• Howick and Pakuranga Times

MYTHS and speculation about a Terra Australis Incognita – or Unknown Southern Land – date back to antiquity.

The rounding of the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn in the 15th and 16th centuries proved that, if it existed, it was a continent in its own right.

In 1773, James Cook crossed the Antarctic Circle for the first time. He discovered nearby islands but did not catch sight of Antarctica itself.

The first confirmed sighting of the continent is commonly accepted to have been in 1820 by the Russian expedition of Mikhail Lazarev and Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen.

The first landing was probably about a year later when American Captain John Davis, a sealer, set foot on the ice.

Antarctica, however, remained largely neglected for the rest of the 19th century because of its hostile environment, lack of resources and isolation. 

The first formal use of the name Antarctica as a continental name in the 1890s is attributed to the Scottish cartographer John George Bartholomew.

The first Norwegian expedition to Antarctica was led by Captain Carl Anton Larsen aboard the barque Jason in 1892.

He was the first to discover fossils in Antartica, for which he received the Back Grant from the Royal Geographical Society.

In December 1893, he also became the first person to ski in Antarctica – where the Larsen Ice Shelf was named after him. 

Larsen is also considered the founder of the Antarctic whaling industry and the settlement at Grytviken, South Georgia.

Once the North Pole had been reached in 1909, several expeditions attempted to reach the South Pole. Many resulted in injury and death.

Norwegian Roald Amundsen finally reached the pole in December 1911, following a dramatic race with Englishman Robert Falcon Scott.