The Antarctic Place Names Committee is naming 26 islands, rocks, and reefs after the beloved dogs, that were a crucial part of Australia’s heroic era of ice exploration a century ago, and had a role into the 1990s. The dogs were all on Douglas Mawson’s Australasian Antarctic Expedition (AAE) of 1911-14, but the naming is a tribute to all the huskies that underpinned Australian exploration in the icy continent.
Rod Ledingham detailed “the fine art of dog driving” in a manual and in lectures, to countless Australian Antarctic expeditioners and scientists from the 1970s, after training and running teams for the UK. Mr. Ledingham said dogs had been critical to exploring the Antarctica, up until they were removed in 1994.
“Most of the leaders were female,” he said. “There was even a team of all ladies, it was called ‘The Ladies’, 11 females that were a very good team.”