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Clip description
With fine weather, construction of the new base begins at a frenetic pace. The ice is firm around the ship, so the US-made ice vehicles – known as Weasels – can cross the ice from ship to shore, dragging supplies. Prefabricated huts clad in aluminium are quickly assembled and secured with guy ropes against high winds. There is no natural water source, so the men melt ice to make tea. Georges Schwartz, a French observer and dog handler from the French base at Kerguelen Island, tends the 40 huskies. the dogs have been bred over four years on Heard Island to work in Antarctica, and live on seal meat.
Curator’s notes
In the year before Mawson station was established, the Antarctic Division developed a training program for the men selected to go south. Each man went through an orientation week in November before departure, and the Antarctic films were screened as part of the training. It is easy to see how this sequence would be useful for those about to join the base, but there was also a political purpose behind the films. Australia had made claim to 42 per cent of the Antarctic continent in 1933; occupying that continent was seen by Phillip Law and his political bosses as crucial to Australia’s claim. The films served as evidence that could be sent around the world: Australia was active in Antarctica, building a base, doing science, pressing its claims. In recent times, the countries with claims in Antarctica have all agreed to put those claims aside, but that was not the case in 1954. Blue Ice is largely about territory, not science.
The style of this section, with its florid music, is in keeping with documentary style in the mid-1950s, especially within the government-sponsored film community. Government films of this era present a uniformly sunny picture of Australian life. Many of them were immigration films made to attract British migrants. The Antarctic films had a different purpose, but they were made by some of the same people – at least once Phillip Law handed over his footage for editing, compiling of a soundtrack and the recording of a narration. The music in this sequence is typical of a government film of the time.
