Sunday 8 October 2006
The Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition
Halley has a great selection of old 8mm cine film reels, with the best of the bunch being a 50 minute colour documentary of the 1955-58 Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition. It usually gets a few showings a year and the quality is starting to fade, so during my first winter Mark Maltby recorded it to a digital format by projecting the reel onto the darkroom wall then recording it with his digital video camera. The results were surprisingly good so I made sure I took a copy back home with me.
Next weekend I'm going to a Halley Reunion marking the 50th anniversary of the founding of the base (in fact it was built at the same time as the Trans-Antarctic Expedition, not far from Shackleton Base). I know that some ex-Halley winterers read this site so it seemed appropriate to post it here to mark the occasion.
As well as including some familiar landmarks (such as the Theron Mountains and the Shackleton Range, many of the vehicles, clothing and equipment is not that different from what we use today. Certainly the jobs (like shoveling snow) have changed very little and of course Antarctica itself looks the same now as it always has.
I must admit that I'm not sure who (if anyone) owns the copyright to this film, but I thought it was such amazing footage it would be a real shame if it only got watched by a handful of people. If anyone knows who owns the copyright then let me know and I'll seek permission and credit them appropriately.
Part 1: The Journey South
Part 2: Preparations
Part 3: Wintering Routine
Part 4: The Journey Begins
Part 5: Completing the Journey
Each video is about 10 minutes long. If you have any problems viewing the embedded videos you can try viewing them directly on YouTube by following these links: 1 2 3 4 5
Posted by simon at 12:58 PM | Feedback (1)