Comms, Author at Antarctic Heritage Trust

About Comms

This author has not written his bio yet.
But we are proud to say that Comms contributed 344 entries already.

Entries by Comms

Interview with Isobel Ewing

Antarctica has so much mystery and is the pinnacle of exploration. Isobel Ewing – Journalist at Newshub Highlights When we were about 12 hours out from Antarctica I was on the bow of the ship by myself and caught the first glimpse of the mountains. They looked like huge hunks of ice poking out of the cloud across the ocean. I imagined what that sight must have been like for the first explorers. That was a pretty rapturous feeling. I also found it magical to step onto the continent for the first time and start climbing Mt Scott. Standing on […]

Saving Hillary’s Hut

On Friday 20 January 2017 the residents of New Zealand’s Scott Base celebrated the base’s 60 year anniversary by taking a tour through the recently restored Hillary’s (TAE/IGY) Hut. Antarctic Heritage Trust’s team of 12 worked more than 5700 hours on the major conservation of the building over the summer season. The work started in November 2016 following a successful fundraising campaign to save the site, the legacy of the Commonwealth Trans- Antarctic Expedition (1956-1958). The New Zealand Government and Antarctica New Zealand asked the Trust to take on the care and conservation of the hut, including raising funds for […]

Antarctic Blog

What’s in the Box?

While there is certainly nothing ordinary about a job that involves opening and conserving wooden crates of century old Antarctic expedition provisions left on the continent by the ‘heroic era’ explorers, it’s what we’re doing a lot of at the moment as part of our artefacts conservation programme and, to be honest, one day becomes much like the next. Today it might be tins of Seville orange marmalade or sardines in olive oil, and tomorrow could be tins of self-raising flour and essence of beef – all wrapped, labelled and packed by their suppliers, and all requiring documentation, unwrapping, stabilisation, […]

Media Releases

Young Kiwis conquer Antarctic mountain

Four young New Zealanders, including William Pike who lost his leg during the 2007 eruption of Mount Ruapehu, have just returned from successfully summiting Mt Scott, in Antarctica. Pike was with film-maker Simon Lucas, Royal New Zealand Air Force officer Sylvie Admore and Newshub journalist Isobel Ewing. The group was hand-picked from approximately 100 applicants for the Antarctic Heritage Trust’s second Inspiring Explorers’ Expedition, led by the Trust’s executive director Nigel Watson. Nigel Watson says the trip’s biggest challenge on the guided ascent was route finding because of the poor visibility on the lower reaches of Mt Scott.“There was extensive […]

Antarctic Blog

The Great Unwashed

Preparations for all polar explorations must be meticulous and there are a very few things that you can forget to pack for a major expedition to Antarctica and think: “Oh well, I’m sure we will get on without it.” Soap, while not necessary for survival, is still not one of them; but it was in fact what happened to the Borchgrevink Southern Cross expedition. According to Hugh Blackwell Evans’ account the expedition found, once installed in Cape Adare and when the Southern Cross had departed, that apart from a few bars for washing and shaving that the expedition members had […]

Media Releases

Trip of a Lifetime for Young Kiwi Explorers

Four young New Zealanders are about to embark on a journey others only dream of – to Antarctica. The group has been hand-picked from more than 100 applicants for the Antarctic Heritage Trust’s second Inspiring Explorers’ Expedition and includes some well-known Kiwis. William Pike is a sought-after inspirational speaker who lost his leg during the 2007 Mt Ruapehu eruption. He is now the director of the William Pike Challenge Award, a youth development programme for years 7-9 students. William lives on Auckland’s North Shore. Isobel Ewing is a journalist working in the press gallery at Parliament for Newshub who is […]

Newsletters

The Explorer December 2016

Antarctic Blog

Old News is Good News

In this fractious modern world it can be comforting to know that things have ever been much the same. Or at the very least, the world revealed by these pages of the 1910 Lyttelton Times and The West Australian, is startlingly familiar. The pages were found in a stack of paper in the Cape Adare hut, piled onto the bed slats of on one of the bunks in the main room. They consist of a front page and a few connected pages of the Lyttelton Times from 3rd November 1910 and fragments of the West Australian from October 12th the […]

Annual Reports

Annual Report 2016

Antarctic Blog

Antarctic Field Training (AFT)

By Doug Henderson All new arrivals at Scott Base are required to attend Antarctic Field Training. Some of the returning AHT team having done AFT over the past two years only had to do a refresher. However, Doug (NZ), Geoff (UK) – both Heritage Carpenters along with Sue (AUS) and Ciaran (Ire) – both Conservators for the 2016-17 season had to attend the full course. We had briefings on local weather, hazard identification, how to choose and use appropriate clothing – basically how to keep safe in the Antarctic environment. The average temperature at present is around -23C so fairly […]