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 The Explorers Operation Highjump Story Highjump: Antarctic Mayday Highjump: Photo Gallery Heroic Era Postal History Byrd I, II, III Postal History Highjump Postal History A Philatelic Introduction to Highjump USS Mt. Olympus | USS Yancey | USS Merrick | USS Sennet | USS Burton Island | USCGC Northwind | USS Currituck | USS Henderson | USS Cacapon | USS Pine Island | USS Brownson | USS Canisteo | USS Philippine Sea Windmill / Deepfreeze Postal History  Deepfreeze CancellationsMcMurdo | South Pole | Byrd Land Little America | Christchurch Modern Postal History The Stamps US Antarctic Philatelic Program
South Pole Millennium Covers
The Old South Pole Story
The peri-Antarctic Islands Maps American Society of Polar Philatelists Websites of Interest Webmaster Table of Contents    
   August 29, 1999 |
Welcome to the Antarctic Philatelic Home Page. This site is dedicated to the stamps, postal history and heroic explorers of the great white continent and its surrounding islands. Extensive work has gone into the creation of this site and updates are frequent. The intention here is to provide noteworthy data, not limited strictly to philately, but also useful reference material for students researching the history of early exploration in the southern latitudes. The early explorers made sojourns to the southern seas solely for commercial reasons, some of which, incidentally, made new discoveries. The majority of these voyages, along with the highest development of the whaling and sealing industry, came in the nineteenth century when operations took place in every ocean of the world. Many of the peri-Antarctic islands were discovered by sealers or whalers and the first landings on half of them were made by men engaged in the whale and penguin oil industry. A particular problem with many sealing voyages was the secrecy with which the industry was conducted; should a captain and crew discover a new sealing area, they normally concealed its location in the hope of having no competition when exploiting it on subsequent voyages. The early sealing industry declined as the population of Fur seals and Elephant seals were reduced to such an extent that the industry became virtually unprofitable. The second major exploitation of Antarctic resources began in 1904 with the establishment of the modern whaling industry. At various times shore stations operated in the Falkland Islands, South Shetland Islands, South Orkney Islands, South Georgia, Iles Kerguélen, Macquarie Island and Campbell Island; "floating" factories were moored at these and several other locations. In July 1895, the Sixth International Geographical Congress was held in London for the primary purpose of rekindling interest in Antarctic exploration. This is generally referred to as the beginning of the Heroic Era of Antarctic exploration, dating from Adrien de Gerlache's Belgica Expedition in 1897, extending to Richard Byrd's Little America Expedition in 1928.
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Postal
history examples prior to the turn of the century are exceedingly rare
and are coveted by polar philatelists worldwide; it is from the turn
of the century that the postal history becomes available to most of
us. Illustrated here is a postal history example from the Heroic
Era: from a set of four Links of the Empire postcards, printed
for 