Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This black-and-white clip filmed and narrated by Frank Hurley shows the visit in 1929 to the abandoned Main Base Hut at Cape Denison on Commonwealth Bay in Antarctica by an expedition led by Sir Douglas Mawson. Outside the hut Mawson is shown brewing a billy, while his crew force ice off the front door. The interior of the hut is shown partly filled by ice. The expedition members eat canned food left from the 1911-14 expedition. The clip also shows a cut-out of Mickey Mouse and a gramophone placed on the ground by Hurley, surrounded by excited penguins.

Educational value points

• This clip shows Douglas Mawson (1882-1958) returning 18 years later to the hut built by members of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition (AAE) in 1912, which had acted as their main winter living quarters. The expedition was based at the hut from February 1912 to December 1913. Eighteen men stayed one winter but after tragedy struck Mawson’s sledging team, seven men stayed for a second unplanned year after their ship, the Aurora, had to sail for home.

• The condition of the hut shows how well it had withstood extreme weather conditions having been ravaged by wind, ice and snow for almost 20 years. Antarctica has some of the strongest wind conditions in the world, with regular katabatic winds of hurricane force. Commonwealth Bay is said to be the windiest place on Earth, with winds reaching speeds of 160 knots (nearly 290 km per hour). Mawson and his team nicknamed Cape Denison the ‘home of the blizzard’.

• This clip shows the living conditions of the huts, which have international and national heritage significance and evidence of the 1911-14 AAE, which was the foundation of the modern Australian Antarctic science program. All the materials for building the prefabricated huts were transported from Tasmania. Shown here are details of the kitchen, living room and Mawson’s cubicle, infiltrated by ice.

• The clip illustrates an attempt by Frank Hurley to include humour and comic effect in the film by placing a Mickey Mouse cut-out figure and gramophone among the penguins. The light-hearted commentary belies the tragedy associated with the hut – the death of the two team members Ninnis and Mertz during the previous expedition. It is likely that Hurley believed that audiences would relate better to an entertaining, comic approach rather than a serious documentary.

• The clip shows the second of the British, Australian and New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition (BANZARE) to the Antarctic in 1929-30 and 1930-31 led by Douglas Mawson. The expeditions took place over two consecutive summers to claim formal British possession of King George V Land and collect scientific data. The expeditions mapped a large area of the Antarctic coast. This claim was transferred to Australia in 1935.

• Frank Hurley (1885-1962) was a renowned Australian adventurer and filmmaker who gained his reputation as a groundbreaking photographer and filmmaker as a result of his participation in Antarctic expeditions. Prior to Siege of the South he had already made two films on Antarctic expeditions, Home of the Blizzard of the 1911-14 expedition and In the Grip of Polar Ice about Sir Ernest Shackleton’s expedition of 1914-17.

Frank Hurley recounts his memories over footage of the hut and its interior as well as commentating on the group’s activities.

Frank Hurley This is the old hut which has withstood the assault of unparalleled blizzards for 20 years. Dearie me, what memories are awakened. Sir Douglas Mawson is pumping up the primus to boil the billy, while Kennedy is forcing an entrance. This was eventually done.

Lo and behold the sight revealed when the light is kindled. This was the kitchen where each member graduated for culinary honours and leather medals. Jack Frost has created a huge well-iced jubilee cake on the floor. The rafters of the living room that once rang with sparkling wit now scintillate with crystals and festoons of downy snow. In the cubicle once occupied by Sir Douglas, the glittering artistry of Jack Frost has reached its culmination. The interior is bejewelled with diamond-like crystals that shimmer and fall in tinkling showers as we move.

Nevertheless, the place haunted with memories of the past, is as cold and gloomy as a vault. It is a relief to escape to the open and find lunch being served. An ancient stove that did us much warm service in days of yore, now serves us as a table. It is set with canned foods and a meal partly prepared 20 years ago. The climate had preserved it perfectly.

After lunch, we pay our official call on the Adelie penguins which have numerous colonies on the rocky outcrops nearby. The hatching out period is well advanced and most of the mothers are caring for one or two chicks. And here, poor old father has been left in charge of the twins, and is evidently perplexed as to what to do with them like many another father do.

Mickey also is making his debut and as official entertainer has brought his portable gramophone and his latest recording. Oh, you’re going to hear now how the performance affected the audience.