A century ago, Antarctica was a seriously tough place in which to be a scientist. In February 1912, a German expedition established its research station on an ice-shelf in the Weddell Sea, only for that section of shelf to break loose ‘with an explosive boom’, and drift away — pursued by the German ship. When Apsley Cherry Garrard journeyed to the emperor penguin rookery at Cape
Crozier in July 1911, to investigate the embryology of the birds, he and his companions carried reindeer-fur-lined sleeping bags which froze solid during the days, weighed 21 kg at their heaviest, and could take up to 45 minutes of melting and wriggling to enter each night.
During his desperate retreat to Cape Denison in early 1913, Douglas Mawson was ‘regularly strapping the soles of his feet back on with lanolin cream’, and shedding ‘large sheets’ of skin from his hands, yet he continued to keep daily weather records.
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