Carsten Borchgrevink

Carsten Borchgrevink

Carsten Egeberg Borchgrevink (1 December 1864 – 21 April 1934) was an Anglo-Norwegian polar explorer and a pioneer of modern Antarctic travel. He was the precursor of Robert Falcon Scott, Ernest Shackleton, Roald Amundsen and other more famous names associated with the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. He began his exploring career in 1894 by joining a Norwegian whaling expedition, from which he brought back a collection of the first specimens of vegetable life within the Antarctic Circle.

In 1898–1900 Borchgrevink led the British-financed Southern Cross Expedition, which in 1899 became the first to overwinter on the Antarctic mainland and the first to visit the Great Ice Barrier since the expedition of Sir James Ross nearly sixty years previously. Borchgrevink landed on the Barrier with two companions and made the first sledge journey on its surface, setting a new Farthest South record at 78°50'S. On its return to England, notwithstanding its array of "firsts", the expedition was received with only moderate interest by the public and by the British geographical establishment, whose attention was fixed on Scott's upcoming National Antarctic Expedition. Borchgrevink's colleagues were critical of his leadership, and his own accounts of the expedition were regarded as journalistic and unreliable.

After the Southern Cross Expedition, Borchgrevink was one of three scientists sent to the Caribbean in 1902 by the National Geographic Society, to report on the aftermath of the Mount Pelée disaster. Thereafter he settled in Oslo, leading a life mainly away from public attention. His pioneering work was subsequently recognised and honoured by several countries, and in 1912 he received a handsome tribute from Roald Amundsen, conqueror of the South Pole. In 1930 Britain's Royal Geographical Society finally acknowledged Borchgrevink's contribution to polar exploration and awarded him its Patron's Medal. The Society admitted in its citation that justice had not previously been done to his work with the Southern Cross Expedition.