Stove Used By The 1911-14 Australasian Antarctic Expedition Uncovered After 96 Years

Stove Used by the 1911-14 Australasian Antartic Expedition
Uncovered After 96 Years


CAPE DENISON ANTARCTICA DEC 20 -- Conservationists have uncovered the iron stove used to prepare food for the 18 members of the 1911-14 Australasian Antarctic Expedition (AAE) led by Sir Douglas Mawson. It is inside the main hut used as a base by Mawson's team for two years.

Totally devoid of ice for the first time in 96 years, the "Mrs Sam Range" made by Smith and Wellstood of Bonnybridge, Glasgow, has been identified as a "six burner" and will now undergo specialist treatment from the three material conservators with the Mawson's Huts Foundation 10 person team working at Cape Denison.

Fire boxes alongside the stove which was kept burning 24 hours a day to help keep the timber hut warm, contain charred coke from when it was last used in December 1913 when the team left for home.

The stove was the soul of the hut as Mawson recorded in his diary: "The whole world is asleep except the night-watchman, and he, having made the bread, washed a tubful of clothes, kept the fire going, observed and made notes on the aurora every fifteen minutes and the weather every half-hour, and, finally, having had a bath, indulges in buttered toast and a cup of coffee."

It also nearly destroyed the hut when the chimney caught fire and damaged part of the Baltic Pine roof. The stove sits on an iron plate in the kitchen area of the living area of the main hut

The Foundation, which works in partnership with the Australian Antarctic Division, has been partly funded this summer by the Federal Government's Jobs Fund programme which allows the team to spend nearly seven weeks on the carrying out conservation work, scientific projects and other work.

The team has also successfully tested for the first time at Cape Denison kite cameras which are being used for an aerial survey of the site, are in the process of installing a webcam to transit daily images of the hut and also installing a wind generator and solar panel system to provide "Green power" for the Foundation's expedition.

For further details please contact:

Rob Easther or David Jensen

Expedition Manager 0419 337169 Chairman/CEO 0414 333381

Pictures on website: www.mawsonshuts.org.au (see expedition blog)

SOURCE: Mawson's Hut Foundation