Cold Region Hazards and Risks

Antarctic Survey archive. As might be expected in an account of surveying expeditions, the eight maps supporting the text are clear and informative. Essential logistical support, including transport to and around South Georgia, was provided by the whaling companies then operating around the island, with Salvesen of Leith to the fore. However, once they had been landed on remote beaches the survey teams were very much alone, the excessive weight of the necessary batteries even precluding radio communication. Inland surveying work required triangulation sites on high vantage points that were accessed by man-hauling sledges up and along the principal glaciers to establish base camps. It was difficult, arduous work and dangerous too, with several near disasters. The result was the publication in 1958 by the Directorate of Overseas Surveys of DOS 610: South Georgia at a scale of 1:200 000. This remained the definitive map of the island until superseded in 2004 by an edition based on satellite imagery. Alec Trendall provides a fitting tribute to the men who made it happen, principal amongst whom was Duncan Carse. Woven into the survey story is biographical detail about this complex character, best remembered by older members of the British public as the radio voice of Dick Barton Special Agent, but probably better known in Antarctic circles for his role in the 1934–37 British Graham Land Expedition. Carse’s lifelong ambition, ultimately unrealized, was to emulate his hero, Shackleton, and lead major Antarctic exploration. In 1953 he distributed plans for a Transantarctic expedition, and conceived the South Georgia surveys as a means of improving his credentials for leading such an undertaking. Trendall’s assessment is sympathetic but honest: as a leader Carse could be inspirational but also infuriating and at some crucial moments simply absent, with depression and alcohol both contributing. Alec Trendall’s book can be thoroughly recommended and is an important contribution to the South Georgia literature. It is a delight to read, is superbly illustrated, is candid in its description of events and in passing exposes one or two myths. Quite apart from the detailed accounts of the surveying work and the topography of South Georgia, there are first-hand descriptions of life in the whaling industry and fascinating insights into the backroom manoeuvrings amongst the Antarctic élite as British science and exploration policy evolved through the early 1950s. And perhaps most important of all, Putting South Georgia on the map invites long overdue recognition for a remarkable pioneering venture.