ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION TO SEEK MAWSON’S AIRCRAFT AND CONSERVE HISTORIC HUTS
A ten person team departs Hobart Thursday, 3 December 2009, to continue conservation work on the fragile wooden huts at Cape Denison that were the base for two years of the 1911-14 Australasian Antarctic Expedition (AAE) led by Sir Douglas Mawson and also to search for the remains of the first aircraft taken to the icy continent.
While most efforts will concentrate on the recovery and treatment of artefacts inside the main hut specialist equipment including a magnetometer will be used to locate the fuselage of the Vickers monoplane Mawson took south to use as an air tractor.
The wings were removed after it crashed in Adelaide on its first flight in Australia just days before being loaded onto the ship taking the 31 strong expedition to the Antarctic. The pilot was sent home to England in disgrace while the fuselage was used as an air tractor to tow sledges.
“It was not a great success in this role and Mawson later sent the engine back to Vickers in the UK after his return top Australia in February 1914,” said David Jensen AM Chairman and CEO of the Mawson’s Huts Foundation which is staging the expedition, the eighth financed and organised by the Foundation since it was established in 1997.
This year’s programme is being assisted with a Grant under the Federal Government’s Jobs Fund project. Other work planned will include the further removal of ice from within the main hut, the treatment and conservation of artefacts at the special conservation laboratory established at the site, the installation of a wind turbine to harness the elements at what is the world’s windiest place at sea level , a search for a fossil beach millions of years old and not seen since 1914, the repair to damaged shelving inside the hut and an aerial survey of the Cape Denison site using specially designed kites.
The team will spend nearly seven weeks on the ice before returning to Hobart at the end of January. They are being transported onboard the French Government supply vessel L’Astrolabe which services the French scientific base at Dumont D’Urville. All equipment and personally will be helicoptered to the site about six to seven days after leaving Hobart.
“The Foundation works in close partnership with the Australian Antarctic Division which approves all work carried out at the site and each expedition takes nearly 12 months planning,” said Mr Jensen.
Extensive works has already been completed on the main hut which consists of the living and workshop area with the roofs of both overclad with timber of the exactly the same dimension and from the same source in Finland as the original timber.”
