Winter 1969 – Shaun Norman

In late February, with the ship gone, I opened the sealed instructions and found an extremely challenging programme laid out for us in 1969-70. I also found new one-time code books especially supplied for very private communications with London. In addition I was appointed a JP – Justice of the Peace – and local magistrate for Marguerite Bay. Fortunately I never had to perform any of the duties incumbent on such officials. I did however have the key to the arms locker and signed out .303 and .45 ammunition for seal kills and sledge parties. Most teams would carry a .45 and a few shells on the chance that they might get a seal or, sadly, have to put down a badly injured dog.

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It appeared that London expected an increase in field parties as one of my instructions was to breed up two new teams. The ship visit had brought vet Andy Bellars to visit Stonington for a second summer and he had further worked out our doggy family tree which showed all the blood lines. Based on x-rays of dogs’ spines and hips, and the incidence of Entropian – ingrowing eyelashes – plus plain bad unions, Andy was able to suggest best matings to produce our new teams. Within months our pup pens were full with milking mums and tiny balls of fluff. As usual, there was an oversupply of females but this time around, instead of having to put some down, all were kept to make an all-bitch team which I called ‘The Debs’ partly in recognition of the all-girl thing but also for early explorer Frank Debenham and the Debenham Islands.

Autumn was the time of our annual seal kill. It was a horrible job, despatching utterly defenceless animals who would roll over and look at you with those big appealing eyes. But if we were to keep our dogs in shape for another summer’s work, we could not starve them. I must have shot over 50 seals myself and the process became routine with the dead seal’s throat cut and the whole chest and abdomen opened up to remove the entire guts. Within five minutes we would be towing our seal back to base to line up with another 100. As the meat cooled we would clear any stones away and tightly roll the seal lengthwise, fur side out. This impeded the voracious skuas and black-backed gulls who were looking for an easy feed. It also made for easy chain-sawing – a bit like cutting rounds of tree trunk – in winter.

Sadly, blood poisoning was not unknown amongst our pregnant bitches and we lost two or three mums when it came to pupping time. My poor little second bitch ‘Meg’ produced her litter then started to decline almost immediately. I talked to Terry Allen, the doctor at Adelaide Base and asked him if I could try an ovaro-hysterectomy. In the previous year I had assisted our doctor at Stonington with this operation twice. Using several base members to help, and talking continuously by radio to Adelaide the operation was performed successfully but Meg’s blood poisoning was too advanced and she died.

My new base members included one OAE – Old Antarctic Explorer – returning for a second two-year term and several experienced second year men all keen and pushing for a good long field season after ’67-’68’s poor summer. Allocating the trips and composing teams was a wretched job where someone was bound to feel left out. I held the final group make ups until much later in the year when I would be able to see who worked best with who. I like to think that ultimately everyone was happy with some solid science work done and big mileages recorded.

It is pertinent to note here that as far as the dog drivers (properly known as GAs – General Assistants) were concerned, covering miles and exploring new country was what it was all about. So the scientists with roving programs – geophysics lines and reconnaissance geology – were the ones to go for, with coastal survey and detailed sedimentary studies taking a bit of a second place.

Our winter passed easily and soon it was time to be thinking of summer journeys. I had finally decided on the allocation of drivers and their teams and this meant that I would accompany Mike Burns – geophysicist – on a traverse the length of King George Sound plus several zig-zag crossings. Mike wanted to prove (or disprove) that Alexander Island had separated from the peninsula thus creating King George Sound. To do this he would use a Worden gravimeter and read Earth’s gravitational pull every so many miles. Additionally we towed a little non-magnetic sledge on which rode a magnetometer reading the Earth’s magnetic field.

Ian Flavell-Smith and Brian Gargate would accompany us as far as Fossil Bluff, then split off eastwards for more geophysics across Alexander Island. Then there would be two survey teams again, continuing the coastal mapping. This left some sedimentologists whose programmes would keep them close to Fossil Bluff.

Fossil Bluff Hut had good supplies of field food for men and dogs plus kerosene. Our first job, with my team, the Black Terrors, was to create a supply line as far south as possible – hopefully terminating at the Eklund Islands. Here Mike would be able to get a bedrock reading which would allow recalibration of his sensitive gravity instruments. Secondly, we would zig-zag back up the Sound giving Mike several cross-sections.So we set about running out as much food and kero as possible, leaving it in a well-marked depot and coming back for more. We had to allow for our return journey also so there was huge mileage to get us in position to ‘go furthest south’ to Eklund.

Over the weeks and months of travel we became very efficient at camping. We finally had it down to one and a half hours from alarm to moving out. That is, getting up, breakfasting, inside man packing, outside man harnessing dogs and sledge loading, tent down, both lashing sledge and away!

As we moved south on our push to Eklund the mountains fell back on either side of the Sound, leaving no black objectives for the dogs to head toward. The dogs were tired after steady work almost every day for a couple of months. They trudged along, tails down, and I had to put dear old faithful Jet out in front as Princess was not interested. Suddenly I saw Eklund Island miraged up and wavering straight ahead of us. I called up Jet – he took one look at the mirage and excitedly took off, rousing all the dogs to a gallop which lasted a couple of miles.

A few hours later we got into camp at Big Eklund and treated the dogs to an extra block of food each. There is no doubt they were hungry and those blocks disappeared in record time. We were at the extreme end of our traverse and had to ration food and fuel closely. However, we now needed a 24-hour stationary period for the recalibration so the Terrors got a day off – and well-deserved too.

It was about this time that we opened yet another tin of dog food and found a ‘Playboy’ magazine inside. There was a note from some of the girls who had packed the food at the ‘Bob Martin’ pet food factory in Birmingham wishing us well and inviting us to visit when we returned to UK! I know that as a result, one relationship developed into a marriage!

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