Evacuation of Stonington (continued)
On the 22nd February Pete and Henry visited the Argentine base on the Debenhams and learnt that they had twice burnt their hut down in the winter and were currently being relieved by helicopters flying from their ice breaker the San Martin off Avian islet. The Biscoe at this time was being assisted by the American USCGC ‘Northwind’ icebreaker to relieve base W on the Loubet Coast. The icebreaker could not get far into the fast ice off W and on the 3rd March they reached the base by tractor and helicopter to supply some emergency coal. On the 4th March evacuation plans were finalised between Captain Johnson and myself. Their experience with the thick ice on the Loubet Coast confirmed that they would not be able to smash their way into base Y, Horseshoe Island, but have to relieve it by helicopters from the Northwind. I agreed to close the hut and take up what we could of essential items to Horseshoe. The ship was coming down with a large hut and about 12 personnel for Stonington. These plans would be postponed. They would leave a small holding party at Horseshoe Island only.
We packed 6 sledges pulled by 4 teams, Bryn with the Spartans and I with the Admirals; each had two sledges in tow. Happily it was glare ice, fast conditions at times a bit too slippery for the dogs claws to grip, but thank heavens we were not breaking into melt pools which with these loads would have meant slow progress. It was a memorable last dog trip passing all the familiar landmarks resplendent in early autumn, lights. Aware that it was the last. Pete and I made a cine record of it on my Movikon 8mm camera. This has been replayed over the years and revokes each time a feeling of immense gratitude to fellow men and dogs, and especially those dogs, and my fortune in sharing it awhile.
Robin Perry, to whom I gave a hurried handover of comment, will have to take up the story of the Admirals. I was glad that Keith Hoskins was asked to serve his second year here and perhaps he took the team over. I never heard more except that Caesar was killed in a fight. Caesar the most admirable of the Admirals deserves a place in FIDS and BAS history. Like Rocky Mountain in ‘Jock of the Bushveld’- by Fitzgerald, I can say with pride “He was my dawg!”
The relief and evacuation of base W on the 1st April 1959 as the Northwind towing the Biscoe bashed its way north has a dog story attached to it. The base was closed and all the dogs were brought out, all except one which could not be caught and was left to scavenge on the seal pile. I have asked Angus Erskine to enquire which dog this was because the remarkable survival story is that some months later this dog reached Horseshoe island! What journeys had been made between the two bases since Sandy Imray and I had accompanied Angus and Denis Goldring back to their base from Horseshoe to ‘W’ over the Heim glacier in the winter of ’57? Was it one of their dogs that remembered with no smells to guide it a journey along fjords,up an ice cliff over a crevassed glacier of about a hundred miles?
Peter Gibbs – Surveyor – Horseshoe 1957; Surveyor/BC – Stonington 1968