Ben Saunders - Polar Explorer, Motivational Speaker

The Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition

The first surface crossing of Antarctica via the South Pole, the 1955–58 Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition was a camping trip of epic proportions, with government funding from four countries, the Queen as patron, a leader that came home to a knighthood, a ton of corporate sponsorship, and ships, planes, huskies, sno-cats, tractors and skidoos. I'd read The Crossing of Antarctica, Sir Vivian Fuchs and Sir Edmund Hillary's account of the expedition, but I didn't realise there was a film of the trip until I unearthed it on YouTube this morning.

[This is part one of five, the rest are here: 2, 3, 4, 5.]

The films were painstakingly digitised and uploaded by Simon Coggins, who works for the British Antarctic Survey, and first came across the original cine film reels while over-wintering at Halley Research Station.

"Halley has a great selection of old 8mm cine film reels, with the best of the bunch being a 50 minute colour documentary of the 1955-58 Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition. It usually gets a few showings a year and the quality is starting to fade, so during my first winter Mark Maltby recorded it to a digital format by projecting the reel onto the darkroom wall then recording it with his digital video camera. The results were surprisingly good so I made sure I took a copy back home with me."

{ Filed under Inspiration and motivation, Other expeditions, SOUTH on Wednesday, August 8th, 2007. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site. }