Explorers of a Different Kind A History of Antarctic Tourism 1966-2016

321 Pages·2017·2.8 MB·English

Explorers of a Different Kind
A History of Antarctic Tourism 1966-2016
A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of the
Australian National University
Diane Erceg
October 2017
© Copyright by Diane Erceg 2017
All Rights Reserved

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STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY
I declare that this thesis is my own work, and that, to the best of my knowledge and belief,
it contains no material previously published or written by any other person, nor material
that has been accepted for the award of any other degree of a university or other institute
of higher learning, except where due acknowledgement is made in the text.
Diane Erceg
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Along this PhD journey I have been guided, inspired and supported by a group of very special
people without whom this thesis would not have been possible.
First, I would like to thank my incredible supervisory panel: Libby Robin, Tom Griffiths and
Cameron Muir. I am so grateful to Libby for her unwavering dedication to me and my work. Her
wisdom, big ideas and dynamism have sharpened my thinking and writing, and challenged me
to look at the familiar world of Antarctic tourism in profound and creative new ways. Libby’s
support has gone above and beyond what I could have expected from a supervisor, and I thank
her for the many ways she has enriched my work and my life.
Five years ago, I came across a book called Slicing the Silence: Voyaging to Antarctica and thought
that a return to academia might not be such a crazy idea if I could be mentored by somebody like
Tom Griffiths. It has been a pleasure and a great privilege to work with Tom over these past four
years. Our illuminating conversations about Antarctica, history and writing have inspired me. And
I have benefited enormously from Tom’s thoughtful and critical feedback on my work. I am also
indebted to Cameron for carefully readying my work, providing astute and constructive feedback,
and for helping me to write more clearly and evocatively.
My fellow PhD students in the Fenner School of Environment and Society, and the School of
History, have been a great source of support and mischief. Many thanks to Alessandro Antonello,
Robyn Curtis, Sonya Duus, Megan Evans, Wendy Neilan, Rob Nugent, Shannyn Palmer, Alison
Pouliot, Monique Retamal, Keith Sue and Sharon Willoughby.
This project took me to various parts of Australia and the United States, where I was generously
supported by individuals and institutions. Thanks to Marcus Haward and Julia Jabour for hosting
me at the Institute of Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS) in Tasmania. Also to Nelson Graburn,
who generously included me in workshops and events of the UC Berkeley Tourism Studies
Working Group. For their help accessing archives and library documents, I wish to thank Claire
Christian (Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition), John Wallace and Christina Beresford
(National Archives of Australia), David Crotty (Qantas Heritage Collection), Nadene Kennedy
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and Polly Penhale (National Science Foundation), Lacy Flint (Explorers Club, New York), Katie
Sauter (American Alpine Club), Tess Egan, Jessica Fitzpatrick and Jonathan Davis (Australian
Antarctic Division Library) and William Fox (Nevada Museum of Art).
The thesis also benefited significantly from correspondence and conversations with Antarctic
experts and tourism practitioners, who are listed in the bibliography.
For those who provided me with shelter along my journey and contributed in other significant
ways I would like to thank Christine Hawes, Natalie Canfield, Mike Garrett, Anastasia Kunac,
Nicole LeBouef, Anka Polegubić, Tanja Polegubić, Kristin Pedersen-Warr and Sam Thalmann.
With great sadness, I would like to acknowledge John Splettstoesser, who gave generously to
this thesis but did not see it through to completion. Dorothy Braxton and Charles Swithinbank,
whose eloquent and instructive writing was so valuable to my research, also sadly passed away
during the writing of this thesis.
This thesis was inspired and enriched by my own voyaging to Antarctica. I want to thank my
‘ship family’ at Peregrine Adventures and Quark Expeditions for sharing the experience with
me. All of the tourists, adventurers and explorers with whom I travelled to Antarctica over the
past decade have shaped this project in big and small ways. I would especially like to thank Bill
Davis, Aaron and Cathy Lawton and Andrew Prossin for making it all possible in the first place.
The experience has not only been crucial to the thesis but formative to my life.
I would like to thank the Australian National University for awarding me an Australian Postgraduate
Award and Commonwealth Research Training Program Stipend. Without this generous financial
support, this research project would not have been possible in its current form.
Finally, I want to thank my family. To mum, dad, Marijana, Steven, Massimo, Emma and Tea,
thank you for your love, support and encouragement throughout this PhD journey, and for
continuing to humour my Antarctic obsession for all these years.
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ABSTRACT
In 1966, American tour operator, Lindblad Travel, began small-scale tourist cruises to
Antarctica. Over the course of the next 50 years, what began as an offbeat and exclusive
travel destination transformed into an iconic tourist attraction. Annual tourist visits
to Antarctica grew from a few hundred to tens of thousands; modes of transport to the
continent diversified to include yachts, cruise ships, icebreakers and aircraft; and the
activities available to Antarctic tourists ranged from one-day scenic flights to multi-
month mountaineering expeditions and ski tours to the South Pole. Antarctic tourism
numbers trebled in the 1990s, when the public’s growing desire to visit Antarctica
was matched with an influx of Russian ice-strengthened ships into the tourism fleet.
This thesis chronicles that 50-year history of Antarctic tourism growth and diversification.
Its narrative centres on the efforts of inventive and enterprising tour operators to secure
their footing on a physically and politically formidable continent. Government officials
and a mounting environmental movement invariably resisted these efforts. And the safety,
environmental integrity and self-sufficiency of the industry were challenged in the wake
of a series of environmental emergencies and one major tragedy. Even so, Antarctic tour
operators were successful in forging a robust industry through technical ingenuity and
political nous. By underscoring their environmental ethos, and their influential role in raising
public awareness of Antarctica, tour operators presented themselves as the responsible
stewards of an innocuous practice that was consistent with Antarctica’s governing principles.
Each chapter in this 50-year tourism history also offers some insight into the Antarctic
tourist imaginary, a theme that is explored further through a series of reflections. These
reflections reveal that the Antarctic tourism industry draws strongly on the dominant image
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of Antarctica as a pristine wilderness, frozen in a perpetual age of heroic exploration.
By suppressing its own history, the Antarctic tourism industry strives to maintain a
perception of the continent as an enduring blank space available for discovery again
and again. According to this image, the heroic age explorers remain the touchstone of
Antarctic experience even now, more than a century after the era’s conclusion. The
explorers’ narratives of physical and moral struggle against a relentless environment
continue to serve as the benchmark of authentic Antarctic experience. They also inspire
the sustained imagining of Antarctica as a masculine sphere for ‘Boys’ Own’ adventure,
a legacy most poignantly illuminated in the endeavours of Antarctica’s modern explorers.
Such an imagining of Antarctica as pristine and untouched—as a continent apart—is
challenged by more recent understandings of Antarctic ice. We have come to realise that the
world’s sea level is principally controlled by the state of the Antarctic ice sheet and that we
may be destabilising that ice sheet without ever leaving home. These emerging climate change
narratives threaten to undermine dominant images of Antarctica as an untouched wilderness
frozen in time. For now, tour operators continue to present climate change narratives in
a manner which does not fundamentally challenge this wilderness ideal; an ideal which
forms the imaginative foundation on which the Antarctic tourism industry has been built.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Map 1 Antarctica - names and places ix
Map 2 Antarctic Peninsula ix
List of Acronyms x
Introduction 1
Chapter One: Antarctic Expedition 1966 30
Image Gallery 57
Reflection: On Blank Spaces 60
Chapter Two: Champagne Jet to the Pole 78
Image Gallery 110
Reflection: On Being There 113
Chapter Three: Modern Explorers 134
Map 3 Sledging Routes 165
Image Gallery 166
Reflection: On Tourists, Adventurers & Explorers 171
Chapter Four: Black Sea of Suits 190
Image Gallery 223
Reflection: On Shifting Ice 225
Chapter Five: Perestroika at the Poles 248
Image Gallery 280
Epilogue 283
Bibliography 291
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DONNING
South AN MAUD LAND
Shetland TAR
Islands CTIC
PENI WEDDELL ENDERBY
NS SEA LAND
UL
A
Ronne
Ice Shelf
Geographic
Mou ntains SoutXh Pole EAST Mirny
Ellsw orth ANTARCTICA Station
ANTWARESCTTICA Transantarcic
M
Ross ountains
Ice Shelf
XMt Erebus TERRE Commonwealth Bay
ADELIE
ROSS SEA
Dumont d’Urville
0 1000 Miles McMurdo & VICTORIA Station
LAND
Scott Bases
0 1000 Km X South Magnetic
Pole (1977)
Map 1: Antarctica - names and places
FALKLAND ISLANDS
ARGENTINA
South
Shetland BRANSFIELD STRAIT
Ushuaia Islands
DRAKE PASSAGE
Palmer Station
Larsen Ice Shelf
WEDDELL SEA
Rothera Station
Punta Arenas
CHILE
Ronne
Ice Shelf
BELLINGSHAUSEN SEA
0 1000 Miles
0 1000 Km
Map 2: Antarctic Peninsula
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