Timeline of New Zealand's links with Antarctica

This is a timeline of the history of New Zealand's involvement with Antarctica.

A map of the Ross Dependency, the part of Antarctica claimed by New Zealand.

Pre 1900s

1838–1840

• French and American expeditions, led by Jules Dumont d'Urville and Charles Wilkes. John Sac, a Māori travelling with Wilkes, becomes the first New Zealander to cross the Antarctic Circle.

1895

• New Zealander Alexander von Tunzelmann becomes the first person to set foot on Antarctica, at Cape Adare.

1899

• February British expedition led by Carsten Borchgrevink, including several New Zealanders, establishes first base in Antarctica, at Cape Adare. This expedition becomes the first to winter over on the continent.

1900s

1902

• Scott Island (formerly Markham Island) was discovered and landed upon by William Colbeck.

1910s

1910

• Robert Falcon Scott leaves for Antarctica from Port Chalmers. Scott's party later died on the return journey after being delayed by a blizzard.

1911–1914

• Four New Zealanders (H Hamilton, AJ Sawyer, EN Webb, and LA Webber) are members of Douglas Mawson's Australian Antarctic expedition.

1920s

1923

• Ross Dependency proclaimed on 30 July as a British Territory entrusted to New Zealand.

1928

• US Navy Rear Admiral Richard Evelyn Byrd leaves Dunedin for the first sea-air exploration expedition to the Antarctic. Byrd overflew the South Pole with pilot Bernt Balchen on 28 and 29 November 1929, to match his overflight of the North Pole in 1926.

1929

• Combined UK-Australia-NZ expedition led by Douglas Mawson; New Zealand members include RA Falla and RG Simmers.

1930s

1933

• New Zealand Antarctic Society founded.

1940s

1946

• New Zealand joins the International Whaling Commission to help oversee whaling in the southern ocean.

1949

• First publication of New Zealand Antarctic Society quarterly journal, Antarctic

1950s

1955

• In August, The New Zealand Government decide to establish an Antarctic base as part of its contribution to International Geophysical Year (1957–58).

1956

• McMurdo Station established; construction of both Scott Base and Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station started.

1957

• 20 January Scott Base established in Ross Dependency.
• New Zealand Geological Survey Antarctic Expedition (NZGSAE) of 1957–58; named the Borchgrevink Glacier.
• Hallett Station South of Cape Adare is established as a joint New Zealand-United States operation.
• Bill Cranfield, John Claydon, and a New Zealand scientist arrived at the South Pole by air aboard a US Navy airplane;

1958

• 4 January Edmund Hillary, leading an expedition using farm tractors equipped for polar travel, arrives at the Pole, the first expedition since Scott's to reach the South Pole over land; part of the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition. Hillary was the first New Zealander to reach the South Pole overland.
• New Zealand Geological Survey Antarctic Expedition (NZGSAE) of 1958–59; named the Mountaineer Range.
• United States Operation Deep Freeze starts, based in Christchurch.

1959

• 1 December Antarctic Treaty signed with other countries involved in scientific exploration in Antarctica.
• New Zealand Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) established an Antarctic Division.

1960s

1964

• January Walter Nash becomes the first Prime Minister of New Zealand to visit Antarctica.
• Hallett Station destroyed by fire. It is not rebuilt but is used as a summer-only base until 1973.

1965

• The first flight from New Zealand to Antarctica made by a Royal New Zealand Air Force C130 (Hercules) aircraft

1968

• Marie Darby becomes first New Zealand woman to visit the Antarctic

1969

• New Zealand Geological Survey Antarctic Expedition (NZGSAE) of 1969–70; visited the Scott Glacier and named Marble Peak and Surprise Spur.
• 12 November South Pole visited for the first time by women – four Americans, an Australian, and New Zealander Pamela Young
• Vanda Station manned for the first time

1970s

1970

• Antarctic Amendment Act comes into force.

1972–1974

• First solo voyage to Antarctica, by New Zealand-born yachtsman and author David Lewis

1974

• December Joint NZ-France expedition makes first ascent, and descent into crater, of Mount Erebus.
• Antarctic Museum Centre opened at Canterbury Museum in Christchurch.

1975

• Prime Minister Bill Rowling had a formal proposal made at the Oslo Meeting for Antarctic to be declared a World Park.

1976

• Thelma Rodgers, of New Zealand's DSIR, becomes the first woman to winter over on Antarctica.

1977

• New Zealand proclaims Exclusive Economic Zone of 200 nautical miles (370 km), which provides for the zone to also include Ross Dependency's waters.

1978

• 21st Anniversary of Scott Base

1979

• The Mount Erebus disaster: an Air New Zealand DC-10 crashes and 257 people die.

1980s

1980

• New Zealand is signatory to the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, which comes into effect in 1982.

1982

• 20 January Rob Muldoon becomes the first sitting Prime Minister of New Zealand to visit Antarctica.
• June Antarctic Treaty nations meet in Wellington to discuss the exploitation of Antarctica's minerals.

1987

• Closure of Scott Base Post Office (reopened in 1994)

1990s

1995

• Closure of Vanda Station

1996

• Antarctica New Zealand established on 1 July to manage the Government's interest in Antarctica.

2000s

2006

• October (to January 2007): New Zealanders Kevin Biggar and Jamie Fitzgerald become the first people to walk to the South Pole without the aid of any supply dumps. Their plan to parasail back is abandoned.

2007

• Prime Minister Helen Clark and Sir Edmund Hillary (aged 87) travel with an official party to Scott Base to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of its founding.
• 4 June First New Zealand Antarctic Medal (NZAM) awarded to geophysicist Dr Fred Davey.

External links

• Antarctica New Zealand website
• New Zealand Antarctic Society
• New Zealand Antarctic Medal