Environment Forum

A historic trip to Antarctica revisited

First, a bit of Reuters history:

Reuters links with Sir Douglas Mawson, Australia’s most celebrated Antarctic explorer, began in 1911 when the company helped finance the young explorer’s maiden voyage to Antarctica.

In 1911, the Reuters Telegram Company Ltd sent a hand written telegram confirming it had pledged 1,000 pounds to the Australasian Antarctic Expedition lead by Mawson (see picture above.)

The significance of Mawson’s expedition was that it was largely financed and led from Australia, which as a nation was little more than 10 years old. East Antarctica, the greater mass of the Antarctic continent that lies south of Australia, the Indian Ocean and Africa, was one of the least-explored parts of the ice continent.

Mawson sailed a stout whaling ship named Aurora from Hobart in December 1911, bound for Macquarie Island and Antarctica, intent on mapping the unknown coast around Cape Denison, an area west of the region visited by Britain’s Robert Scott and Ernest Shackleton.

He set up a wireless relay station on Macquarie Island, which would later transmit the first Antarctic radio signals.