Breaking the Ice Ceiling

WRITER’S LIFE WRITER’S LIFE A\jj\9cXZbX[[\ifeYfXi[ 8?^^cle[jXcc$k\iiXèm\_`Zc\fek_\j\X`Z\ 8lifiX8ljkiXc`jèk_\j\X`Z\% Falcon Scott to take her on his expedition so XkGcXkZ_X?lke\Xi;Xm`jJkXk`fe% she could look for rocks to prove the theory that the continents had once been linked. BREAKING THE Among the records of Ernest Shackleton, one of the great men from the heroic era of Antarctic exploration, is a letter from three young women, which said, ‘We are ICE CEILING three strong healthy girls, and also gay and bright, and willing to undergo any hardships that you yourself undergo … we do not see why men should have the glory, and women none, especially when there are women just as brave and capable as there are men.’ Twenty-five women applied to Mawson’s expedition in 1929, and the extraordinary a tourist with plenty of money, Leane’s academic study Antarctica in number of 1300 women applied to the or – for a lucky few – an artist with a Fiction is coming out in mid-2012. British Antarctic Expedition proposed project that captures the imagination It took me three attempts to for 1937. of the Australian Antarctic Division convince the Division that my novel Not one of those women made it to (AAD). about Ingrid was more exciting than Antarctica. The only women who managed Writers have been active the various visual arts, music, dance, to get there before the 1940s were those contributors to the Antarctic Arts film and photography projects also who went in association with Ingrid Fellowship program over the years. vying for an arts berth on the and Lars Christensen: Mathilde Wegger, Tim Bowden went as an arts fellow Aurora Australis, the big red icebreaker Lillemor Rachlew, Solveig Wideroe, in 1988–89 and afterwards wrote charged with shuttling AAD Caroline Mikkelsen and Ingrid’s daughter several books and presented a series employees between Hobart and Sofie Christensen. of television and radio documentaries East Antarctica for their half- or I was intrigued by Ingrid and the about Antarctica. Twenty years full-year stints on the continent. C\^\e[Xip8ekXiZk`Z[f^j#d`jjè^Xik\]XZkj#ZfejgìXZp forgotten story of her four journeys. All later, in 2008, Tom Griffiths jointly In October 2011 I finally stepped the ingredients were there for a compelling won the Prime Minister’s Prize for on board and began my six-week k_\fi`\jf]\ogcfiXk`feXe[XZfekè\ekf]]c`d`kjkf]\dXc\j¿ 8;;<I B drama. One important question remained: Australian History for his masterful voyage, a modern version of Ingrid’s 8: =fccfnè^k_\kiX`cf]k_\]ìjknfdXekfm`j`k8ekXiZk`ZX_Xjc\[ 9C could I write a novel about Antarctica Antarctic history Slicing the Silence own voyages to the same region of < JJ without going there? after a fellowship voyage. Hazel Antarctica 80 years earlier. < efm\c`jkXe[8ekXiZk`Z8ikj=\ccfnA<JJ<9C8:B8;;<Ièkf A Definitely not, I hoped. I was fascinated Edwards wrote books, DVDs and Most Antarctic tourism takes jfd\jligi`jè^X[m\ekli\jèk_\]ifq\ejflk_% @eî`[:_i`jk\ej\e with the icy continent and determined to plays, including Antarctica’s Frozen place between the southern end t’s a sunny spring day in Antarctica, only obsession began with an old black-and-white c\]k Xe[DXk_`c[\ visit. But to get to Antarctica you need Chosen. Bernadette Hince created of Argentina and the Antarctic N\^^\ifeYfXi[ @minus four degrees with hardly any photograph of two women sitting on the deck G?FKF>I8G?P1 to be a scientist, a tradesperson, a doctor, The Antarctic Dictionary: The Peninsula, where the crossing of breeze – most unusual for the planet’s windiest of a ship on the way to Antarctica. One of K_fij_Xmeè(0*(% complete guide to the Drake Passage by ship is rough <LD J continent. For the past hour we’ve roared them, Ingrid Christensen, gazed enigmatically L Antarctic English but blessedly short – about two across the bird’s-egg blue sea ice in a sturdy into the camera. When I learned that she Christensen. During their voyage, Klarius D to capture the days. Australia’s three Antarctic @E> C red Hägglunds vehicle. I’m now standing at was the first woman known to have seen took Caroline ashore, and she became ?8 continent’s lexicon. bases (Casey, Davis and Mawson), the top of a hill surrounded by ice and snow, Antarctica, I wanted to know more. (it was believed) the first woman to set foot N Alison Lester kept however, all lie on the other side of FI; waving a 70-year-old Australian Red Ensign But there was a problem: there was little on Antarctica. =A an online diary for the continent, in a remote location far flag that I’ve unearthed from a rock cairn, and more to be found. I discovered that Ingrid, a What Ingrid thought about being pipped schoolchildren and from most tourist activities. It’s more J8E;< accompanied by a life-sized fibreglass seeing 38-year-old Norwegian, left her six children at the post was never recorded. Although = wrote the children’s than 4500km from Hobart to Davis PF eye dog called Stay. behind and travelled to Antarctica by ship her husband wrote prolifically about their J book One Small Island Station – two weeks’ sailing time It’s one of the more surreal moments of four times with her husband, Lars, in the travels, none of Ingrid’s words have survived, (with Coral Tulloch), each way, through the roaring forties, my Australian Antarctic Arts Fellowship, but it 1930s as part of his whaling fleet, taking a if they were ever written down in the first Anthony Eaton furious fifties and screaming sixties typifies several things about the extraordinary female friend or two on each trip. Although place. Her own landing, which took place wrote the novel Into latitudes of the Southern Ocean. <>><IÆ:FLIK< continent of Antarctica: that its history is a Ingrid (along with Mathilde Wegger) was two years later, was largely unrecorded and N White Silence, Craig It’s an epic voyage and, unusually living part of life when you’re there, that the first woman to see Antarctica, on her forgotten by history. Cormick’s non-fiction in modern travel, bears more than <E8E; visitors need to expect the unexpected, and first three trips conditions were never right The whole history of women and J book In Bed with a passing relationship to the ship K<E that it helps to have an eccentric obsession if for landing. Antarctica is problematic, as they were J Douglas Mawson was journeys of past years. In 1931, you want to visit. Oh, and if there’s something Before Ingrid could get back to actively, in fact strenuously, excluded from launched in 2011, Ingrid made a six-week voyage from you want to find again – a ship, a flag, a Antarctica a fourth time, a Danish woman, the continent. Women had started applying as was Jo Chandler’s Cape Town on the resupply vessel vehicle – it’s a good idea to make sure it’s red. Caroline Mikkelsen, accompanied her to Antarctic expeditions early in the 1900s. <dg\ifig\e^lèjXe[k_\j_`g exploration of climate Thorshavn, which carried fuel, mail and I’ll come back to the seeing eye dog Norwegian husband, Klarius, south on a Marie Stopes, famous palaeobotanist (and 8lifiX8ljkiXc`j% change Feeling the food for the deep-sea whaling fleet shortly. But first, my own Antarctic whaling ship, one of the fleet owned by Lars later contraception advocate) asked Robert G?FKF>I8G?P1:?I@ Heat, and Elizabeth working in the Southern Ocean near (+ >FF;I<8;@E>D8I:?)'() NNN%>FF;I<8;@E>D8>8Q@E<%:FD >FF;I<8;@E>D8I:?)'() (, WRITER’S LIFE East Antarctica. The development of wireless on the mainland at all. It appears that Ingrid for such a historic moment as the landing of communication meant some contact with Christensen was the first woman to land on the first woman they would have made sure home was possible and news reports could Antarctica itself. they were on the mainland. Alan’s theory, be sent back to the papers. Now this kind of hairsplitting about also based on the absence of the artefacts the Eighty years later, in 2011, I made a who landed where and when might seem Mikkelsens left in the cairn, is that this is the six-week voyage on the Division’s resupply ridiculous, but it was an important part wrong site, and that the real landing place vessel carrying fuel, mail, food, personnel and of polar exploration, as evidenced by the hasn’t been found yet. He believes that the equipment from Hobart to Davis Station in still-famous story of Scott and Amundsen’s cairn and flagpole were put there secretly East Antarctica. The development of satellite race to the South Pole 100 years ago. by Norwegian crewmen sneaking off a ship communication meant limited email contact In fact, the first confirmed landing during a 1939 American expedition on the with home was possible, though connecting on Antarctica, by Henryk Bull’s 1894 ship Wyatt Earp with Lincoln Ellsworth and to the internet was not. (With help from a expedition on a ship called Antarctic, shows the Australian explorer Hubert Wilkins. friend I could post to my blog from the ship the lengths to which such competition As an author, I love Alan’s theory.

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