38 Facts About Carsten Borchgrevink

Carsten Egeberg Borchgrevink was a Norwegian polar explorer and a pioneer of Antarctic travel.

Carsten Borchgrevink inspired Sir Robert Falcon Scott, Sir Ernest Shackleton, Roald Amundsen, and others associated with the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.

Carsten Borchgrevink began his exploring career in 1894 by joining a Norwegian whaling expedition, during which he became one of the first people to set foot on the Antarctic mainland.

Some of Carsten Borchgrevink's colleagues were critical of his leadership, and his own accounts of the expedition were regarded as journalistic and unreliable.

From 1898 to 1900, Carsten Borchgrevink led the British-financed Southern Cross expedition.

Carsten Borchgrevink was one of three scientists in 1902 to report on the aftermath of the Mount Pelee eruption.

Carsten Borchgrevink's pioneering work was recognised and honoured by several countries, and in 1912 he received a tribute from Roald Amundsen, leader of the first expedition to reach the South Pole.

Carsten Borchgrevink was born in Christiania, the son of a Norwegian lawyer, Henrik Christian Borchgrevink, and an English-born mother Annie, nee Ridley.

The Carsten Borchgrevink family has distant Dutch roots and immigrated to Denmark in the 16th century and Norway in the late 17th century.

Carsten Borchgrevink was educated at Gjertsen College, Oslo, and later at the Royal Saxon Academy of Forestry at Tharandt, Saxony, in Germany.

The expedition that Carsten Borchgrevink joined was organised by Henryk Bull, a Norwegian businessman and entrepreneur who, like Carsten Borchgrevink, had settled in Australia in the late 1880s.

Carsten Borchgrevink met Svend Foyn, the 84-year-old "father of modern whaling" and inventor of the harpoon gun.

When Carsten Borchgrevink learned that Antarctic was due to visit Melbourne in September 1894, he hurried there hoping to find a vacancy.

Carsten Borchgrevink was fortunate; William Speirs Bruce, later an Antarctic expedition leader in his own right, had intended to join Bull's expedition as a natural scientist but could not reach the ship before it left Norway.

Bull and Carsten Borchgrevink left a message in a canister to prove their presence there.

Carsten Borchgrevink made a careful study of the foreshore, assessing its potential as a site where a future expedition might land and establish winter quarters.

Carsten Borchgrevink described the site as "a safe situation for houses, tents and provisions", and said there were indications that in this place "the unbound forces of the Antarctic Circle do not display the full severity of their powers".

Carsten Borchgrevink ended his speech by declaring his willingness to lead an expedition there himself.

Carsten Borchgrevink discovered that the Royal Geographical Society had been planning its own Antarctic expedition since 1893.

Markham maintained an attitude of hostility and contempt towards Carsten Borchgrevink, and chastised Mill for attending the launch of his expedition.

In 1901 Carsten Borchgrevink published the book First on the Antarctic Continent.

Louis Bernacchi, the party's Australian physicist, was later to write: "In many respects, Carsten Borchgrevink was not a good leader".

Carsten Borchgrevink was evidently no autocrat but, Bernacchi said, without the framework of an accepted hierarchy a state of "democratic anarchy" prevailed, with "dirt, disorder and inactivity the order of the day".

Carsten Borchgrevink attempted to establish a routine, and scientific work was carried on throughout, but as he wrote himself, referring to the general lack of fellowship: "The silence roars in one's ears".

When Southern Cross returned at the end of January 1900, Carsten Borchgrevink decided to abandon the camp, although there were sufficient fuel and provisions left to last another year.

Carsten Borchgrevink discovered an inlet in the Barrier edge; this was later named the "Bay of Whales" by Shackleton.

Also, Bruce complained that Carsten Borchgrevink had appropriated plans that he had developed but been forced to abandon.

Carsten Borchgrevink's credibility was not helped by the boastful tone sounded in various articles which were published in Newnes's magazines, nor by the journalistic style of his rapidly written expedition account, First on the Antarctic Continent, the English edition of which appeared in 1901.

In hailing his expedition as a great success, Carsten Borchgrevink spoke of "another Klondyke", an abundance of fish, seals and birds, and of "quartz, in which metals are to be seen".

Carsten Borchgrevink received honours from Denmark and Austria, but in England his work was for many years largely disregarded, despite Mill's acknowledgement of "a dashing piece of pioneer work, useful in training men for later service".

The historian David Crane suggests that if Carsten Borchgrevink had been a British naval officer, England would have taken his achievements more seriously.

In 1902 Carsten Borchgrevink was one of three geographers invited by the National Geographic Society to report on the after-effects of the catastrophic eruptions of Mount Pelee, on the French-Caribbean island of Martinique.

Carsten Borchgrevink did not think that Saint-Pierre would ever be inhabited again.

On his return from Washington, Carsten Borchgrevink retired into private life.

Carsten Borchgrevink devoted himself mainly to sporting and literary activities, producing a book entitled The Game of Norway.

In Norway differing assessments of Carsten Borchgrevink were made by the country's polar elite: Roald Amundsen was a long-time friend and supporter, whereas Fridtjof Nansen, according to Scott, spoke of him as a "tremendous fraud".

Carsten Borchgrevink's name is carried by the small Antarctic fish Pagothenia borchgrevinki and by the extinct arthropod Borchgrevinkium taimyrensis.

The Carsten Borchgrevink hut was designated by the Trust as Antarctic Specially Protected Area No 159 in 2002.