Living in the Cold Light of Reason: Colonial Settlements in Antarctica

COVER SHEET

Quentin, Stevens and Christy, Collis (2003) Living in the Cold Light of Reason: Colonial Settlements in Antarctica. In Gusheh, Maryam and Stead, Naomi, Eds. Proceedings Progress: The 20th Annual Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand, pages pp. 291-297, University of Sydney.

Accessed from: https://eprints.qut.edu.au/secure/00004719/01/OS25- 99_PROGRESS_paper.doc Living in the Cold Light of Reason: Colonial Settlements in Antarctica

Abstract

In the name of science, the ‘uninhabited’ continent Antarctica is being settled, colonised. What does the architecture of its colonial settlements look like? How are they organised spatially, socially, and ideologically? This paper critically examines the long-term occupation of Antarctica, focusing on two major settlements: McMurdo and Mawson Stations.

The production of an inhabited Antarctic space is examined across various scales and time frames. The paper investigates the historical evolution of built form, function, and meaning at both settlements, as administered by government bureaucracies, represented through symbols and narratives, and spatialised in social practices. The paper also evaluates the siting and management of these bases within a complex geopolitical and legal context of differing national claims to Antarctic space.

These bases are justified by universal, rational doctrines of scientific progress and ecological protection. This paper examines how the architecture of the settlements also furthers divergent socio-political agendas. Apart from their ostensibly scientific ‘function’, the design of these settlements frames certain experiences of landscape and specific relations between work, leisure and place; it frames differentiations of class, status and gender, and between visitors and inhabitants. It also aids in the construction of a particular history of colonisation.

The paper draws upon existing critiques of colonial architecture and urbanism, examining their relevance to Antarctica’s unique geographical and social context, which lacks both indigenous claimants and an architectural vernacular. Living in the Cold Light of Reason: Colonial Settlements in Antarctica

This is a paper about the built environments and epistemological underpinnings of two dynamic colonial spaces. The paper explores the anatomy of these spaces: their physical environments, the epistemologies that shape them, and the ways their inhabitants use them.1 The study works towards a broad definition of contemporary colonialism. Studies of colonial spatiality are nothing new.2 What differentiates this study is its context: Antarctica. Specifically, it examines Australia’s Mawson Station, and the USA’s McMurdo Station, two of Antarctica’s oldest and most populous human colonies.

COLONIAL SPATIALITIES

The first thing that needs to be defined in the context of this study is the term colony. At its most basic, ‘colony’ refers to any relatively self-contained settlement, particularly, in the case of human society, one consciously designed and developed to serve a specialised social goal of a metropolitan centre. Leper colonies and penal colonies provide segregation in the interests of the home population. Artists’ colonies and nudist colonies allow people a peaceful and supportive atmosphere for personal expression whilst society is spared their excesses. Whatever the degree of its internal freedoms, a colony is fundamentally a product of the metropolitan society that governs it; its role is to strengthen the order of that society as a whole. The study of colonial spatiality, then, at this basic level, focuses on the ways in which intentional groups of humans organise physical geography itself, and transform it to suit specific cultural needs. The study of colonial spatiality also attends to the ways in which landscape shapes people’s imported spatial ideas, attitudes, behaviours, and buildings.

While ‘colony’ can refer to apolitical spatial formations, colonialism is rarely detached from the exercise of power. In particular, colonies are a primary means by which states take control of land beyond their borders. To understand the legal and geopolitical work performed by colonies, it is necessary to turn to international territorial law.

At international law, the first legal step in transforming a space into an imperial possession is ‘discovery’, the set of practices performed by authorised explorers.3 Contrary to popular perception, discovery itself is not enough to fully transform space into a possession.4 Legally, the spaces produced by imperial exploration and claiming are not yet full possessions of the imperial claimants, but are held in reserve as ‘inchoate titles’ for those claimants until title can be ‘perfected’5 Perfection of imperial title can only be achieved through what is known at law as ‘effective occupation’ of the claimed space; that is, through the installation of a colonial spatiality of occupation.6 Legally, it is through colonial spatiality’s full-time presence of bodies and buildings that land is transformed into a sovereign possession.

The study of Mawson and McMurdo as colonies is sometimes met with critical and definitional resistance. In his study of colonial geographies, Kohn eliminates Antarctican stations from his analysis, arguing that because Antarctica was not originally inhabited by indigenous populations, that the terms ‘imperial’ and ‘colonial’ cannot apply to the activities or attitudes of its current occupants and claimants.7 According to Kohn, Antarctica cannot be treated as colonial space because “a colonial relation is created when one nation establishes and maintains political domination over a geographically external political unit inhabited by people of any race”.8 Jim Bleasel, past Director of the Australian Antarctic Division, similarly argues that Antarctican stations should not be referred to as colonies because “the term ‘colonialism’ evokes emotional connotations of exploitation which have simply not been relevant in Antarctica”.9 But Antarctica is a unique space: it lacks indigenous inhabitants. Hence, unlike every other colonial space, it is not defined through invasion and loss. The popularity of intercultural exploitation as a focus for colonial and postcolonial studies can blind us to the fact that intercultural relations are not always the defining aspects or the spatial function of a colony. What analysts such as Kohn fail to recognise is that imperial and colonialism are fundamentally a matter of the “struggle for control over territory”,10 and not of intercultural relations; for the most part, intercultural relations are epiphenomena of the territorial drive. The fact of Antarctica’s lack of indigenes does not render Antarctican colonies any less colonial; rather, it signals a defining and a unique aspect of Antarctican colonial spatialities. What we are looking at when we look at Antarctican stations are colonial spatialities of territorial control and science and possession, but not of dispossession. In Antarctica, it is nature, not indigenous people, which is subjugated and made orderly by colonial settlements.

As a means of understanding Antarctic colonial spatialities, we can examine similar colonies produced outside the context of indigenous subjugation: Soviet science cities. Akademgorodok, ‘the small town of academics’ was built at great speed and expense in the Siberian forest in 1957.11 Here, remote location framed personal freedoms and an atmosphere of openness. Tunnels between buildings eliminated the need for scientific colonists to suffer the harsh Siberian landscape,12 but more important was their “geographical and psychological distance from Moscow”.13 Well-funded researchers worked relatively unimpeded by political ideology and bureaucracy. These scientific settlements do not fit King’s capitalistic model of integrating a region’s economy with the metropolis.14 Conversely, their location and management aims for separation from mainstream society in the interests of scientific efficacy and intellectual purity. The design of science cities was rationally-derived. Science was the prime discipline to which residents were subjected.

Clearly, scientific colonies are articulated with geopolitical colonialism;15 the interpenetrations of science and imperialism is a well-researched field.16 In Antarctica, this connection of scientific with legal-geopolitical colonialism is particularly marked: states may only become full Consultative parties to the Antarctic Treaty if they conduct scientific activities—particularly the construction of science colonies—in Antarctica.17 However, while articulated to geopolitics, it needs to be recognised that a scientific colony differs from conventional definitions of colonial spatiality: it is not governed by capital stratification, intercultural relations, or resource extraction. In colonies such as Mawson and McMurdo, it is scientific rationality and a scientific relation with the surrounding landscape that govern their evolving spatialities.

While a colony is thus not in all cases a setting for organising the exploitation of indigenous peoples and lands,18 this does not mean that Antarctic colonies are free from spatial discipline and social stratification. The “adjudications of cleanliness, civility and modernity”19 which guide the planning and management of a colonial settlement apply not only to colonised indigenous people, but also to colonists themselves. In the case of Antarctica, the absence of the former provides an opportunity to focus on the latter.

COLONISATION CONTEXTS

McMurdo and Mawson stations are intentional spaces. Both stations have carefully planned siting, population, and design. Neither station’s geographical position is a matter of chance, aesthetics, or convenience; both stations’ inhabitants are carefully selected by the governments of their national owners. In order to anatomise the stations as unique spatial formations, it is thus necessary first to attend to the intertwined motivations that account for their existence.

The ‘heroic era’ of Antarctic imperialism that featured explorers such as Amundsen, Scott, Mawson, and Shackleton left in its wake a legacy of imperial land claims to polar space. By the end of the 1940s, much of the continent was subject to national claims, the largest of which was Britain’s 1933 ‘gift’ of 42% of the continent to Australia, in recognition of Douglas Mawson’s imperial expeditions.20 But by the 1950s, these ageing imperial land claims were causing their owners increasing anxiety.21 Australia realised that it would have to act if it was to maintain possession of its “frozen empire”:22 it needed to transform the imperial space or inchoate title established by Mawson into a space in which Australian title was visibly and incontrovertibly perfected. Thus in 1954, Australia commenced construction of Mawson Station, and its history of Antarctic colonialism was initiated. Naval Air Facility McMurdo, as it was called when it was built in 1955, has markedly different spatial motivations underpinning its existence.

The territorial aspirations of Australia and the United States in Antarctica were and are far from the same: an understanding of this fundamental difference is essential to any study of the unique spatialities of Mawson and McMurdo stations. Mawson is situated in the Australian Antarctic Territory, by Australia, in order to consolidate the imperial claims installed by Australian explorers. McMurdo, on the other hand, although designed to support the United States’ territorial rights to Antarctica, does not cement a specific American land claim, precisely because the United States has never specified exactly which areas of Antarctica that it considers to be its own. Rather, placed defiantly as it is within New Zealand’s Ross Dependency, McMurdo is a legal assertion of the United States’ rejection of all other nations’ Antarctican claims,23 and a physical signal of the intention to “reserv(e) merican rights” to an unspecified area of the continent.24 McMurdo is also a legal assertion of Antarctican internationalism, or non-sovereignty: throughout the 1950s, the United States attempted to forestall the Antarctican ambitions of the Soviet Union by proposing a joint possession and governance of the continent by an eight-country condominium of Western and South American claimants. Although this proposal failed,25 in 1959 twelve nations amicably signed the Antarctic Treaty, which allowed claimants to retain their claims while allowing each nation the choice of whether or not it would recognise others’ claims to sovereignty. As legal/geopolitical spaces, then, the colonies of Mawson and McMurdo differ significantly.

As scientific colonies, however, Mawson and McMurdo are similar spaces. McMurdo was built as the logistics hub for American scientific work during the 1957-8 International Geophysical Year,26 a major focus of which was Antarctica. McMurdo was designed to act as a temporary staging post for widespread American scientific activities further inland, particularly the erection of a colony atop the “symbolic heart of Antarctica, the South Pole”.27 Mawson also became a hub of scientific endeavour during the IGY. As we have argued, science and territorial geopolitics are fundamentally related in Antarctica, but it is important to note that the contextual environment in which Mawson and McMurdo were installed comprised science and international scientific co-operation as well as differing territorial geopolitics. It is this specific combination of motivations that defines the types of colonies that Mawson and McMurdo are today.

MAWSON STATION

The sea approach to Mawson station is stunning: ships pass through ‘Iceberg Alley’, two rows of grounded icebergs that line the natural harbour’s entrance. Framed by these frozen ramparts and by the land rising up towards the plateau behind it, Mawson appears incongruous and brightly differentiated from the land around it:

… the buildings of Mawson remind everyone of leggo blocks. They are brightly painted to distinguish them in heavy snows and blizzards… This man made dump of metals and coloured sheds is a strange contrast to the icy majesty of the plateau and ice surrounding it.28

The bright new buildings of Mawson immediately announce that Mawson is human space, a colony of primary colours in a landscape of muted grey tones.29

Invocations of the station’s imperial patronym stud the site, firmly tethering the present colony to its imperial past. Huge letters painted on six fuel tanks along the harbour’s eastern arm declare M-A- W-S-O-N. A large welcome sign also announces the station’s name, and a bust of Mawson himself sits in the middle of the station site. The bust is flanked by geopolitically-charged flagpoles, from which the Australian and ANARE flags are flown,30 weather permitting, echoing Phillip Law’s legally-significant raising of the Australian flag of territorial possession from the new Mawson base site on 13 February 1954. In keeping with the Antarctican spirit of internationalism, the national flags of any official visitors to the station are also flown. The names of the older buildings invoke British imperial explorers: Ross, Shackleton, Weddell, Biscoe, and Balleny huts clearly mark the Australian buildings as components of a progressive narrative of spatial acquisition and colonisation.

One noteworthy aspect of the Mawson layout is its narrative quality. The perspective of the site on approach from the sea leads the eye from the old station precinct (‘Mawson Village’) in the foreground and then upwards into the infinite distance of the frozen plateau beyond. Elevated behind and around the Village are the station’s newer buildings, distinguished by their large scale and bright colour scheme. Beyond them begins the ice, as the glacier slopes upwards towards the continent’s interior. The historical narrative spelled out by this building arrangement is clear: first there is the huddled Village, the original site of Australian Antarctic colonisation, then there is the technological evolution of the colony into a large modern complex. From the Village to the new

buildings and up to the ice beyond, the view of the site suggests that the Australian legal ‘spirit of possession’ flows outwards from the colony into Australia’s claimed, but as yet uncolonised polar interior.

Scientific colonialism further governs the station’s spatiality: Mawson’s site is partitioned into four zones, one of which is solely devoted to the practices and buildings of scientific research.31 Scientific considerations such as magnetic fields have dictated the layout of Mawson since its installation in 1954. 32 The unadorned quality of the station emphasises the ostensibly rational scientific nature of Australian Antarctic colonisation. In a Treaty system in which the practice of science is a key currency of spatial purchase, Mawson’s overtly scientific spatiality also signals Australia’s commitment to involvement in the management of the continent.

Mawson station exemplifies a tension central to Australian colonial spatialities: whether isolated colonies are non-domestic ‘frontier’ spaces for the conquest of nature, or domestic spaces in which humans live comfortably with the natural world.33 Unlike Australia’s two other Antarctic colonies, Mawson retains most of its historic structures; their continued existence signals not only the longevity of Australia’s continuous occupation of its polar claim, but also the continuity between today’s Antarctic spatiality and that of the past. The 38 old buildings (well over half the station’s total) and the Village precinct are of primary importance to the site’s meaning, a fact reflected in the 1994 “Mawson Feature Index,” which surveyed the cultural importance of Mawson’s pre-1978 buildings in a lead-up to their placement on the Register of the National Estate in 2001.34 As many expeditioners note, it is the values associated with, and expressed by, the Village’s old buildings that are of chief significance to the colony’s spatial identity.35 These values include a frontier ‘pioneering’ ethos36 of man against nature, and a spirit of self-sufficiency: until the 1970s buildings were assembled by expeditioners. The history of the Antarctic Station as an exclusively male colony is preserved in Weddell hut’s ceiling of dated heterosexual pornography.37 Prior to 1974 Australian women were not allowed to travel to the AAT, and they were prevented from wintering at Mawson until 1985,38 partly on the grounds that the station lacked female toilets.39 Roff Smith writes affectionately that the architecture of Mawson Village’s “weatherboard huts, all huddled along a frontier-style Main Street” in a “low, uneven, comfortable line”, cite “just how things used to be in Antarctica’s pioneering days”40.

Mawson’s early occupants have given the names Market Square, Main Street and Coronation Street to the (relatively) enclosed spaces between the Village’s buildings. Proclaimed by handmade signs, this naming turns the harsh outside environment into a place of familiarity and settlement. The nomenclature doesn’t refer to local phenomena or figures; it is the introduction of spatial representations from metropolitan culture in Australia. Further, these names affirm the cultural genealogy of Australia’s own colonisation, and give tribute to the then-recently-crowned Monarch by whose providence Australia was herself now able to become coloniser. While Mawson might be in Antarctica, these names affirm that it is Australian space.

By the late 1970s, the buildings of the Village were no longer safe, environmentally-efficient or large enough for the station’s maximum population of seventy, so a major rebuilding programme was initiated. The new buildings were entirely different from the Village structures, particularly the two-storey Red Shed living and dining facility. The Red Shed provides Antarctican colonists with comfortable, convenient, and aesthetically pleasing accommodations. Its rooms are focused around panoramic views: “the emphasis is on light and the world outside”.41 Its architect states that the building supersedes the ‘frontier’ discomfort of the Village, signalling that “the built environment was now able to more completely overcome the life-threatening aspects of living in Antarctica”.42 This architectural domestication of the ‘frontier’ met with heated complaints that “expeditioners expect some hardships and privations, not a holiday-style sojourn in air-conditioned comfort”.43 This tension between the colonial spatialities of the frontier and the domestic settlement was somewhat alleviated by the decision to position work spaces separately from the living quarters: at least this way, colonists would perpetuate some sense of a frontier engagement with the harsh Antarctican elements, if only on their ways to work.44

Mawson is a complex space, comprised of an assemblage of colonial spatialities: ‘frontier’ village, environmentally-sensitive domestic settlement, science station, and legal-geopolitical assertion. Together they form the unique spatiality of this modern polar colony.

McMURDO STATION

Those arriving by ship at McMurdo pass Discovery Hut, built by British explorer Scott for his Polar expeditions and also used by Shackleton.45 This historic site, marking the longevity of occupation, is maintained by New Zealand as it lies within their territorial claim. The hut’s conservation designation highlights its Australian ‘outback’ design, its symbolisation of “the Heroic Age of Antarctic exploration” and its role in “the earliest advances in the study of earth sciences, meteorology, flora and fauna in Antarctica”.46 The hut thus exemplifies three rather contradictory dimensions of Antarctic colonisation: the introduction of architectural culture, an heroic

(confrontational) approach to the landscape, and (presumably altruistic) motives of scientific research. A nearby cross commemorates the first life lost during Scott’s 1901-4 expedition. A second cross on Observation Hill on the other side of the Station memorialises the Scott Party’s failure to return from the Pole in 1912. In 1956 this was joined by Our Lady of the Snows Shrine, honouring the death of a tractor driver.47 The Station is thus physically framed by a history which helps to reaffirm the frontier spirit of the inhabitants.48

Visitors express two common impressions of McMurdo. With a summer population of 1000 and over 100 buildings (many large-scale), it "resembles an urban center”.49 Other accounts emphasise McMurdo’s “end-of-the-line old-west frontier style town” character.50 However few old buildings remain; 100 structures have already been removed.51 Rapid deterioration, technological advances, changing needs, restructured management and expansion of research all drive continual redevelopment.

In its earliest years as a Naval Air Facility supporting field research, McMurdo was a typical military camp: quonset-hut barracks lining two narrow parallel streets, and separate recreational facilities for enlisted men and officers.52 A cross-axis framed a central square.53 The disaggregation of this tightly-ordered settlement is evident from the current name of this large irregular area, ‘Derelict Junction’, now the shuttle-van depot.54

McMurdo’s research function has grown significantly. The Crary Science and Engineering Center (1991), at the settlement’s heart, totals 4000m². It was named for a geophysicist and geologist, the first person to set foot on both North and South Poles.55 This dedication affirms the U.S. mission in Antarctica in two ways, signifying their globe-spanning interests and the key (economic) importance of geological research there. Other specialised scientific facilities are located for isolation from vibration, metal and radios: thus some determinants of the base’s planning are predominantly scientific. Most buildings are plain metal sheds with R75 rated walls and triple- glazed windows,56 pragmatic means for overcoming natural conditions.

Opposite Crary stands the Chalet (1970), the National Science Foundation headquarters (a.k.a. ‘the Mayor’s Office’), its name arising from its Swiss-ski-lodge aesthetic.57 The Chalet is “the first attempt at a building where form, rather than function, was given any consideration”.58 This is not coincidental:59 its architecture self-consciously strives to dramatise location and identify with it. Outside stands a bust of Admiral Byrd, “one of Antarctica's greatest explorers”,60 signifying individual heroism in a harsh landscape. The bust enhances the Chalet’s role as the colony’s symbolic focus. It has been “recommended that this monument be added to the list of protected historic sites in Antarctica”,61 although neither the object nor its present site are particularly historic.62

The other conspicuous architecture at McMurdo is The Chapel of the Snows. First built from scrap materials by volunteer labour in 1956, it was later embellished with stained glass windows and an octagonal steeple.63 It stood “on a knoll overlooking the camp”, framed at the end of a streetscape on axis with Observation Hill.64 The chapel highlights two stereotypical aspects of colonial settlement: the reproduction of metropolitan exemplars,65 grounding it in familiar social institutions, and the conscious orientation of settlement form within the wider landscape to naturalise human presence. The chapel’s location frames a connection between god, landscape, and human intervention, sanctifying colonisation. Accidentally destroyed by fire in 1978, the chapel was rebuilt in 1989 during the NSF’s general refurbishment program.66 In the reorientation and growth of the settlement, the chapel was moved away from the heart of the layout.

Living quarters are segregated around McMurdo’s ‘downtown’ core, according to occupational status. While some residents are idealistic about the fraternity and egalitarianism of frontier life,67 the colonial reality is that “McMurdo is very much a company town”.68 The base reproduces familiar class distinctions from the home culture, and establishes new distinctions specific to circumstances. “The people in Mactown seem to be organized into three societies”: ‘outdoor people’ (trades), ‘indoor people’ (technicians), and ‘beakers’.69 The first two groups outnumber scientists seven to one.70

Staff occupy a row of large three-storey dormitories along the north-west edge of the station. Rooms are assigned according to seniority and months in Antarctica.71 Air National Guardsmen have special rooms.72 ‘Winter-overs’ have special cachet, and “are accorded the choicest housing with the best scenery”.73

On the opposite side of McMurdo are two residential dormitories (‘Mammoth Mountain Inn’ and ‘Hotel California’) for short-term visitors.74 Further east are two small private apartments reserved for “NSF personnel and some program guests”.75 Set apart is (relatively) luxurious Hut 10, “(f)ormerly the home of the Navy base commander… now used to house (distinguished visitors)”.76 Thus while scientists are ‘aristocrats’ in Antarctica,77 in McMurdo itself their personal needs are often deferred to long-term residents and management. The spatial distribution of McMurdo’s housing reinforces social distinctions. Even in informal social settings, “Members of each group tend to hang with their own”.78 People have favourite tables and dining companions, especially the Air National Guardsmen and the NSF bureaucrats, “MacTown’s executive elite”.79 While “at first glance, MacTown seems to be a classless society… when it actually comes to (running) an Antarctic base… governments prefer the Captain Scott model with its class structures and hidebound rigidities”.80

Whilst the settlement of McMurdo is at first glance just an “unsightly urban sprawl”,81 its “(f)lags, people, buildings give ‘shape’ to the land”82. McMurdo’s architecture and planning both illustrate and serve the beliefs and predilections of the culture which has introduced them to this landscape. Whilst the American colonisation of Antarctica has a rational, scientific orientation, their settlement also overlays a framework of strict social order and discipline which has strong cultural antecedents.

CONCLUSION

This paper has provided an introductory definition of contemporary colonialism in the Antarctic context. It has outlined geopolitical, operational, social and environmental features that differentiate U.S and Australian colonial spatialities, and has begun to sketch out how Mawson and McMurdo function spatially as unique settlements which are scientific, bureaucratic and nationalistic.

While scientists are prime agents of the continent’s colonisation, they themselves increasingly feel invaded:83 tourism is another “face of contemporary colonialism” in Antarctica.84 Many tourists visit McMurdo, where “scientists… act as a substitute host population”.85 As Mawson’s commander noted at the opening of its new buildings, “For better or worse we are coming out of the intrepid age and into the settlement age”.86 Antarctic spatialities continue to evolve, as colonies becomes cultures. REFERENCES

1 Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, Oxford: Blackwell, 1991, pp. 33-39. 2 See, for example: Jane M. Jacobs, Edge of Empire: Postcolonialism and the City, London: Routledge, 1996; Anthony D. King, Colonial Urban Development: Culture, Social Power and Environment, London: Routledge, 1976; Anthony D. King, Urbanism, Colonialism, and the World- Economy, London: Routledge, 1990; Paul Carter, The Road to Botany Bay: An Essay in Spatial History, London: Faber, 1987. 3 Robert Jennings, The Acquisition of Territory in International Law, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1963, p. 6-7. 4 Surya Sharma, Territorial Acquisition, Disputes, and International Law, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1997, p. 40; Jennings, The Acquisition of Territory in International Law, p. 4. 5 Christopher Joyner, Antarctica and the Law of the Sea, Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1992, p. 50- 51. 6Gillian Triggs, International Law and Australian Sovereignty in Antarctica, Sydney: Legal Books, 1986, p. 4; Francis Auburn, Antarctic Law and Politics, London: C. Hurst, Canberra: Croom Helm, 1982, p. 6. 7 Hans Kohn, ‘Reflections on Colonialism’, in Richard Brace (ed), The Imperialism Reader, Princeton: Van Nostrand Press, 1962, p.46. 8 Kohn, ‘Reflections on Colonialism’, p. 46. See also King, Urbanism, Colonialism, and the World- Economy, p. 18. 9 Jim Bleasel, ‘An Australian Perspective’, in T Miller (ed), Australia, Britain, and Antarctica, London: Australian Studies Centre, 1986, p. 41. 10 Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism, London: Chatto and Windus, 1993, p. 331-332. 11 Paul Josephson, New Atlantis Revisited: Akademgorodok, the Siberian City of Science, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997; ‘Part Four: Future Perspectives 2001 Onwards’, Economic and Philosophic Science Review, 2001, http://www.epsr-marx-lenin.co.uk/Persp2001_Pt4.htm 12 ‘Part Four: Future Perspectives 2001 Onwards’, Economic and Philosophic Science Review. 13 Josephson, New Atlantis Revisited. 14 King, Colonial Urban Development; King, Urbanism, Colonialism, and the World-Economy; Greg Castillo, ‘Cities of the Stalinist Empire’, in Nezzar AlSayyad (ed), Forms of Dominance: On the Architecture and Urbanism of the Colonial Enterprise, Aldershot: Avebury, 1992, pp. 261-262. 15 Castillo, ‘Cities of the Stalinist Empire’, pp. 272-280; Peter Beck, The International Politics of Antarctica, London: Croom Helm, 1986, p. 130. 16 See, for example: Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation, London: Routledge, 1992; Robin Burns, ‘Stories About Place: The Antarctic as an International Reserve for Science’, in Christopher Houston, Fuyuki Kurasawa and Amanda Watson (eds), imagined places: The Politics of Making Space, Melbourne: LaTrobe School of Sociology, Politics, and Anthropology, 1990, pp. 159-166; John Gascoigne, Science in the Service of Empire, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. 17M. Peterson, ‘Antarctica: The Last Great Land Rush on Earth’, International Organization, 34, 3, (Summer 1980), p. 381; Roff Smith, Life on The Ice, Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2002, p. 49; see also ‘F. Scott Robert’ (pseudonym) ‘Welcome to The Program: A Guidebook for New Antarctic Workers’, 2003, http://www.bigdeadplace.com/welcome.html; Beck, The International Politics of Antarctica, p. 130. 18 Jacobs, Edge of Empire, p. 20; Jane Jacobs, Cities and the Wealth of Nations, Ringwood, Vic: Penguin Books, 1986, pp. 66-71. 19 Jacobs, Edge of Empire, p. 20. 20 Seven nations lay formal claim to Antarctica: these countries and their years of claim are: Argentina (1943), Australia (1933), Chile (1940), France (1924 and 1938), New Zealand (1923), Norway (1939), United Kingdom (1908, 1917 and 1962).

21 Stephen Pyne, The Ice, London: Weidenfield & Nicholson, 1986, p. 195. 22 Phillip Law, Lecture Notes to Mayoral Address Melbourne Town Hall, 18 November 1955, 04/009 Phillip Garth Law Collection, National Library of Australia. 23 ‘Letter From the Deputy Under-Secretary of State Concerning Notification to Claimant States of United States Activity Within Claimed Areas’, 4 June 1955, US04061955, in W Bush (ed), Antarctica and International Law: A Collection of Inter-State and National Documents, Vol. 3, London: Oceana Publications, 1988, p. 472; Sanjay Chaturvedi, The Polar Regions: A Political Geography, Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, 1996, p. 73. 24 ‘Department of State Memorandum Concerning Claims to Antarctica and United States Participation in the International Geophysical Year’, 30 March 1956, US30031956, in Bush (ed), Antarctica and International Law, Vol. 3, p. 473. 25 John Lovering and John Prescott, Last of Lands…Antarctica, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1979, p. 155. 26 ‘Planning for Tomorrow at McMurdo Station’, Antarctic Journal of the United States, 28, 2 (June 1993), p. 4. 27 Tim Bowden, The Silence Calling: Australians in Antarctica 1947-97, Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1997, p. 170. 28 Coral Tulloch, ‘Coral Tulloch’s Voyage Diary’, 1999, http://www.aad.gov.au/default.asp?casid=5485 29 Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works (PSC Public Works), Minutes of Evidence Relating to the Redevelopment of Australian Antarctic Bases, Canberra: Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, 1981, p. 590. 30 ‘Australia’s Mawson Station’, Australian Geographic, 5, (Jan.-March 1987): p. 96. 31 ‘Mawson Station Management Plan: Management Measures’, 1993, http://www- old.aad.gov.au/environment/Management/plans/mawson/mawson_manag6.asp 32 Phillip Law, Antarctic Odyssey, Melbourne: Heinemann, 1983, p. 114. 33 Brigid Hains, The Ice and the Inland: Mawson, Flynn, and the Myth of the Frontier, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2002. 34 Linda Clark and Elspeth Wishart, ‘Mawson Feature Index: Draft Report’, 1993. 35 Smith, Life on the Ice, pp. 10-13; Bowden, The Silence Calling, pp. 311-316; PSC Public Works, Minutes of Evidence. 36 PSC Public Works, Minutes of Evidence, p. 392. 37 Robin Burns, Just Tell Them I Survived: Women in Antarctica, Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2001, p. 91; Australian Antarctic Division, ‘Mawson Station Heritage Plan,’ 1993, p. 93. 38 Burns, Just Tell Them I Survived, pp. 207-209. 39Bowden, The Silence Calling, p. 444. 40 Smith, Life on the Ice, pp. 10-12. 41 Ingrid McGaughey, Ingrid on Ice, 1998, www.abc.net.au/science/antarctica/ingrid/diaries/980707.htm 42 Phil Incoll, ‘Australian Antarctic Buildings’, 1991, http://www.antdiv.gov.au/default.asp?casid=1504 43 Bowden, The Silence Calling, p. 311. 44 PSC Public Works, Minutes of Evidence, p. 15. 45 Tim Smith, ‘McMurdo Station’, 2000, http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A369344; Thomas Bauer, ‘Antarctic Tourism: Island Tourism with a Difference’, Islander Online (1999), http://www.islandstudies.org/islander/online/article/ntarctic.htm 46 National Science Foundation, ‘Antarctic Conservation Act of 1978 NSF 01-151: Antarctic Specially Protected Area No. 157 (Specially Protected Area No. 28, for Historic Site No. 18 Discovery Hut, Hut Point, Ross Island Lat. 77°50’50”S, Long. 166°38’E) Management Plan’, 1978, http://www.nsf.gov/od/opp/antarct/aca/nsf01151/aca2_spa157.pdf

47 ‘The ‘unofficial’ VXE-6 webpage for the (late-RIP) US Navy Squadron Antarctic Development Squadron Six’, 1999, http://www.vaq34.com; Center for Astrophysical Research in Antarctica, ‘Virtual Tour - McMurdo Station, Antarctica’, 2000, http://astro.uchicago.edu/cara/vtour/mcmurdo/index.html; National Science Foundation ‘Antarctic Conservation Act’, National Science Foundation, ‘Historic Sites in and around McMurdo Station’, 1995, http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/antarctica/background/NSF/histsite.html 48 Smith, Life on The Ice, pp. 41-44. 49 Antarctic Support Associates, ‘Your Stay at McMurdo Station Antarctica’, 1995, http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/antarctica/background/NSF/mc-stay.html 50 Judd Slivka, ‘Welcome to McMurdo, Frontier Town on The Ice’, Seattle Post-Intelligencer (5 Jan. 2000), Smith, Life on The Ice, p. 41; Ed Payne, ‘McMurdo Installation Trip (11/98)’, 2002, http://www.wff.nasa.gov/~ats/pages/mgsinstallation.html 51 Hale, ‘Antarctic Adventure’; Ginny Catania, ‘Living in McMurdo Station’, 1998, http://www.geophys.washington.edu/Students/ginny/antarctica/mcm.htm 52 ‘The ‘unofficial’ VXE-6 webpage’ 53 ‘The ‘unofficial’ VXE-6 webpage’; Smith, Life on The Ice, p. 62; Ethan Dicks, ‘The Seventh Continent’, 2002, http://www.penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html 54 Hale, ‘Antarctic Adventure’; Smith, ‘McMurdo Station’. 55 Payne, ‘McMurdo Installation Trip’; Antarctic Support Associates, ‘Your Stay at McMurdo’. 56 Payne, ‘McMurdo Installation Trip’; Slivka, ‘Welcome to McMurdo’. 57 Center for Astrophysical Research, ‘Virtual Tour’; Smith, Life on The Ice, p. 36; Robert Holmes, ‘The Ice: The Antarctic Adventures of Robert Holmes’, 2002, http://www.theice.org/index.html 58 Dicks, ‘The Seventh Continent’. 59 Smith, ‘McMurdo Station’. 60 Dicks, ‘The Seventh Continent’. See also M. Lazzarra, ‘Antarctic Journal’, 2003, http://tellus.ssec.wisc.edu/outreach/antarctic/index.htm 61 During the XVth Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting - National Science Foundation, ‘Historic Sites’. 62 Bust donated by the National Geographic Society in 1965, moved to current site in the 1990s because of the construction of the Crary Science Center - National Science Foundation, ‘Historic Sites’. 63‘New Chapel of the Snows Dedicated at McMurdo Station’, Antarctic Journa,l (Mar. 1989), reprinted in http://www.southpolestation.com/trivia/history/chapel.html; National Science Foundation, ‘Historic Sites’; John McPherson, Footprints from a Frozen Continent, Wellington: Hicks Smith, 1975. 64 Admiral George J. Dufek in National Science Foundation, ‘Historic Sites’. 65 King, Colonial Urban Development. 66 ‘New Chapel’, Antarctic Journal, ‘Chapel of the Snows Destroyed’, Antarctic Journal, (Dec. 1978), reprinted in http://www.southpolestation.com/trivia/history/chapel.html 67 Irma Hale, ‘Antarctic Adventure: Irma’s Field Notebook - McMurdo Station, part II’, 1999, http://www.irmahale.com/1999f.html 68 Smith, Life on The Ice, p. 47. 69 Payne, ‘McMurdo Installation Trip’. 70 Mark Sabbatini, ‘A Healthy Read on Ice Culture: Team Studies Population through Work and Play’, Antarctic Sun, (8 Dec 2002), http://www.polar.org/antsun/Sun120802/culture-t.html 71 Holmes, ‘The Ice’; Antarctic Support Associates, ‘Your Stay at McMurdo’. 72 Smith, Life on The Ice, p. 55. 73 Payne, ‘McMurdo Installation Trip’. 74 Holmes, ‘The Ice’. 75 Antarctic Support Associates, ‘Your Stay at McMurdo’.

76 Dicks, ‘The Seventh Continent’. 77 Smith, Life on The Ice, p. 48. 78 Payne, ‘McMurdo Installation Trip’. 79 Sabbatini, ‘A Healthy Read’, Smith, Life on The Ice, p. 55. 80 Smith, Life on The Ice, p. 46. 81 Smith, Life on The Ice, p. 41. 82 Kristan Hutchison, ‘Experiencing Antarctica: Creating a Human Landscape on an inhuman continent’, Antarctic Sun (6 Jan. 2002), http://www.polar.org/antsun/oldissues2001- 2002/2002_0106/index.html, quoting Antarctic miner John Wright. 83 Slivka, ‘Welcome to McMurdo’, quoting “a longtime McMurdo resident”. 84 Jacobs, Edge of Empire, p. 136. 85 Bauer, ‘Antarctic tourism’. 86 Smith, Life on The Ice, p. 12.