Mawson And The Ice Men Of The Heroic Age. Scott, Shackleton And Amundsen

Cover Type: Hardcover
Book Condition: Very Good
Jacket Condition: Very Good
Publisher: William Heinemann
Publisher Place: North Sydney
Publisher Year: 2011
Edition: First Edition

Description: 737 pages. Book and Jacket are both in Very good condition throughout.

Publishers Description: The story of Australias most famous polar explorer and the giants from the heroic age of polar exploration: Scott, Amundsen and Shackleton. Douglas Mawson, born in 1882 and knighted in 1914, was Australias greatest Antarctic explorer. On 2 December 1911, he led an expedition from Hobart to explore the virgin frozen coastline below, 2000 miles of which had never felt the tread of a human foot. After setting up Main Base at Cape Denision and Western Base on Queen Mary Land, he headed east on an extraordinary sledging trek with his companions, Belgrave Ninnis and Dr Xavier Mertz. After five weeks, tragedy struck. Ninnis was swallowed whole by a snow-covered crevasse, and Mawson and Mertz realised it was too dangerous to go on. With the scant food and provisions they had left, turning back was almost equally perilous. Their dwindling supplies forced them to kill their dogs to feed the other dogs, at first, and then themselves. Hunger, sickness and despair eventually got the better of Mertz, and he succumbed to madness and then to death. Mawson found himself all alone, 160 miles from safety, with next to no food. Peter FitzSimons tells the staggering tale of Mawsons survival, despite all the odds, arriving back just in time to see his rescue ship disappearing over the horizon. He also masterfully interweaves the stories of the other giants from the Heroic Age of Polar Exploration - Scott of the Antarctic, Sir Ernest Shackleton and Roald Amundsen - to bring the jaw-dropping events of this bygone era dazzlingly back to life..

ISBN: 9781741666601