We have a guest speaker today! Lisa Crockett, one of the researchers I am down here with has an interesting history that I think you will enjoy hearing about. I will let her tell you herself...
I am a second generation Antarctican. My father, Freddie Crockett, was a dog handler and radio operator for the first Byrd Antarctic expedition from 1928-1930. In 1927, Freddie was a freshman in college when he heard that Commander Byrd was planning an expedition to Antarctica. (After the expedition Byrd became an admiral.) Freddie and two of his college buddies were eager to join the expedition. Byrd told the young men that if they learned to work with the dogs, they could drive dog sleds for the expedition.
Freddie Crockett with sled dog, Belle
The three “Muskateers” (as they were called by expedition members) spent part of 1927 training with Chinook sledge dogs in Wonalancet, New Hampshire under the tutelage of Arthur Walden, a dog musher from the Yukon.
Two ships (The City of New York and the Eleanor Bolling) were used to bring the men, the dogs, and supplies south through the hot tropics, and ultimately the stormy ice-laden waters of the Southern Ocean. They landed on the eastern edge of the Ross Ice Shelf at the Bay of Whales, a spot that Roald Amundsen had used during his expedition. The Byrd team set up their base and called it “Little America.”
Dr. Laurence McKinley Gould, a geologist from the University of Michigan, was second in command of the Byrd expedition. (The ship we are on is the R/V Laurence M. Gould, named in his honor.) Dr. Gould was aware from reports of earlier expeditions (e.g., those of Ernest Shackleton, 1909; Roald Amundsen, 1911-1912 and Robert Falcon Scott, 1911-1912) of mountains both at the southern margin of the Ross Ice Shelf and much further north in Victoria Land. Dr. Gould’s dream was to study the geology of the Queen Maud Mountains, which form an interior gateway to the polar plateau, in order to determine if these mountains were a portion of a continuous range that extends all the way from Victoria Land, north and west of the Ross Ice Shelf. (We now know these mountains as the TransAntarctic Mountains.) They found sandstone and coal in the mountains indicating a much warmer climate in times past.
This is Mt. Crockett, named after Lisa's dad.
A highlight of the trip was finding Amundsen’s cairn in the Queen Maud Mountains. The cairn is the stone structure which is used as a landmark.
The three Muskateers (Freddie Crockett, Eddie Goodale, and Norman Vaughan) were chosen to be members of the 6-man Geological Sledging party whose objectives included geological exploration and reporting of weather conditions to Byrd for timing the historic flight over the South Pole. The 1500 mile geological sledge trip was the highlight of my father’s experience in Antarctica and the book “Cold” written by Dr. Gould and published in 1931 recounts the story.
Upon return from the Geological Sledge trip. They looked pretty grubby but it had been a very successful trip.
I grew up in a household of wonderful stories, books, photographs, and memorabilia about the Antarctic. After my father died in 1978, I decided that I wanted to see the place that had made such a profound impression on my father’s life. My first two trips to the Antarctic were for five months each in 1980 and 1981 when I worked for the logistic support contractor at McMurdo Station.
In 1982 and 1984, I was hired by Dr. Arthur DeVries, who discovered and studies the glycoprotein antifreezes in Antarctic fishes. My first job in science was to collect fishes (in particular the Antarctic toothfish, Dissostichus mawsoni).
Lisa Crockett in 1984 while working as an undergraduate student at McMurdo Station. Check out that huge D. mawsonii fish
This experience convinced me that I wanted to pursue a career in Antarctic science, and in particular to study the biology of Antarctic fishes. In 1986, I began my graduate studies in zoology at the University of Maine under the mentorship of Dr. Bruce Sidell, who had just received funding from the National Science Foundation to work at Palmer Station on metabolic cold adaptation in Antarctic fishes. I continued to work at Palmer Station every year until 1991. The austral fall of 2009 (April-June) was the first time I had been to the Antarctic in 18 years.
Bruce Sidell and Lisa Crockett. You can read the bios of Bruce and Lisa on my home page.