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Gold was
discovered in California in 1848 and by 1849 the great gold
rush had begun. This resulted in a significant increase of
travel through the Straits of Magellan and around Cape Horn.
A ship repair business was developed in the Falkland Islands
at this time. In 1849
the Southern Whale Fishery Company, incorporated by British
Royal Charter, attempted to settle a new British colony at
Port Ross in the Auckland Islands. The Samuel Enderby
arrived carrying Charles Enderby and a number of settlers on
December 4 and found, to their surprise, about 40 Maoris and
30 Morioris who had settled there in 1843. Serious problems
developed as shore whaling was unsuccessful, passing vessels
did not call to refit as expected and attempts to grow
vegetables and crops were a total failure (although the
Maoris were more successful). The colony was abandoned in
1852. After
the voyage of Erasmus Darwin Rogers aboard the
Corinthian (1853-56), the United States sealing
industry began operations on Heard Island in 1855. The
island was frequently visited between 1855 and 1882 with
American sealers wintering for most of the years after
1856. Elephant
sealing at Heard Island Just
such an undertaking was already under preparation by a
lieutenant in the Royal Belgian Navy. He was 29 years old
and his name was Adrien Victor Joseph de Gerlache. De
Gerlache was an idealistic young officer with a passion to
explore the southern latitudes. Unfortunately, his timing
was poor. National resources were directed towards Africa
and Belgium's newly acquired colony, the Congo. Fund raising
was his only option and fortunately he was able to raise
interest with the Brussels Geographical Society who
organized a national subscription. The Belgian Parliament
finally donated 60,000 francs and when the subscription
lists closed, de Gerlache was left with nearly 300,000
francs at his disposal. A
250-ton barque was purchased for 70,000 francs in Norway.
The three-masted whaler Patric had been built for the
icy waters of the north. Extensive refitting was done and
subsequently rechristened as the Belgica. On July
29, 1896, de Gerlache received a letter from a 25-year-old
Norwegian wishing to sail, unpaid, aboard the
Belgica. His request was accepted and thus
Roald
Amundsen was added to the
ship's crew. The
scientific crew represented many nations: the zoologist,
Emile Racovitza, was Romanian; the geologist, Henryk
Arctowski, was Polish; navigating officer and astronomer,
George Lecointe, was Belgian; Amundsen and a number of
others were Norwegian; the laboratory assistant was Russian;
the ship's surgeon, Dr. Frederick A. Cook, was a 32-year-old
native of Sullivan County, New York. The
Belgica left Antwerp on August 16, 1897. She was so
overloaded that she could make no more than 6 miles per hour
under steam and her decks were barely 2 feet clear of
water. The
Belgica reached Punta Arenas on December 1, 1897. For
no recorded reason a number of crew members deserted leaving
only 19 men. Scientific studies were conducted in Tierra del
Fuego with the Belgica departing south on December
14. This may have proved costly as the late departure date
resulted in a late arrival date, January 20, in Antarctic
waters. Without
warning, on January 22 a strong storm hit the
Belgica. Her containers of coal broke free and
spilled out over the deck as huge waves flooded over the
sides. As the sailors scrambled, Dr. Cook later wrote "While
thus engaged we heard an unearthly cry--a cry which made me
shiver because of its force and painful tone. We turned
about quickly, but saw nothing to indicate the direction of
the noise. Amundsen, thinking there'd been an accident in
the engine room, rushed in that direction. I went to the
quarter-deck, looked astern and saw a man struggling among
the white crests. It was (Carl) Wiencke (a sailor). In
trying to free the scuppers he had lost his balance, and in
falling he uttered the awful cry. With a quick presence of
mind he grasped the log-line. I began to draw it in, but he
slipped until his hand was stopped by the log. He held on to
this with a death-like grasp...but there was little to be
done. With a bravery impossible to appreciate, Lieutenant
Lecointe offered to be lowered into the sea to pass a rope
around Wiencke. With two men on deck, Lecointe was lowered,
but he sank at once with the counter-eddies and nearly lost
his life. We managed to tow Wiencke to the side of the
ship...but he gave up his grip on the log-line, and sank.
Wiencke was a boy with many friends, and his loss was deeply
felt". It was the first loss of life on the Belgica
but not the last. On the
following day, Sunday, January 23, the storm subsided. They
had arrived off the coast of Graham Land which had not been
visited for the past 60 years. The Belgica worked
slowly between the Graham Land coast and a long string of
islands to the west. De Gerlache named the passage Belgica
Strait. Renamed in his honor, the great discovery is now
known as Gerlache Strait. Between
January 23 and February 12, 1898, the Belgian Antarctic
Expedition made no less than twenty separate landings on the
islands along the strait. They charted and named the islands
of Brabant, Liège, Anvers and, in memory of the
sailor lost at sea, Wiencke Island. Heading southwest, the
Belgica crossed the Antarctic Circle on February 15,
1898. On the last day of February the explorers entered the
ice pack at 70°20´S and 85°W. They reached
another degree south and the vessel became wedged in the
pack ice. For the next few days talk among the crew
suggested de Gerlache intentionally trapped them in the ice.
Efforts were made to free the Belgica but the
overloaded vessel remained imprisoned and by March 2 their
fate was determined and the crew realized they were at the
mercy of the south. It was
at this time that Dr. Cook assumed moral command of the
Belgica. De Gerlache and Amundsen were busy with the
details of preparing the ship to break free of the ice while
Cook realized that the mood of the shipmates would become
his responsibility. Cook new the men needed sunlight and
fresh meat. De Gerlache had already tasted penguin and seal
meat and declared them both to be inedible. As for penguin
meat, Dr. Cook said "If it's possible to imagine a piece of
beef, odiferous cod fish and a canvas-backed duck roasted
together in a pot, with blood and cod-liver oil for sauce,
the illustration would be complete". In order to convince
the crew it was necessary for medicinal purposes, de
Gerlache unwillingly agreed to "ignore the taste; swallow it
down as a duty". Next, in order to take the men's minds off
their unpleasantness, Cook organized card schools where bets
of 1000 francs were accepted, of which none were ever
honored. But, the Antarctic night still took its toll. One
crewmember spoke no French so when he heard the word for
something, he really thought it meant kill and
thus attacked anyone who spoke the word. Another man climbed
overboard onto the ice and announced his departure for
Belgium. On July
23, 1898, the first glow of light returned along with the
spirits of the men. The research work resumed. Soundings
were taken through the ice and astronomical observations
were taken while sledge parties explored the drift. Even
though the winter was over, they were still firmly embraced
by the ice which measured over seven feet thick. The days
continued on with no relief in sight. The expedition began
to run short of coal and oil for the lamps and the crew
began to fear the possibility of a second winter in the ice.
In their minds, death was a certainty. The
Belgica drifted to the west throughout August and
September. In October they cheered to see lakes forming in
the ice but the ice closed in and froze them in again. In
November snow settled in around the ship as a number of the
crew had to be treated by Dr. Cook for the onset of
insanity. Panic was in the air as Christmas was celebrated
aboard the ship. Despite the gloom, a constant watch was
kept by de Gerlache, Lecointe, Amundsen and Cook. On New
Year's Eve, 1898, a stretch of open water appeared. In the
second week of 1899, a party sledged to the edge of the lake
where they measured the depth of the ice. For the next few
weeks, working day and night, the explorers chopped and
sawed their way through the ice towards the ship. By the end
of January they had cut a channel to within 100 feet of the
ship. Then the wind changed, the ice shifted and the channel
closed in behind them. Needless to say, the men became
despondent. The remaining food was now being rationed and
February would be the last month of the Antarctic summer,
after which the days would become shorter and the weather
unbearable. They even talked of abandoning ship but decided
against it as they had no place to go. On
February 15, at 2 o'clock in the morning, de Gerlache was
woke up by a sailor who had been on watch. The channel they
had created was once again open! The engine was started and,
for the first time since March 2, 1898, the Belgica
was moving under her own power. It was a desperate struggle,
but by March 14 they cleared the pack after inching their
way through seven miles of ice. Almost 13 months had elapsed
since their initial entrapment. They had drifted across 17
degrees of longitude. Roald
Amundsen and two of his fellow
countrymen left the Belgica and sailed home on a
Norwegian mailboat. Sailor Tollefsen had lost his sanity
during the Antarctic night but eventually recovered. Sailor
Knutsen wasn't so lucky as he died shortly after. Medals
were presented by King Leopold of Belgium. In 1901
de Gerlache led a zoological expedition to the Persian Gulf.
In 1903 he joined Charcot's
expedition to the Antarctic but resigned in Buenos Aires. He
made a number of important expeditions to the Arctic, among
them Greenland in 1905 and 1909 and the Barents and Kara
Seas in 1907. He assisted Ernest
Shackleton with the
organization of Shackleton's difficult expedition of
1914-17. De Gerlache sold him his yacht which Shackleton
renamed the Endurance.
The
completion of the great British naval expedition of 1839-43,
under the command of James
Clark Ross on HMS
Erebus and Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier on HMS
Terror, brought to an end the era of early Antarctic
exploration. On the other hand, a significant number of
sealing and whaling voyages were undertaken by a variety of
nations in the years leading up to the end of the century.
The majority of these subsequent sailings originated from
New England in the United States and from France.
In July 1895, the Sixth International Geographical
Congress met in London and adopted a resolution: "That this
congress record its opinion that the exploration of the
Antarctic Regions is the greatest piece of geographical
exploration still to be undertaken. That in view of the
additions to knowledge in almost every branch of science
which would result from such a scientific exploration the
Congress recommends that the scientific societies throughout
the world should urge in whatever way seems to them most
effective, that this work should be undertaken before the
close of the century".
On March 2, the day they realized they were locked in
for the winter, the vessel had reached 71°30´S,
85°16´W. Snow was piled high on the decks in an
attempt to preserve heat and a small wooden shack was built
on the ice. On May 17, total darkness of the winter night
set in. Had they been close to land, surely the men would
have deserted as they were constantly cold and damp. The men
were crowded together, many unable to speak with each other
due to language problems. Food was in short supply with much
of it soft and tasteless. The crew quickly became tired of
the same daily diet of canned meatballs, canned fish, and
canned vegetables. By the month of May the crew was
suffering from muscular spasms, lethargy and an intense
desire to get away from one another. On June 5, 1898,
Lieutenant Danco died from the cold and a weak heart. Henryk
Arctowski wrote "In the obscurity of the midday twilight we
carried Lieutenant Danco's body to a hole which had been cut
in the ice, and committed it to the deep. A bitter wind was
blowing as, with bared heads, each of us silent, we left him
there...And the floe drifted on..."