Chris Edwards – General Dog Report – Stonington – 1974-75
Transfers
Scott Base (N.Z.) requested two young animals for breeding purposes. On their arrival at Scott Base via VP-FAQ/Bert Conchie they were virtually put straight into the field! Shortly after ANTHE produced a litter of four bitches and three dogs.
The animals sent were: ANTHE T/0616/73 bitch and STUART E/4208/74 dog.
Dogs already transferred to Scott Base from Halley Bay (ex Deception) in about 1968 were LADY and TIFFY. Lady, 9 years old is still at Scott. No info. re. Tiffy.
(Photo: Nick Round-Turner, Hedgehog House, New Zealand, from “Of Dogs and Men”)
To expand on this brief entry Bert Conchie was one of the BAS Twin Otter pilots (VP-FAQ being the aircraft call sign) and he was making the flight across to Scott Base from Adelaide because the aircraft was to be used as part of collaboration in the Ross Ice Shelf Project which included a series of radar echo sounding/sub-ice profiling. The opportunity was used to supplement the breeding stock at Scott Base.
It is uncertain when and by whom Anthe was mated. Her name makes more sense when combined with the other litter siblings: Lady, Anthe, Tramp. (Not the same Lady as referred to at Scott Base.)
The dog Stuart (one of a litter of three: Tom 111, Ella, and Stuart) was named after Stuart Lawrence, Master of RRS Bransfield, Ella was his wife, and Tom (Woodfield) was Master of RRS John Biscoe.
I could offer titbits here and there, about epic “this and that” but for me the saddest part of the whole situation was the culling of the bulk of the dogs which happened following the decision to close Stonington at the end of the 74-75 season and to introduce mechanical dogs thereafter. Have you ever tried to grease and service a skidoo with gloved hands, in the field, in -10degC or worse?
Continued from Stonington 1974
I had that experience in 1972-73 summer season of using skidoos (the first time they had been used by BAS in the field), then in 1973-74 season my GA had a skidoo and I had a dog team and in 1974-75 both myself and GA had dogs, and I know which I prefer. I realise that there are good things to be achieved by skidoo but the soul requires that the field season is not purely work, work, work. It is nice to have to think that you have undemanding, loyal friends outside the tent, who will do your bidding in payment for a block of Nutty at the end of the day, and that a bit more effect can be achieved with a shout and a whistle. Not so the skidoo. My diary records numerous examples of respect for the dogs and of the love one felt for ones own dogs. These are some of these, extracted as written, with additional explanations in brackets,
13th October Stonington Island
By 2030hrs I was fed up with the indent (basically a stock check prior to ordering items for relief) so went and saw my dogs who were glad to see me. Shem (a dog brought from Halley to Stonington in 1973) was running round in circles and Wear licked my face without hesitation. (This was a considerable success as Wear had been a VERY timid, shy and lurky dog, probably the result to having insufficient or incorrect handling as a pup. I had been working on her, talking and handling her quietly, sometimes sitting with her until she would come up to me. Ultimately I was able to let her off in the field and also on base, and although still a very nervous dog, and therefore less attractive to other drivers, I had a considerable affection for her.)
4th November 1973 Alexander Island
John just zoomed back to camp in 20 mins (on skidoo) while I took an hour and 10 mins with the dogs. A good day was had by all. Isolde may be improving as a leader. Brought Shem (the erstwhile leader), back towards the sledge end of the trace, and left her up with Diane (one of the first pair) and she seemed to be turning, but really needed some more travelling to tell. By the end of the season Isolde was becoming a good leader and continued to improve throughout the second summer season. (She subsequently was leader of the Gaels, one of the remaining teams left after the 1975 cull).
16th November 1973 Alexander Island
We clambered up the scree – up one gully across the top and down the next, geologising. About ½ way up John noticed that Isolde was off – she had chewed through my leader trace and was wandering about. We called her and she clambered up to us and spent the rest of the day crawling about the scree slopes. (Over the remainder of the season Isolde would accompany me on the rocks much like a pet dog out for a walk on the hills, better that than having to contantly making eye splices in main trace No 3 nylon. She became fairly adept at negotiating steep slopes and became used to me having to launch or carry her across small bergschrunds and crevasses to attain the safety of the rock.)
4th May 1974 Stonington Island
Went over to the “Hotel” (old American base hut on Stonington Island used as a sledge workshop) about 1130 intending getting my back sledge bag. However, got side-tracked and that led on to the day’s amusement? While I was there an all-team punch-up took place in which Bernie (a new-ish geologist) waded in with bare hands. Having separated everyone, many bites and much blood – mostly from Bernie, I took his team to the house for lunch, after which Graham suggested I go up the glacier with them to Walton (survey station). So I was to go up empty and show those who were going where to go. It took me over 1 ½ hours to get off the spans. Who said Elphine was a good leader! (The previous driver, Mr Peter Butler).
In the end the Admirals with 6 nutty led off. Just after the old airstrip I took 3 nutty. By the time we reached the new airstrip (1700hrs) it was getting quite dark. We dumped the loads there and rattled back to base arriving on the spans in the dark. Almost every hole must have been poked open as there was little compacting of the snow. A rather tired evening was spent until about 2350hrs when Paul, (the radio op) out feeding the pups, came across two big pups running around outside, so fearing a repeat of the span break which occurred this afternoon everyone grabbed torches and leads – 7 folk, leaving Roger to come out of the shower to find the record player on, cigarettes in ashtrays smouldering and my cup of Horlicks on the stove undrunk. Fortunately it turned out that both pups had somehow managed to get off together and there was no major fracas.
The 1975 Cull
In 1974 a decision was made by London/Cambridge Office to operate a large part of the field science in Marguerite Bay area using “summer only” scientific staff. i.e. bringing these people in as early as possible at the beginning of the season and removing them at the end, to return to the UK and work up the results during the austral winter. There were a variety of reasons for this, some of which were financial, but the crux was that Stonington would be closed and the dogs replaced by skidoos. People could be sent from the UK and given a key and shown the start button on a skidoo and away they go with their own mechanical crevasse probe on which they sit. It would not have been a feasible option to present someone fresh from the UK as an efficient team immediately. Thus the 1974-75 field season was the last season in the Antarctic in which huskies were used as the prime motive power for a scientific research programme. I was the “Doggy Man” at Stonington during that period and it was my decision, in liaison with Steve Wormald and Bob Bostelmann, to select the 40 dogs which were to be retained, largely as a gesture, for recreation purposes. Had the skidoos proved unsatisfactory then a nucleus of dogs were available to breed up a working population again, but the situation seemed unlikely ever to occur.
Thus at the end of the field season in early 1975 the various geological, geophysical and surveying field teams were scattered throughout the southern Antarctic Peninsula and Alexander Island. Those drivers (and there were few) who felt able to put their dogs down in the field prior to being airlifted back to Adelaide (Base T), Stonington already having been closed and the few pups and dogs there sent to Adelaide. About 40 dogs were to be retained and these were taken back to Adelaide with the field parties, leaving the remainder – say 12 teams each with 9 dogs = 108 minus 40 retained equals 68 dogs which were flown to Fossil Bluff. In my capacity as Doggy Man I met the teams at the Bluff where, although the small base had a pet husky, Rasmus, the personnel there were not as intimate with the dogs as their drivers had become over the past one or two years. I spent a gruesome afternoon with a .45 revolver and a sharp knife beside a glacial melt channel blowing the brains out of some wonderful faithful animals, slitting their throats, removing their collars and rolling their bodies into the sub-glacial river which flowed ultimately into King George VI Sound. The snow was red, I was splattered with blood and the whole episode was appalling. I refused to do my own dogs and my GA had done the deed in the field near Caninus Nunatak, western Alexander Island (70.15 S, 71W), a name which I proposed and was subsequently officially named, as something of a tribute to the Antarctic huskies. Several dogs at Adelaide had formed part of a veterinary sampling programme and these dogs I put down there with an intravenous euthanasia drug.
A galling postscript to this episode was revealed some months later when on return to the UK on the Bransfield I was shown several newspaper cuttings reporting the destruction of the dogs with quotations from Graham Wright who was the Base Commander at Stonington at the time. In fact Mr Wright had nothing to do with the situation at all and I would have preferred nothing to have been divulged.
Indeed, even with the preparation and publication of “Of Dogs and Men” in the early 1990’s I still felt the personal despair and ownership of the deed that I did not submit it for consideration.
Later in 1993, the Antarctic Treaty countries decided that by April 1994 there should be no non-indigenous animals or plants in Antarctica. Thus this sealed the fate of the few (13) remaining dogs at Rothera (and elsewhere on the continent). When I learned of this I asked the Field Operations manager by telex (he was on HMS Endurance in the Weddell Sea at the time) if I could have one of the dogs. The answer was a categorical NO. I made further approaches via a colleague who was still working in Cambridge and the responses he elicited were “The answer is definitely NO. Excuses are fairly feeble…they want to keep the team together…the dogs are old…it would cost a lot…”
Now I am not sure how accurate the following is, but it is my understanding that the very last BAS dogs were flown to Stanley where one was retained as it was thought to be unfit to fly. The remaining 12 dogs were flown to Heathrow and then to Boston, USA, put in a truck heading northwards into Canada, until snow was reached within 30 miles of a small Inuit settlement on the eastern shores of Hudson Bay. The last leg was completed with the dogs running to their new home. Regretfully there the dog culture had withered and six of the dogs died in the first winter. The remaining six were removed and taken to Toronto Zoo where a further four died and the remaining two were rescued by someone who knew how to look after them. An ignominious end to a magnificent story.
Chris Edwards – Geologist, Stonington – 1973 & 1974
In the summer of 1974 I was back at Adelaide as a part of the closing of Adelaide and opening of Rothera. I share Chris’s disgust and bad, bad memory of simultaneously doing the same distasteful task at Adelaide as Chris had done at Fossil Bluff. I have no clear recollection of how many dogs I shot and threw into the Fuchs Ice Piedmont crevasses – it was a lot – I think including my wonderful 1973 Leader, Duek.
That was the start of my disgust for Antarctic Treaties agreed in unconnected parts of the World.
Steve Wormald – Met. Adelaide 1969, GA Stonington 1970, 1973, Rothera 1974 to 1977
Rover – A Thing of the Past – 1945
Fifty years later I wrote these words in honor of my old warrior.
It seems all wrong to ban huskies from Antarctica. If they are properly managed and stopped from killing penguins I would have thought that parasites would all be frozen dead.
Maybe dog sledging in Antarctica is seen as a thing of the past, like horses on farms, but down South you leave the living world; for the sea-ice, snowfields, and glaciers are the work of the cold starry deeps. Life does not belong there. In that vast and lonely land the dogs became our comrades, before the night and majesty of the great beyond.
G. ‘Taff’ Davies – Handyman – Base A – Port Lockroy – 1944; Base D – Hope Bay – 1945