Mawson's sledge at the Powerhouse Museum.

Mawson rests at the side of sledge, outward bound on first sledge journey in Adelie Land, originally uploaded by State Library of New South Wales collection.

Who knew that the Powerhouse Museum has one of Sir Douglas Mawson's sledges from his 1911 - 1914 Australasian Antarctic Expedition?

Well, they do.  See here and here.

But how did it come to be in the PHM collection?  Here's the answer from the Powerhouse Museum's webpage for collection item H8144:

"Several years after the conclusion of the 1911-14 Mawson expedition the Australian Museum in College Street, Sydney, was given a collection of material including sledges and six boxes containing ice picks, crampons and clothing. It is believed that this material had come from the Commonwealth Government. The material remained in storage there and in 1964 the Deputy Director, H.O. Fletcher, felt it should be given to a museum or society where it could be properly used and exhibited. He contacted both the newly-established Mawson Institute at the University of Adelaide in South Australia and the Antarctic Division of the Commonwealth Department of Internal Affairs then based in Melbourne. Both institutions did not want to acquire the material so Fletcher contacted the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences (now the Powerhouse Museum) which agreed to take three sledges. Three years later, in 1967, the Australian Museum again approached the Mawson Institute to offer the rest of the equipment.

This sledge was formerly transferred from the Australian Museum to the Powerhouse Museum in 1967. In 1983 comprehensive conservation work and some restoration work was undertaken by the Museum to repair the sledge."

Mawson used more than one sledge on the expedition of course, and perhaps the most important one is his half sledge which figured in his feat of incredible human endurance and survival.

In 1912 Mawson set out tot he Far Eastern section of Antartica with Belgrave Ninnis and Xavier Mertz.  On the journey Ninnis and Mertz died, and then Mawson used his pocket knife to cut his sledge in half to save weight, then with no dogs left he dragged it with geological specimins the 160 km to Cape Denison.

Where's this sledge?

It is in the South Australian Museum.

Comments

[Erika Dicker]

Great post! I didnt know the half sledge was in S.A, excellent that the sledges, and photographs, have been preserved and can all be used to tell the story of an amazing journey.

[Bob Meade]

Erica, the best view of the expedition photographs are the Frank Hurley glass plate negatives which have been mostly scanned and put online at the National Library of Australia

http://www.nla.gov.au/pict/explore/hurley.html