considered, for instance, how the water on our planet actually got here?

I’m someone who considers herself to have a good imagination but I’d honestly never wondered this. Water just is. I think I’d assumed it had always just been here, but water is actually younger than our planet.

It started in space in clouds of dust and gas from stars that have gone supernova. This is where our oxygen comes from. The hydrogen part of the equation originates with the Big Bang. Some molecules bash together with some grains of cosmic detritus and then some more and some more and if you follow that chain of events long enough you end up with chunks of ice – asteroids and comets that about 4 billion years ago bombarded our planet (only for about 500 million years – just a passing storm) and resulted in all the surface water we have on planet Earth. So next time you take a dip in the ocean or drink a glass of water, consider that that stuff used to be hurtling, frozen, through space.

Jha also pointed out some really interesting qualities that water has. Firstly that in solid form it floats on its liquid form. Hence icebergs. Most substances don’t behave this way. Usually the solid form is more dense and sinks. This is actually crucially important for life on Earth because if ice didn’t float then during an ice age all life would get killed off instead of some of it living on underneath the frozen surface where some liquid water remains.

The other important thing about water is surface tension. Water is sticky and loves sticking to itself too and this surface tension allows for certain biological processes, like a plant’s ability to, against the force of gravity, draw water upwards through very thin tubes, or the way our capillaries can transport our mostly watery blood around our bodies.

All these things we take for granted, most certainly at our peril.

Jha was at pains to point out that the quantity of water on our planet isn’t the issue. It’s essentially a closed system. The same amount of water moves through us, around the earth, into the atmosphere and so on. Rather it’s the quality at issue. Water that’s of the type that can sustain us is rather less common and becoming less so.

Polluting water is easy, unpolluting it? Well, that doesn’t happen much.

Jha’s talk involved things as varied as –

• Cute photos of antarctic penguins and seals (cynical manipulation via cute animal appeal openly admitted to)
• Official confirmation that drinking your own urine is “a bad idea”
• A stomach churning illustration of why Jha was so seasick on his Antarctic voyage (see the horizon line in the photo below)

Alok Jha illustrates how seasickness happens, Flickr File Reference: 2016-08-26-IMG_2477

But the main idea was that the only way for us to take better care of our water resources is for a larger number of us to actually be more aware of them, of how much water we use and how vital it is for our survival. For us to all just stop taking it for granted.

More WORD Christchurch

• WORD Christchurch website
• Our WORD Christchurch 2016 overview
• Our posts about WORD Christchurch 2016

 

W is for Wild

For an urban dweller whose forays into the natural world are, more often than not, limited to irregular visits to the beach, walks in the park and working in my demanding garden, Helen Macdonald’s memoir H Is for Hawk was a revelation. A taste of the wild, like a cold keen wind from a far off place where humankind is peripheral. I found it fascinating, weird at times and somehow refreshing. I should mention that it was the Costa Book of the Year for 2014.

The book describes a period in Macdonald’s life when her father dies suddenly and she falls into a deep and disorienting grief. In an attempt to find her feet again she buys a goshawk and sets about taming it. Not as strange as it may sound! As a young girl she had spent hours watching sparrow hawks with her father and in her 20s had become an experienced falconer. The hawk “was everything I wanted to be: solitary, self possessed, free from grief, and numb to the hurts of human life”.

What follows is an absorbing, brilliantly and beautifully written account of her life submitted to the needs and habits of a tamed, but essentially wild, predator. A time which takes her to the edge of madness and back. During the training of “Mabel” – an ironically genteel name – Macdonald occasionally and frighteningly finds herself losing her sense of human self.

To train a hawk you must watch it like a hawk, and so you come to understand it’s moods. Then you gain the ability to predict what it will do next….Eventually you don’t see the hawk’s body language at all. You seem to feel what it feels. Notice what it notices. The hawk’s apprehension becomes your own… I had to put myself in the hawk’s wild mind to tame her, and as the days passed in the darkened room, my humanity was burning away.

Well, it seems that’s what she wanted in her dark time of loss. However she does come out the other side and Mabel is integral to her healing. Not a method you’ll find in the self help books. Interweaving her own story is a biographical tale of the author T H White (The Once and Future King, The Goshawk) who, also in a search for peace within himself, engaged in agonisingly unsuccessful attempts at hawk taming. And woven through all of this again are fascinating accounts, and the arcane language, of falconry history. A rich tapestry of a read.

• Read our short interview with author Helen Macdonald
• Read about Helen Macdonald’s session at WORD Christchurch

After quaffing some rather more domestic reads the next “wild” book to catch my eye was Ocean Notorious by Christchurch writer Matt Vance. Vance is an intrepid sailor, expedition guide, photographer and fabulous writer with a long standing passion for the Southern Ocean. This is the ocean at our back doorstep, which most of us never encounter, apart from icy blasts blowing in from the south-east. It is the most feared body of water on our planet, infamous for it’s raging winds, monstrous waves and horizontal rain. But people willingly, even eagerly, go there!

Vance takes us to our neighbour islands, closer to our shores than Australia: the Auckland, Bounty, Antipodes, Campbell and Macquarie Islands then on to the wilderness that is Antarctica. He introduces us to people have gone there and sometimes never returned – ocean explorers, polar explorers, sealing gangs, Second World War coast watchers, crazy-brave sailors, wildlife enthusiasts, conservationists, research scientists, artists, writers.

Fun galore with New Zealand IceFest

If you’re looking for something to do with the kids these holidays (or just looking for something to do) then check out NZ IceFest.

When I saw that the grand opening involved sled dogs pulling a tram, I decided this was a must for the Young Lad, so despite the familial protest that 9:30 was too early for anything on a Saturday, I took him along – leaving Miss Missy and Mr K to enjoy their lazy Saturday morning.

I thought we’d be there for half an hour tops, but little did I know what fun awaited us at the IceFest Hub! First the excitement of seeing the tram being pulled by the team of dogs. Then the wonder as a block of ice was slowly turned into a beautiful sculpture of an emperor penguin feeding its young (not a kangaroo as the Young Lad suggested).

Well, the wonder was perhaps more on my side: while I enjoyed being dusted with snow, Edward Scissorhands style, and watching the sculpture slowly taking shape, the Young Lad joined the general hilarity of kicking chunks of ice around with the other children.

We then listened in as the guys at Scott Base were asked about snotcicles and what happens to the poop (it is frozen and sent to New Zealand for processing – who knew?!), topics sure to delight the boys in the audience.

IceFest is on until 12 October and you’re sure to find something to interest you, from the serious to the hilarious. There will be experts talking about climate change, movies and clowns for the kids, and, if snotcicles are your thing, there are plenty more opportunities to talk to Scott Base.

• Check out IceFest activities for kids at the library
• Browse the catalogue for books on Antarctica
• Read more about Antarctica on our website
• View photos of IceFest on our photostream

NZ IceFest – dust off your ice skates!

NZ IceFest is a celebration of New Zealand’s relationship with Antarctica and of Christchurch’s history as a gateway to the Antarctic. This festival includes many events, as well as interesting speakers, documentaries, and exhibitions.

The ‘Still Life: Inside the Antarctic huts of Scott and Shackleton’ exhibition (based on the book of the same name), is a series of Jane Ussher’s photos (accompanied by a soundtrack) of objects inside and around the huts. It provides an interesting glimpse into what life may have been like for these explorers.

If you are keen to find out more about Scott and Shackleton we have a lot of books (including ebooks and audiobooks) detailing their remarkable lives. I am currently reading about Shackleton’s amazing survival story surrounding his ship Endurance. It became trapped in the ice and he managed to lead his men to safety through several incredible journeys over land and sea. At IceFest there’s a replica of the James Caird, the lifeboat used by Shackleton and some of his men in their efforts to be rescued, and it was seeing this and the accompanying notes alongside it that prompted me to get reading.

Also on display at the IceFest is the magnificent marble statue of Captain Robert Falcon Scott, sculpted by Scott’s widow, Lady Kathleen Scott. It was sad to see it in several pieces (it sustained earthquake damage); I do hope that it can be restored. It is an eerie reminder of the earthquakes, and seems very symbolic, shattered but hopefully restorable.

Onto cheerier thoughts… If you’re hungry, I can recommend a West Coast whitebait fritter, and there are also some other great food options available from the stalls at the Icefest. If it is a chilly night and you need some warming up,  then that wintery treat, mulled wine, is available.

The ice skating rink at IceFest looks like fun (if you are more coordinated than I am!), and was getting a lot of use the night we visited. See the IceFest website for pricing and special offers.

NZ IceFest runs from 14 September to 14 October in Christchurch’s Hagley Park (next to the tennis courts that are close to Victoria Lake), and is definitely worth a visit, especially at night when you’ll see the twinkling lights surrounding the ice rink and lighting up the trees. Some activities within the Ice Station have an associated cost, but entry is free and there is plenty to see and do free of charge. For more details, visit the IceFest website.