HE WAS THE POLAR WORLD’S MAN OF STEEL, A FIELD-HARDENED EXPLORER WHOSE ANTARCTIC EXPLOITS EARNED HIM WORLDWIDE RENOWN FOR HIS ENDURANCE, TOUGHNESS, AND LEADERSHIP ABILITIES. AND YET, THE NAME DOUGLAS MAWSON IS RECOGNIZED BY RELATIVELY FEW PEOPLE THESE DAYS. IT’S A SHAME, REALLY, FOR THE WAY MAWSON MANAGED TO SURVIVE IN THE FACE OF DIRE CIRCUMSTANCES FOR THREE HELLISH ANTARCTIC MONTHS IN 1912 IS ONE OF THE GREATEST SURVIVAL STORIES EVER TOLD AND A TESTIMONY TO THE ENDURING WILL TO LIVE.
An Australian geologist and dedicated scientist, Douglas Mawson first proved his mettle in the world’s harshest climate as a member of Ernest Shackleton’s Nimrod expedition in search of the South Pole between 1907 and 1909. A few years later, Mawson set out on an expedition of his own. The Australasian Antarctic Expedition of 1911–14 had a wide range of scientific and exploratory goals, the most significant of which was to chart two thousand miles of previously unvisited Antarctic coastline directly south of Australia.
As these things often go, Mawson’s expedition encountered troubles almost from its start on December 2, 1911. The first goal of the expedition was to drop a party of men and establish a base at Macquarie Island, a windswept spot more than six hundred miles south of New Zealand. Mawson’s team did this without incident in mid-December.
From Macquarie Island, Mawson planned to continue to a point on the Antarctic mainland called Cape Adare, more than two thousand miles south of Australia. There he would establish the first of several bases, from which he and his men would begin their westward exploration of the coastline. Yet, as their ship, the Aurora, drew closer to the Antarctic mainland in early January, it became apparent that the countless icebergs that peppered the water would prevent them from making land safely.
Day after day, the boat was driven westward, searching for a way through the maze of ice to shore. It was not until the Aurora was eight hundred miles west of Cape Adare that she finally found a suitable landing spot: a broad, rocky sweep of beach that Mawson named Commonwealth Bay. It was January 8, 1912.
It was a less-than-ideal location: there were a few flat stretches of land where the crew could build its huts, and everything else was encased in a tomb of ice like none Mawson had ever seen before in the Antarctic. But with the brief summer passing swiftly and no other options, Mawson decided it would have to suffice. He named the place Cape Denison.
That Mawson was forced to alter his original plans is a common theme among those who find themselves thrust into survival situations. He knew that the safest and most logical place to begin his expedition was Cape Adare, but the ice conspired against him and he was forced to Cape Denison. Situations such as this, where you are not able to stick to your well-conceived plans, often contribute to the downfall of otherwise well-organized expeditions and turn them into tests of endurance and survival.
In Mawson’s case, Cape Denison itself did not create his survival situation, but it certainly didn’t make exploring the surrounding coastline any easier. The area proved to be numbingly windy and brutally cold, even by Antarctic standards. As January faded into February, the incessant gales became so strong that anything not tied down was lost. The average wind speed for the year they spent at Cape Denison was fifty miles per hour, but regularly gusted to well over one hundred and sometimes even topped out at two hundred.
For the most part, life at the camp was busy. Mawson and his men undertook scientific investigations in a number of areas, including geology, cartography, meteorology, aurora, geomagnetism, and biology. Yet as fall rolled into the long, dark, cold days of winter, life sometimes proved boring and tedious for the men. But Mawson’s sense of preparation was unparalleled, and he used his downtime wisely. He established rigid training regimens in preparation for the arduous sled journeys he and his men would undertake once spring finally arrived. It’s something Captain Bartlett might have done with the crew of the Karluk to prepare for the ship being crushed in the ice.
In addition to participating in an exercise regimen, each man was trained to pack and unpack his sled in the dark, cold, and wind, and manage his equipment by feel and instinct. Mawson had them set and strike camp in the middle of blinding whiteouts and would often redesign equipment on the spot. Nothing was taken for granted; he was always looking ahead.
In early August, Mawson and two of his most trusted associates headed south to establish a supply depot for the sledging parties that would be fanning out across the land in the months to come. They struggled across the ice for five and a half miles into a blinding gale before finding a suitable place to dig an ice cave. The vertical shaft, replete with shelves and room to accommodate four sleeping men and a host of extra provisions, was named Aladdin’s Cave. It would prove to be one of the most important things Mawson ever did in the tapestry of catastrophic events that would unfold months later.
As September rolled around, unusually calm weather allowed the men to break into several sledging parties, test equipment, and begin mapping of the rugged coastline. These sorties came to an abrupt halt when October’s weather became unrelentingly fierce. Mawson was anxious. The Antarctic “summer” was exceedingly short, and any unforeseen delays would significantly hamper his crews’ ability to map and complete the very task that had prompted the journey.
As November dawned, the weather showed no sign of abating, but Mawson was undaunted. He gathered his men around the mess table one evening and declared that the sledging parties would be leaving within a week, regardless of what Mother Nature might throw at them.
It is here that Mawson’s tenacious personality, which would serve him exceedingly well through the ordeals he was yet to endure, caused him to make his first mistake. Mawson was an extremely ambitious man and simply couldn’t accept defeat. So, even after experiencing the fury of the Antarctic weather for almost a year, the knowledge that the Aurora was coming back in mid-January forced him to decide that all the sledging teams would embark on their journeys in the next week, regardless of the weather.
In those final frenzied days before departure, the camp was abuzz with activity. Mawson meticulously counted out the trekking rations and weighed everything to the last ounce. This is not only an important bit of knowledge to have (in case you end up in a survival situation), it is also reassuring to be that comfortable with your gear and your rations.
In total, Mawson sent out five separate sledging parties. The consummate leader, he handpicked each team’s members according to their strengths and weaknesses. Three parties traveled to the east to map the coastline, one south to the magnetic pole, and one to the west. Mawson planned to lead what was likely the most treacherous trek of all: the Far Eastern trek, using three sledges and seventeen of the Greenland dogs they had kept since arriving at Cape Denison some ten months before.
On November 10, 1912, Mawson—along with Dr. Xavier Mertz and Lieutenant Belgrave E. S. Ninnis—set out. Although the wind and weather beat at them mercilessly, Mawson and his companions were tough, experienced antarctic travelers, and they made excellent progress during the early stages of their journey.
Their trip was aided by their collective ingenuity, as they made constant revisions to improve their gear. This ability to improvise—I call it MacGyverism, after the 1980s television character with an uncanny ability to instantly rig up a solution to a life-threatening problem—is an important skill in any wilderness situation, but it’s paramount in a survival situation. There are times when you have to sacrifice one object to make it into another, more effective one. You also have to be aware of the risks the environment may throw at you and use your survival smarts to keep yourself alive. In Mawson’s case, doing something as simple as tethering the sledge to his body kept him alive on more than one occasion.
Mawson kept his group on strict rations every day. He employed a food-consumption strategy he called “No work, no hoosh.” The team members were prohibited from consuming large amounts of rich food on days when they were idle because of bad weather. Instead, these foods were saved for days when the men worked hard and expended lots of calories. It was a brilliant bit of rationing that kept the men strong and fit—and excited to work hard.
Yet Mawson also erred a bit when it came to food rationing. He insisted that he, Mertz, and Ninnis all receive the same amount of food at every meal, even though he was much bigger and stronger than his comrades. Whether Mawson ever actually considered his size and strength advantage over the other two remains a mystery, but I think he should have accounted for it when doling out the food, just as I would do if I found myself in a survival situation with my kids. I believe Mawson short-changed himself when it came to food, which may have played a role in the neuralgia he later developed on the left side of his face and in his shoulder.
As November waned, the trio successfully navigated across the treacherous crevasses of the newly dubbed Mertz Glacier, though the glacier claimed its victims. They lost several dogs to various injuries and accidents along the way, and Ninnis was slowed by an acute case of snowblindness. The ever-ready Mawson knew just how to deal with such a setback, though, and inserted small tablets of cocaine and zinc sulfate under Ninnis’s eyelids, leaving them there to dissolve and ease the burning. Mawson advised his friend to wear his dark goggles as often as possible, and to screw his eyelids nearly shut in those instances when it was necessary to remove the goggles.
Preventing Snowblindness
Snowblindness, also known as photokeratitis, is a serious concern in snowy terrain under most conditions, but is particularly acute on bright, sunny days. In essence, snowblindness is a sunburn on the cornea, caused when eyes are not well enough protected from the ultraviolet rays of the sun. Snowblindness causes an excruciating burning sensation in the eyes that can last as long as several days.
The best protection again snowblindness is protection from the sun’s UV rays. Sunglasses and ski goggles work particularly well, though Mawson and his mates likely would not have been fortunate enough to have anything so civilized on hand. They would have had to become more creative.
Ultimately, anything that cuts down on the amount of light reaching the eyes will suffice. On a survival outing in the Arctic, I once cut strips of foam from a snowmobile seat cushion to make snow goggles. Traditionally, the Inuit carved snow goggles from caribou antlers.
Making snow goggles is not that difficult. You simply need to use something, anything, into which you can cut two small slits for your eyes, then incorporate a tying system so that it can be secured to your head.
Eventually, the Mertz Glacier fell behind them and progress picked up. But they now faced an even bigger challenge: the far riskier ridges and cracks of the so-called Ninnis Glacier. Progress amid what Mawson described as “rolling waves of ice” was maddeningly slow.
As if the deathly maze of ice ridges and yawning crevasses of the Ninnis Glacier wasn’t enough, the trip was compounded by an infection that Ninnis had developed on the second finger of his right hand. Mawson was shocked to find one afternoon that the finger had swelled to nearly double its size and was turning a putrid combination of black and green. This was a huge judgment error on Ninnis’s part, one that not only jeopardized his own well-being, but that of the entire expedition. In adventure racing—where, like exploration, your personal well-being is intricately interwoven with that of your teammates—you run the risk jeopardizing the entire race if you do not let your teammates know as soon as you begin to develop an injury, even something seemingly as minor as a blister. These types of things must always be group knowledge. It’s nothing to be embarrassedabout; it’s showing consideration for the team before the individual.
Treating Septicemia
Infections are nothing to fool around with, especially in the middle of the Antarctic wilderness. If left untreated, any infection has the potential to lead to septicemia, also known as blood poisoning or bacteremia. Ninnis was lucky the infection in his finger didn’t kill him. Had full-blown septicemia developed, it likely would have killed him.
Septicemia typically begins with a series of spiking fevers, which can be accompanied by chills, rapid breathing, and elevated heart rate. Symptoms progress to shock, falling blood pressure, disruptions in mental capacity, and the appearance of red spots on the skin. If left untreated, adult respiratory distress syndrome, septic shock, and death follow.
Septicemia is difficult to treat once it sets, so the best medicine is prevention by appropriately treating localized infections before they progress.
Mawson tried to reduce the swelling with a poultice, to no avail. By the next morning, Ninnis’s pain had become unbearable. With life-threatening septicemia—the presence of bacteria in the blood—a real risk at this point, Mawson had no choice but to perform surgery. He sterilized his knife in the open flame of the Primus stove and sliced open the bulging digit. After the green-yellow pus finished spurting out, Mawson wrapped the finger in an iodine-soaked pad. It worked. Once the finger healed, Ninnis experienced no more trouble with it. It may be sobering to remember that all of this took place in the frigid temperatures of the Antarctic, with no running water, soap, or painkillers.
The group was still crossing the dizzying maze of crevasses and pressure ridges of the Ninnis Glacier in mid-December when Mertz, who had been traveling on skis, pointed out a snow bridge across a nearby crevasse. Mawson was riding on his sledge behind the dogs and made it across easily, his weight evenly distributed. Ninnis, however, was running beside his team of dogs. He had barely set foot on the snow bridge when it collapsed beneath him and he disappeared into the heart of the glacier, along with his sledge . . . and the dogs that were pulling it.
Mawson and Mertz rushed to the edge of the gaping chasm and stared into the abyss. On a narrow ledge some 150 feet below, they could see a dog, its back apparently broken from the fall. Beneath that was nothing but void.
Mertz and Mawson called into the depths for hours, but heard no response. As the reality of their comrade’s death washed over them, they were faced with another, starker reality: Ninnis’s sledge had been pulled by the six strongest dogs and had carried most of the team’s indispensable supplies, including the tent and most of the food, and spare clothing. The remaining sledge had only ten days of rations for the two men, and absolutely nothing for the six dogs. They were 315 miles—and almost five weeks—from main base.
Ninnis’s death is one of those bitter twists of fate that sometimes occurs in the wilderness and that seem particularly common among turn-of-the-century explorers. Mawson, Mertz, and Ninnis had seen themselves through weeks of trials and tribulations, were very close to their turnaround point, and were crossing a glacier as they had done dozens of times before. But this time, fate dealt them a deadly surprise.
Mertz was hysterical at Ninnis’s death. Mawson was stricken, too, but tried to remain calm. With adversity staring him squarely in the face, his survival instincts now kicked into overdrive. Mawson allowed himself and Mertz time to grieve for Ninnis, but he never lost focus. He soon brought Mertz back to the task at hand and immediately set to sizing up the situation and devising a plan of action. Survival thinking in the face of deep grief is the toughest mindset of all.
Their equipment was spare, to say the least. They had the cook stove, some kerosene, and extra tent cover material. To make matters worse, they had not cached any food while they traveled west, since they had decided they would return to the main base by a different, easterly route.
In these dire circumstances, Mawson again demonstrated his innate leadership skills and began explaining to Mertz the difficult decisions that lay ahead. The worst? They would have to eat their beloved dogs, one by one, over the course of the return journey. Coming to grips with this reality was brutally difficult, but making these types of decisions is often the key to survival, and Mawson was not one to dance around a difficult choice. Making tough decisions ahead of time is equally critical in a survival situation, as it gives you purpose and focus. However you must make sure you don’t rigidly stick to them in the face of newer (and better) information.
Their first destination was a spot some fourteen miles back, where they had dumped a sledge and some extraneous supplies a few days before. Mawson was fueled by a desperate sense of urgency to recover anything they could get their hands on, and surprisingly, he let that urgency get in the way of prudence . . . for a while. He had acted this way before, of course, when he ran out of patience at base camp and vowed to start the expedition no matter what the weather threw at them.
To make it back to the dump site as quickly as possible, he (on the sledge) and Mertz (on skis) rushed down any slope they encountered, with blatant disregard for the same risks that had taken Ninnis’s life. And as surprised as I am that someone as dogged and meticulous as Mawson let his guard down so early in the return journey, I also understand why he did it. It was a classic example of how people in survival situations often throw their hands in the air and say, “Screw it,” throw caution to the wind, and put themselves in greater danger by pushing too hard.
Mawson and Mertz made it back to the site safely, however, and picked up a few potentially useful items and disposed of everything else they deemed extraneous. From then on, Mawson became the Antarctic’s version of MacGyver. He began improvising immediately. With no tent, they needed shelter against the brutal Antarctic wind, so he set about making one by cutting one of the wooden runners off the discarded sledge, sawing it in half, and lashing the two pieces to a pair of snowshoes, thus fashioning a rudimentary frame for their tent material. There was no food for the dogs, so Mawson again put his creativity and ingenuity to work, salvaging from the dump site two old wolfskin mitts, a pair of reindeer-skin boots, and a piece of rawhide strapping. Mawson carefully sliced each into pieces and fed them to the ravenous dogs. The gloves were, after all, just animal hide, and therefore completely edible.
Progress from the dump site was steady in the days that followed. But, without adequate food, the dogs weakened quickly. It wasn’t long before the first one was unable to proceed. Mertz could not bring himself to do the deed, so Mawson shot old George through the head with his .22-caliber rifle. They fed part of George to the other dogs and saved the rest for themselves, but not before Mawson fashioned two spoons out of a piece of spare wood.
As resourceful as he was, Mawson made a serious mistake when shooting George. It would have been a better choice to suffocate the dog by simply kneeling on its chest, thereby preserving the nutrient-rich brain for him and Mertz to eat. Putting a bullet through George’s brain removed that possibility—and wasted a bullet.
Mawson used the sacrifice of the first dog as an opportunity to realistically weigh his and Mertz’s chance of survival. Always planning, he reduced their food intake from thirty-four to eight ounces per day, hoping that the dog meat would give them enough energy to complete the journey. They scorched the stringy meat in a pan and choked back the musty meal.
Not long thereafter, Mawson and Mertz dug into what they believed to be the choicest part of the dog: the liver. What Mawson didn’t know was that the liver of the Greenland husky—just like those of polar bears and bearded seals—was capable of storing enormous quantities of vitamin A, in concentrations toxic to humans. So, with each bite Mawson and Mertz took of the dog liver, they were slowly poisoning themselves.
This was perhaps the most significant bit of bad luck to strike the two men on their long journey home. There is little evidence to show that hypervitaminosis had become public knowledge at that point in history. If it had, Mawson, one of the most meticulous and well-prepared explorers the world has ever seen, would certainly have known about it. Yet he didn’t, and as a consequence, only one would survive the journey back to main base.
In the mind-numbing days to come, Mawson and Mertz fought their way back across the frozen landscape. Their compass was useless, so Mawson estimated their westerly path by the north-south alignment of the windblown ridges in the snow. As they traveled, they did what so many people do in desperate situations: they obsessed about food and made plans for their return. Mertz fantasized about butter, chocolate, and tea, all the while repulsed by the idea, and taste, of dog. Yet as torturous as it may seem to obsess about creature comforts in a survival situation, this kind of psychological exercise is vital to motivation. And motivation is a key element in the struggle to survive against all odds.
Hypervitaminosis
Hypervitaminosis, also known as vitamin overdose, tends to result from an excess of fat-soluble vitamins, the sort that are stored in the liver and fatty tissues of the body. These vitamins, including the vitamin A that Mertz and Mawson were consuming in massive amounts, remain in the body far longer than water-soluble vitamins.
Both Mertz and Mawson began to demonstrate some of the classic symptoms of hypervitaminosis A, which would worsen as their journey back to base camp continued. These symptoms include blurred vision, headache, fatigue or dizziness, nausea and vomiting, loss of appetite, irritability, hair loss, skin that is yellowing, itching or peeling, and cracking at the corners of the mouth.
And so they trudged along. One by one, the dogs died off, their carcasses not much more than fur-clad skeletons. Eating their meat was like chewing leather; Mawson and Mertz looked forward only to the relative tenderness provided by each dog’s liver, each bite of which brought them one step closer to the grave. Though he was certainly as repulsed by the taste of dog as Mertz was, Mawson remained undeterred. He did his best to use every bit of the animals, even boiling their paws into a thick soup.
A cheerless Christmas eventually arrived for Mawson, Mertz, and their lone remaining dog, Ginger. Mawson used the holiday as an opportunity to again assess their rations and their chance of survival. Their progress had been much slower than he originally expected, so rations were cut yet again. At this point, Mawson realized that if they were to have any chance of making it back to main base alive, they would have to lighten their load even more. Reluctantly, Mawson discarded some of the gear he held most precious: Ninnis’s box camera and heavy glass plates, a host of heavy scientific instruments, the rifle and bullets. Finally, Mawson spent hours boiling down the remaining dog bones into a tasteless brew.
As much as I admire Mawson, I think he waited much too long to dump extraneous materials from the sledge. Until that point (when they had only one dog left) they were still were pulling a camera with glass plates, a rifle and bullets, scientific instruments, almanacs, and logbooks! There’s only one reason why he would have made this choice: his overwhelming resolve, ambition, and dedication to science. But with 160 miles to go, it was a foolish ideal to hold on to.
A few days after Christmas, Ginger finally reached the point where she could proceed no longer. Mawson lovingly laid her on the sledge as she quivered with her remaining stores of energy, and actually pulled her for a few miles, by which time it became obvious she had walked her last. Mertz—whose own condition was rapidly worsening—could not bring himself to finish her off, so Mawson broke her neck with one quick swing of the spade.
That night, as they ate the boiled remains of Ginger’s skull, a new sense of desperation and loneliness seemed to wash over both Mertz and Mawson. Mertz was in terrible physical shape, and in the coming days saw his strength fade to nearly nothing. Mawson took it upon himself to keep Mertz alive, and fed Mertz what he believed was the only nourishing thing he had left: dog liver. In the days to come, Mawson would give up all of his own rations of liver and feed them to Mertz. It was this act of self-sacrifice that ultimately might have kept Mawson alive. But it killed Mertz.
Mawson tried to coddle, urge, and cajole his fading companion into activity, but there was little left to be done for Mertz. At one point, when Mertz could walk no longer, Mawson placed his friend on the sledge, strapped himself into the harness and actually began pulling it on all fours. Mertz was unmoved by this act of kindness, but rather took offense at being hauled around like a dying dog. In an act of rage that evening, Mertz bit off his yellowed and frostbitten pinky finger and spit the severed digit onto the tent floor.
All through that dreadful night, Mertz alternated between moments of calm and fits of rage. Finally, near midnight, Mertz fell into a restless sleep; Mawson crawled into his bag and did the same. A few hours later, Mawson inexplicably awoke, troubled by the profound silence of the tent. He reached over to touch Mertz, and found him stiff, cold, lifeless. It was January 7, 1913. Mawson was one hundred miles from main base.
Yet as desperate as the situation may have been, Mawson was not one to turn his back on protocol. Recognizing his final duty to Mertz, Mawson spent several exhausting hours cutting snow blocks to make Mertz’s burial cairn. Mawson placed Mertz, still in his reindeer-skin sleeping bag, into the cairn and read the burial service. It was a noble act, but in my mind it was foolish and unnecessary. Mertz’s life was over, and Mawson had honored Mertz on every day of their journey together, particularly near the end of Mertz’s life, when Mawson spent hours caring for him. Now Mertz was gone, and Mawson’s only responsibility was to himself and those who cared for him back home, thousands of miles away. His sense of duty might have been appeased by the labor, but his own survival would have been compromised.
At a minimum, Mawson should have kept Mertz’s reindeer-skin sleeping bag, either for food or warmth. And I don’t know whether Mawson ever considered cannibalism—he doesn’t allude to it in his writing—but eating Mertz, as inhuman and barbaric as that may seem, was certainly an option. But Mawson never touched his friend, instead choosing to occupy his mind—and time—with tasks such as repairing broken equipment and planning the weeks ahead. Mawson knew his chances were slim and was sorely tempted to lay down and rest until eternal sleep took him. But somewhere in the back of his mind, his will to live was not so easily muted.
Indeed, just when he was at his lowest, Mawson found motivation in the words of the famous poet Robert Service:
Buck up! Do your damndest and fight:It’s the plugging away that will win you the day.
Mawson himself was a great motivator, one who had often spoken of character. With Service’s words ringing in his ears, he recalled the words he had spoken when discussing the men he had chosen to accompany him to Antarctica:
I have done my best to choose men of character. The important thing to look for in members of an expedition like this—is character. It is impossible to tell how men are going to act until circumstances arise. . . . In that land of desolation, in that land of great loneliness, there are conditions that measure a man at his true worth.
Back on track, Mawson rediscovered the resolve that made him legendary among polar explorers. He reassessed his situation, his needs, the equipment he had at his behest. He spent an entire day modifying his remaining gear for one-man travel. He cut down the sledge to carry a half-load, and even crafted a mast and sail for speedier travel should conditions permit. Mawson also wisely dedicated some time to doctoring his rotting body.
He planned the remaining journey with painstaking detail, and broke it down into palatable increments. This was another brilliant tactic: it’s easier to think in small steps than the big picture when it comes to survival. He also dwelled over his food rations for the remainder of the trip. He calculated that he had enough food for twenty days. But he did not stop there. Mawson also considered that some of the food he carried required cooking, and would therefore be useless to him if the Primus stove broke. So he decided to eat all of that food during the first ten days, saving the remainder for the final half of the journey.
Mawson bade farewell to Mertz, slung the sledge harness over his skeletal shoulders, and continued his westward trudge. He was stabbed by pain with each step he took, yet he continued on. Later that first day, he stopped to examine his feet and was horrified by the raw, weeping meat he found inside his socks. The entire bottom of one foot had come off, and he needed to wrap it back on to continue.
He spent some time doctoring his wounds and actually lay down to enjoy the feeling of the sunshine on his naked body, a brilliant move that not only bolstered his spirits, but probably did his body some good as well. There is an Indian guru, Hira Ratan Manek, who claims he can live for years at a time without eating, deriving all his energy from the sun. Mawson should have started his sunbathing weeks earlier; in the frigid polar world, sun on exposed skin is like manna from heaven. He would continue the practice in the weeks to come.
Such opportunities were few, however, as blizzard-like conditions ensued and slowed Mawson’s progress to a crawl. He was stuck in his tent for days at a time as the wind tore across the land. Mawson was frantic, and vowed to continue on despite the weather. Yet he had the wherewithal to harness himself firmly to the sledge he pulled behind him, a safety precaution as he entered the deadly maze of the Mertz Glacier. Mawson hoped that if he fell into a crevasse, the weight of the sledge would be enough to prevent him from plummeting to his death.
On January 17, he was still picking his way across the glacier when he twice stopped just short of yawning crevasses. Soon thereafter, he fell into a crevasse to his knees. He clambered out and walked north to where he believed the crevasse stopped, where he again turned to the west.
In an instant, the ground collapsed beneath his feet and Mawson was flung downward. A second later, the harness yanked violently at his midsection and he came to a painfully sharp stop. He was now dangling inside a bottomless chasm, with the rope around his waist as the only thing holding him back from certain death. Yet as he hung there, he could feel himself dropping slowly as the sledge above was pulled across the snow toward the crevasse that now held him captive. He knew what was to come: the sledge would break through the snow and tumble into the crevasse, and his life would end. Miraculously, though, the movement stopped. The sledge had become stuck on a pressure ridge. Mawson hung there, fourteen feet from the surface, sheer walls of ice three feet on either side of him, pondering his fate.
Steeling himself against the pain, Mawson pulled his skeletal frame up the rope, hand over hand, until he reached the edge of the snow bridge. He was crawling to safety—mere feet from solid ice—when the bridge collapsed again, and he again plummeted the full length of the rope toward his death. Once more, the sledge above held. Mawson considered suicide as he dangled there. A swipe of his knife on the rope and all his suffering would come to a swift end. His hands were raw and bloodied, his energy was draining fast, and he was deathly cold in the icy tomb. Yet Douglas Mawson was not one to give up, no matter how grim the circumstances.
With superhuman effort, he resolved to try one more time while he still had the energy to do so. Although he was never able to recall how he mustered the strength, Mawson pulled himself hand over hand up the rope and to the Antarctic daylight, and flung himself in one desperate move to the safety of the ice, where he collapsed, exhausted but alive.
By this point, Mawson had come to fervently believe that a spiritual presence was with him, guiding him through the trials of the Antarctic spring. As he fumbled to set up his camp for the night, he thanked providence for sparing him. From that day forward, Mawson believed the spirit was always there, moving with him across the snow and ice back to main base.
The timing could not have been better, for Mawson hit a new low in the hours after the fall into the Black Crevasse. He was trapped in a maze of crevasses, the light was gray and flat, making visibility poor even just a few feet in front of him, and the incessant wind had wiped out all evidence of where one opening stopped and another began.
Undaunted, Mawson made another modification that would save his life several times over. He realized that one wrong stride in any direction could send him to his death, especially given the deplorable condition his hands were now in: he was physically unable to pull himself up along the rope again. So he spent the better part of a day fashioning a rope ladder and using it to connect himself to the sledge he was pulling. It was yet another in a litany of brilliant moves Mawson pulled off during the journey, and illustrates his near-obsessive focus on survival, which would ultimately save his life.
Mawson tied one end of the rope ladder to the front of the sledge, draped the other over his shoulder and set out the next morning. It was not long before his handiwork paid off: he broke through a snow bridge and fell into another crevasse. Luckily, the sledge once again held firm on the surface, and Mawson was able to climb up his handmade ladder to safety. A few steps later, he fell into another one, but climbed his lifeline to safety yet again.
He picked his way across the glacier, partly emboldened by the success of the rope ladder. He walked across snow bridges and maneuvered around yawning crevasses, always drawing nearer to safety. Days later, he finally made it across.
Still, the fickle Antarctic weather worked against him. The wind blew incessantly, slowing Mawson’s progress to a crawl. He was stopped for days at a time as blizzards pounded his meager shelter. He also had to battle the icy slopes of the hills that formed the headland between the Mertz Glacier and Cape Denison. He struggled up and down, always hampered by the wind, which cut his visibility to nearly nothing.
And though his spirits continued to sink, Mawson tried to tend to his physical needs as best he could. When he undressed to examine himself, he was shocked at his corpse-like appearance. All of his muscles had withered to nothing. His fingernails had blackened; most had fallen off. His teeth had become loose in their sockets, his hair was falling out in clumps, and there were wide patches of raw skin all over his body. He realized that he might be suffering from scurvy, a disease caused by a deficiency of vitamin C, but refused to entertain the thought because he needed to keep both hope—and the will to live—alive.
Mawson’s tending to his wounds and injuries was a critical activity, especially when his morale was at its lowest. It gave him a focus and a purpose on those long days when he could do little else. Most important, it filled him with hope that he would survive. For why bother if there is no hope?
The weather finally lifted on January 28, and Mawson continued to trudge ahead. He had about two pounds of food left, but was encouraged by the knowledge that Aladdin’s Cave could not be far off. He steeled himself for a final push to that little bit of underground paradise. He would make it there . . . or die trying.
Avoiding Scurvy
Hypervitaminosis may not have been on Mawson’s radar, but every arctic explorer worth his salt was well versed in the dangers of scurvy, that dreaded illness that had caused the downfall of so many men who sought fame and fortune at sea.
Scurvy is caused by an acute deficiency of vitamin C, an important element in maintaining the health of the body’s connective tissues. Take away the vitamin C, and the ability of these tissues to bind deteriorates, causing a series of telltale signs and symptoms: weakness; lethargy; irritability; purple, spongy, and bleeding gums; loosening teeth; reopening of healed scars; and hemorrhaging in the mucous membranes and skin. Advanced cases of scurvy are characterized by open, festering wounds and loss of teeth.
In Mawson’s day, scurvy killed countless sailors and explorers who had little access to perishable fruits and vegetables while at sea. The disease is said to have killed more British sailors in the seventeenth century than did enemy action, and it is often cited as one of the primary factors behind the deaths of John Franklin and his men during their tragic search for the Northwest Passage in the mid-1800s. Yet for all those who died from scurvy, it’s remarkably easy to treat. Full recovery requires little more than the resumption of normal vitamin C intake.
The next day, Mawson spotted a dark smudge on the horizon, an unexpected bit of color against the white backdrop. Mawson made for the spot, where he found a rock cairn. It had been built by three of his men—McLean, Hodgeman, and Hurley, who had been out searching for Mawson and his men at that very same time. They had missed each other by only a few hours! Inside the cairn was a note and food.
The note told Mawson that he was twenty-one miles from Aladdin’s Cave, the other parties had returned safely from their sledging journeys, and the Aurora was anchored in Commonwealth Bay. Mawson knew there was no conceivable way he could catch up with his friends, so he focused on the food in the bag: tins of pemmican, butter, sugar, cookies, cocoa, chocolate sticks—even three oranges. For the first time in weeks, Mawson was sure he would survive. But Mother Nature was not through with him yet.
The cairn helps illustrate that in a survival situation, luck is always a fickle bedfellow. She may be there to help you, such as when Mawson found the cairn and the food, but she’ll also abandon you at the worst possible times, as when Mawson realized that his three comrades had camped the previous night just five miles from where he had set his patchwork tent, but he still had no chance of catching them.
Mawson struggled onward toward Aladdin’s Cave, though he lost his bearing on several occasions, once coming dangerously close to plummeting off a cliff. He cursed himself for having discarded his crampons days before in an attempt to lighten his load, as his progress across the ice was maddeningly slow. He probed his fertile mind for a way to solve the problem of slipping on the polished, windblown surface, and (of course!) devised a solution. In a fit of sheer MacGyver genius, he pried apart the mahogany case that held his theodolite—a navigation tool—cut wooden sandals for his boots, and hammered nails from the box through the sandals to project downward.
Though they were far from perfect (the nail heads were often driven upward into the soles of his raw and rotting feet), the makeshift crampons helped Mawson across the crevassed fields. On more than one occasion, he fell through the ice, only to have the sledge again save his life. He continued in much the same way until the evening of February 1, when he made it to Aladdin’s Cave! For the first time in almost three months, he would sleep without the incessant flapping of the windblown tent walls around him.
Although it was really not much more than a vertical shaft cut into the ice, Aladdin’s Cave was heaven for Mawson. The cave seemed to have been hurriedly used by the other teams, but the provisions scattered around the floor seemed like a royal banquet to the starving explorer. Here he found cookies and pemmican, milk powder, and cocoa tins.
But Mawson was not satisfied with making it to Aladdin’s Cave. It was home base, a mere five and a half miles away, that he desperately sought. He searched the cave for a pair of crampons he had left there months before, hoping they would help him down the icy slopes that separated him from his destination. They were nowhere to be found, however, and Mawson’s notion of a quick meal and final dash to the base went with them. He decided he would spend one more night at Aladdin’s Cave, rest up, and return triumphantly the next day. Or so he thought.
As luck would have it, the Antarctic wind kicked in with renewed fury that night. Mawson made frequent trips to the entrance of the cave, only to find that the winds had not abated. Dejected but not dispirited, he took advantage of the time to work on his makeshift crampons and eat. Yet the food seemed to do Mawson no good at all. Instead, he seemed to sink to his lowest physical state while in the cave. Whether it was the effects of the hypervitaminosis, scurvy, the stale food in the cave, or simply the toll of the previous three months, we’ll never know, but Mawson became depressed and angry as the storm raged overhead. If ever there was a “so close and yet so far” situation, this was it.
For seven eternal nights, Douglas Mawson was trapped in that cave—a hellish week of dejection, loneliness, and illness. Then, on the eighth morning, Mawson awoke to find the wind and snow had abated to the point where he thought he could risk the trip to camp. Come what may, he told himself, today was his last day. He picked his way down the treacherous slope, the sledge still trailing behind. Eventually, the waters of Commonwealth Bay opened before him. Beyond it, he could see the Aurora, sailing westward. With that sight, Mawson knew that he may well have to spend another year at the camp by himself, but he was sure he would live.
The camp soon came into view, and Mawson was dejected to see no sign of activity anywhere, not even a plume of smoke from the huts’ stovepipes. He was a mile and a half from deliverance, but the weight of his predicament almost dropped him to his knees. Then, when all hope seemed lost, he spotted three figures near the shore.
Mawson waved his glove and called to his friends with a weakened voice. After what seemed like an eternity, one of them looked in his direction. Seconds later, the three men were abuzz with activity, shouting, waving, and running in his direction. Salvation at last! It was Mawson’s friend Bickerton who reached him first. Bickerton lifted the skeletal figure of Mawson onto the sledge, looked into his eyes, and burst out: “My God! Which one are you?”
The Aurora was recalled by wireless communication, but bad weather and ice conditions prevented the ship from coming to shore. Mawson and the six men who had stayed behind to search for him faced the terrible reality of their situation: they would have to spend one more year in their small hut at Cape Denison before the ship would be able to make it through the ice pack during the Antarctic summer, reach land, and return them to Australia. In hindsight, it was likely the best thing that could have happened to Mawson. At the main base, he could at least spend as much time resting as he needed to heal himself; a long, rough ship voyage may well have killed him.
Though they seemed interminable to Mawson, the next ten months were spent in the relative comfort of the main base. The men were well stocked with supplies, and Mawson even made a sledge journey the following spring. The Aurora returned in December 1913 to pick up Mawson and his men. Moved by the image of the wild Antarctic landscape as the ship pulled away, Mawson made the final entry in the diary he had kept for more than two years in that accursed land:
We bring no store in ingots
Of spice or precious stones
But what we have gathered
With sweat and aching bones.
Late in February of 1914, Mawson and his mates set foot on Australian soil once again, more than two years after they first landed at Commonwealth Bay. Mawson was still pale, shaky, thin, and hairless—but alive.
Douglas Mawson
ELEMENTS OF SURVIVAL
Knowledge 30%
Luck 0%
Kit 10%
Will to Live 60%
If someone could add up to more than 100 percent, it would be Mawson. His knowledge was exceptional; there were few people on the planet who knew as much about cold-weather survival as did Mawson. His kit was inadequate, yet only because most of his supplies fell into the glacier with Ninnis. However, Mawson would have survived even if he had had no knowledge and no kit, so strong was his will to live
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