Douglas Mawson hung helplessly in a deep crevasse, contemplating the effort it would take to extricate his exhausted body from the harness, and resigned himself to what seemed an inevitable death. "I thought I had done all I could and failed, I was now as weak as water... It seemed to be the end," the Antarctic hero recalled. "I looked forward to the relief." History records that this last-minute surge of determination allowed the young South Australian geologist to pull himself out of the abyss for a second time and continue his battle for survival. Had he given in to his first instinct and died in the icy wilderness on January 17, 1913, Australia might have lost one of its greatest heroes of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. Without Mawson, Australia may never have come to possess the nearly 5.9 million square kilometers of territory it claims in the frozen south, including the long-established scientific bases now located there.
However, the impact of the 1911-14 Australasian Antarctic Expedition, led by Mawson, remains largely unrecognized within the country. Schoolchildren are more likely to learn about Briton Robert Scott and Norwegian Roald Amundsen's race to the South Pole than the harrowing survival story of their own national hero during the same era.
So, how do we commemorate Mawson's expedition, which took place over a century ago? Why has his legacy remained underappreciated both domestically and internationally? The enduring image of Mawson is that of the steel-helmeted pirate on the $100 note, contrasting sharply with the caricatures of domesticated housewives and contented Adelaide sheep farmers found in private collections.
He played a significant role in advocating for the preservation of the so-called Galapagos of the Southern Ocean and the sub-Antarctic Macquarie Island environment, yet he appeared to support whaling and mineral exploration activities in Antarctica. In 1884, a year after Mawson's birth, his family immigrated to NSW in search of a better life. As a primary school student at Fort Street Model School, Mawson was encouraged to study geography, and his headmaster reportedly prophesied: "If there is any unexplored corner of our planet left, Douglas Mawson will uncover it through exploration and become the organizer and leader."
His passion for geography was strongly supported during his time at the University of Sydney, where he met Professor T.W. Edgeworth David, who encouraged Mawson to focus his studies on glaciology and the Ice Age, catalyzing his first journey to Antarctica. Thus, when David was invited to join Ernest Shackleton's 1907 Antarctic expedition, Mawson asked if he could accompany him. Due to David raising funds for the expedition from the Australian government, Shackleton felt indebted and, impressed by Mawson's enthusiasm, intelligence, and physical strength (he stood at 190 cm), agreed to appoint him as the expedition's physicist.
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