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The Diminishing Desire to Explore Antarctica.
By CruiseDirector | January 29, 2010
Long ago, off the volcanic coast of this wind-eroded shore, the whaling ship Antarctic dropped anchor, and sent a longboat to make it’s way to shore, struggling through the churning Ross Sea. The land was found as part of a journey to unclaimed waters for the purpose of killing whales. Captain Leonard Kristensen and his party were the first people to place their feet on this continent.
The baptism of Antarctica was bathed in blood. The Industrial Revolution energized the desire to massacre millions of Antarctic animals such as whales and penguins. The oil from these animals was used as a lubricant for machinery and their fur was an added bonus. A harrowing process took place on Macquarie Island where hundreds of thousands of helpless penguins were herded into boiling cauldrons of oil in order to render the sought-after oil of these peaceful animals. Go to this site for further information on antarctic cruise.
Finally, after exploiting the Frozen Continent more than 100 years, it seems humans are willing to let go of the easy money and fast kill opportunities to allow Antarctica to be a place of preserving both science and nature for the future. There has been recent discussion into the inception of a world park. It is on this continent that evidence of environmental threats such as ozone depletion and the greenhouse effect, can be observed by scientists. The change to preservation was extraordinarily fast when you think about how short of a time people actually spent exploring Antarctica. It was not until the 1957-1958 International Geophysical Year (also known as IGY) that more coastline, islands, and a handful of paths to the South Pole were even investigated.
The presence of people in Antarctica has been a wild story; a story of ferocious tenacity, nationalist, idealism, and unrestrained butchery of nature, with the occasional scientific discovery peppered in for good measure. Whaling around Antarctica occurred with more intensity during World War I, because the oil from them was refined into glycerin used in artillery shells. Then, after World War II, America and the Soviet Union made voyages to this area to kill sperm whales so that their extra-fine oil could be used as a jet engine lubricant. It was not until the IGY that Antarctica was listed as anything other than “Terra Australia Incongita.” This was the term used by medieval mapmakers to describe the continent. To get a closer look on antarctic cruise ship visit this site.
As a matter of fact, the first person to be born in Antarctica is still too young to be considered an adult. It is important to understand that even this birth has a patriotic pretense. It was at Argentina’s Esperanza Base that Emilio Marcus Palmer was born in 1978. His mother was flown in solely for the purpose of giving birth to him, so Argentina could lay claim to a large area of Antarctic territory.
This incident occurred only nine years after America ‘claimed’ the moon by planting a US flag when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed there. The most unique and successful attempt at this type of patriotic feet was when Roald Amundsen raced to the South Pole in 1911 in honor of Norway’s King Haakon VII. This journey was also made by Robert F. Scott and his team for the British Empire, however they also took rock and fossil samples which had they transported by toboggans.
After discovering that despite all their hard work, Amundsen had beaten them to the Pole by an entire month, Scott’s party perished in Antarctica due to a combination of bad luck, the pain of hauling massive amounts of rock, and poor diet. This made them the first team of martyrs for the cause of science in Antarctica. America earned its claim to the South Pole when Richard Byrd flew over it in 1929 in a Ford Trimotor. The Soviets utilized Russian Admiral Thaddeus Bellingshausen’s voyage, which took him past the Antarctic Peninsula back in 1821, to justify their claims on the continent.
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