Duncan Carse - Exploration

Exploration

Carse joined the Merchant Navy and sailed for the Southern Ocean aboard the RRS Discovery II in 1933. While in Port Stanley, Falkland Islands, Carse encountered the British Graham Land Expedition, which was on its way to Antarctica on the yacht Penola. Carse secured permission to transfer to the expedition, serving as a seaman and wireless operator and helping to lay depots on the Antarctic Peninsula. Carse returned to England in 1937, and in 1939 he was awarded the silver Polar Medal and Clasp for his part in the Graham Land expedition.

After the Second World War, Carse was determined to resume exploration of the far south. At the suggestion of the Royal Geographic Society and the Scott Polar Institute, he decided to focus his attention on the subantarctic island of South Georgia. His efforts over the next several decades won him a preeminent place in South Georgia’s history. He organized and led the South Georgia Survey of 1951-57, surveying much of the interior of the island. Mount Carse and Carse Point are named after him. The comprehensive survey of the island resulted in the classic 1:200000 topographic map of South Georgia, occasionally updated but never superseded since its first publication by the British Directorate of Overseas Surveys in 1958. A full account of the four South Georgia Survey expeditions led by Duncan Carse was written by the geologist on 1951-52 and 1953-54 Surveys, Alec Trendall.

In 1961, he decided to become a modern day Robinson Crusoe, and lived as a hermit in a remote part of South Georgia. Carse built a house at Ducloz Head on the southern coast of the island, intending to lie there through the winter. However, in May, three months into the experiment, surge waves destroyed his camp. He managed to salvage enough gear to survive the winter until making contact with a ship 116 days later.

A second Polar Medal clasp was awarded in 1982 for his leadership of the later Survey work - this mapping being of particular value in the period of conflict in the Falklands.