The Home of the Blizzard: Being the Story of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, 1911-1914Mawson, Douglas, Sir
History
The Home of the Blizzard: Being the Story of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, 1911-1914
Mawson, Douglas, Sir
Antarctica -- Discovery and exploration; Australasian Antarctic Expedition (1911-1914)
When it is blowing hard, the end of the day's march is not the end of
the day's work. As soon as a camping spot has been chosen, the sledge
is pulled round head to wind. The straps round the load are loosened
carefully, the shovel and tent removed and the straps retightened. One
man starts breaking out chunks of snow, experimenting until he finds a
place where large pieces come away readily. Lumps of forty pounds are
the handiest and quickest, but often only smaller ones can be obtained.
These are arranged in a circle round the tent-site, while the man with
the tent places it on the ground pointing upwind, the bottom of the
poles being just where the middle windward leg will be, and makes a hole
for that leg.
When everything is ready, all three catch hold of the tent, one man
crawling half into it, gripping hard the leather loop on the windward
leg. The others sort out and grip their two side legs. "All ready? Up!"
It almost takes one's breath away, the roar and the flap! The side legs
are quickly separated as the tent rises, and before it can blow over,
the leeward legs are more or less in position, taking the strain. The
centre man is throwing all his weight on to the leather loop, while the
other two outside each holds down his windward pole with one hand and
with the other pulls blocks of snow on to the skirt to windward. Once
this is done, the rest is simple: cutting holes in just the right
positions for the other legs, pulling out the skirt and making it snug
all round. Then in goes the floor-cloth, and, by the time that is
spread out properly, the primus and cooker are passed in. The cooker is
dissected and the two water vessels passed out to be filled with snow.
The cook will have hard work to get the primus started if he does not
shield the spirit flame from the wind, which blows through the tent, by
putting the whole lamp inside the big cooker lid.
In come the pots filled with lumps of snow. The food tank is placed just
outside the entrance, and the proper food-bags for the meal are passed
in to the cook, the tank being retied to keep out drift. The cooker
will now be going at full pressure, and the cook is ready to receive
the gear. Sleeping-bags, "computation bag," hypsometer, "meat block" (a
three-inch-square paper pad on which meteorological notes were taken);
clothes-bag opened, three ditty-bags passed in and bag retied; a final
temperature taken and aneroid read; sledge anchored securely by tow-rope
to the ice-axe, and a final look round to see all gear is safely
strapped down and snow-tight.
In calm weather, camping is a very different thing. On a fine day, half
an hour after the halt would usually find us carefully scraping the last
of the hoosh out of our pannikins, ready for the cocoa.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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