The Belgian Antarctic Expedition (BelgAE) of 1897 to 1899, named after its expedition vessel Belgica

RV Belgica

Belgica was and is the name of two Belgian research vessels, with a name derived ultimately from the Latin Gallia Belgica.See also...

, was the first expedition to winter in the Antarctic

Antarctic

The Antarctic is the region around the Earth's South Pole, opposite the Arctic region around the North Pole. The Antarctic comprises the continent of Antarctica and the ice shelves, waters and island territories in the Southern Ocean situated south of the Antarctic Convergence...

 region.

Preparation and Surveying

In 1896, after a period of intensive lobbying, Adrien de Gerlache

Adrien de Gerlache

Baron Adrien Victor Joseph de Gerlache de Gomery was an officer in the Belgian Royal Navy who led the Belgian Antarctic Expedition of 1897 to 1899.-His early years:...

 purchased the Norwegian-built whaling ship Patria, which, following an extensive refit, he renamed as the 'Belgica'. De Gerlache had worked together with the Geographical Society of Brussels to organise a national subscription, but was only possible to outfit his expedition after the Belgian government voted in favor of two large subsidies, making it a state-supported undertaking. With a multinational crew, which included Roald Amundsen

Roald Amundsen

Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen was a Norwegian explorer of polar regions. He led the first Antarctic expedition to reach the South Pole between 1910 and 1912 and he was the first person to reach both the North and South Poles. He is also known as the first to traverse the Northwest Passage....

, Frederick Cook

Frederick Cook

Frederick Albert Cook was an American explorer and physician, noted for his claim of having reached the North Pole on April 21, 1908. This would have been a year before April 6, 1909, the date claimed by Robert Peary....

 and Henryk Arctowski

Henryk Arctowski

Henryk Arctowski was a Polish scientist, oceanographer and Antarctica's explorer.Henryck Arctowski, PhD, was born in Warsaw on 15 July 1871, and educated in Paris, Liege, Zurich and Lemberg. He was in charge of physical observations on the Belgian Antarctic Expedition of 1897–1899...

, they set sail from Antwerp on 16 August 1897.

After leaving Antwerp, the expedition visited Madeira, Rio de Janeiro and Montevideo. The Belgica was especially received enthusiastically in Rio, where a large Belgian community lived. But, the Brazilians were also very much interested in the Belgian scientific undertaking. The Historical and Geographical Society of Rio held a special meeting where the scientists and officers of the expedition were offered membership. A few weeks later, in Montevideo, Amundsen wrote in his diary that he had never seen so many beautiful women 'in one place at the same time'.

During January 1898, the Belgica reached the coast of Graham Land

Graham Land

Graham Land is that portion of the Antarctic Peninsula which lies north of a line joining Cape Jeremy and Cape Agassiz. This description of Graham Land is consistent with the 1964 agreement between the British Antarctic Place-names Committee and the US Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names, in...

. Sailing in between the Graham Land coast and a long string of islands to the west, de Gerlache named the passage Belgica Strait. Later, it was renamed Gerlache Strait

Gerlache Strait

Gerlache Strait or De Gerlache Strait or Détroit de la Belgica is a channel/strait separating the Palmer Archipelago from the Antarctic Peninsula. The Belgian Antarctic Expedition, under Lt. Adrien de Gerlache, explored the strait in January and February 1898, naming it for the expedition ship...

 in his honor. After charting and naming several islands during some 20 separate landings, they crossed the Antarctic Circle on 15 February 1898.

Failing to find a way through into the Weddell Sea

Weddell Sea

The Weddell Sea is part of the Southern Ocean and contains the Weddell Gyre. Its land boundaries are defined by the bay formed from the coasts of Coats Land and the Antarctic Peninsula. The easternmost point is Cape Norvegia at Princess Martha Coast, Queen Maud Land. To the east of Cape Norvegia is...

, on 28 February 1898, de Gerlache's expedition became trapped in the ice of the Bellinghausen Sea, near Peter I Island

Peter I Island

Peter I Island is an uninhabited volcanic island in the Bellingshausen Sea, from Antarctica. It is claimed as a dependency of Norway, and along with Queen Maud Land and Bouvet Island comprises one of the three Norwegian dependent territories in the Antarctic and sub-Antarctic. Peter I Island is ...

. De Gerlache is likely to have intentionally sailed deep into the pack ice in order to freeze his vessel into the ice for the winter. Despite efforts of the crew to free the ship, they quickly realised that they would be forced to spend the winter on Antarctica.

Winter

They were poorly equipped and did not have enough winter clothing for every man on board. There was a shortage of food, and what there was lacked in variety. Penguins and seals were killed and the meat stored before the onset of winter. Warm clothing was improvised out of the materials available.

On 21 March 1898 the expedition's doctor Frederick Cook

Frederick Cook

Frederick Albert Cook was an American explorer and physician, noted for his claim of having reached the North Pole on April 21, 1908. This would have been a year before April 6, 1909, the date claimed by Robert Peary....

 wrote:

Several weeks later, on 17 May, total darkness set in, which lasted until 23 July.

De Gerlache disliked the fresh penguin and seal meat that had been killed and stored before the onset of winter and forbade his men to eat it. Signs of scurvy

Scurvy

Scurvy is a disease resulting from a deficiency of vitamin C, which is required for the synthesis of collagen in humans. The chemical name for vitamin C, ascorbic acid, is derived from the Latin name of scurvy, scorbutus, which also provides the adjective scorbutic...

 began to show in a number of the men. de Gerlache and Lecointe became so ill they wrote their wills, two of the crew started to show signs of mental illness and morale in general was extremely poor. Several men lost their sanity, including one Belgian sailor who left the ship "announcing he was going back to Belgium".

Frederick Cook and the First Mate, Roald Amundsen

Roald Amundsen

Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen was a Norwegian explorer of polar regions. He led the first Antarctic expedition to reach the South Pole between 1910 and 1912 and he was the first person to reach both the North and South Poles. He is also known as the first to traverse the Northwest Passage....

 then took command as de Gerlache and Lecointe were unable to fulfil this role due to scurvy. Vitamin C

Vitamin C

Vitamin C or L-ascorbic acid or L-ascorbate is an essential nutrient for humans and certain other animal species. In living organisms ascorbate acts as an antioxidant by protecting the body against oxidative stress...

 was not discovered until the 1920s but Cook was convinced that fresh meat was the cure for scurvy due to his experiences with Robert Peary

Robert Peary

Robert Edwin Peary, Sr. was an American explorer who claimed to have been the first person, on April 6, 1909, to reach the geographic North Pole...

 in the Arctic. He retrieved the frozen penguin and seal meat and insisted that each man ate some each day. Even de Gerlache began to eat the meat and slowly the men all recovered their health.

Several months of hardship followed. Attempts to free the ship and its crew from the clutches of the ice failed. By January 1899 the Belgica was still trapped in ice about 7 feet (2.1m) thick and the possibility of another winter in the ice was becoming real. Open water was about half a mile away and Cook suggested that trenches should be cut to the open water to allow the Belgica to escape the ice. The weakened crew used dynamite and various tools to create the channel. Finally, on 15 February 1899, they managed to slowly start down the channel they had cleared during the weeks before. It took them nearly a month to cover 7 miles, and on 14 March they cleared the ice. The expedition returned to Antwerp on 5 November 1899. The conditions were hard but nevertheless the expedition still managed to collect a significant amount of scientific data including a full year of meteorological observations.

Reception

In Antwerp, the expedition was heartily welcomed. A special committee had been planning the festivities for months. Typical for polar expeditions in this age, feelings of national (and regional) pride surrounded the homecoming celebrations. The Belgian state honored De Gerlache and his men by making them member of the Royal Order of Leopold, the municipal government of Antwerp honored the men by medals and writing their names in the Golden Book of the city. On the day they first set foot on Belgian soil again, the Brabançonne sounded and the national flag was seen waving from many houses. All in all, sentiments of nationalism

Nationalism

Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...

 definitely played a role in the reception of the expedition.

Personnel

The expedition team included some notable individuals:

• Adrien de Gerlache
  Adrien de Gerlache
  Baron Adrien Victor Joseph de Gerlache de Gomery was an officer in the Belgian Royal Navy who led the Belgian Antarctic Expedition of 1897 to 1899.-His early years:...
  
   (1866–1934): Belgian – leader
• Georges Lecointe (1869–1929): Belgian – Captain, executive officer and hydrographer (second in command on the Belgica)
• Roald Amundsen
  Roald Amundsen
  Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen was a Norwegian explorer of polar regions. He led the first Antarctic expedition to reach the South Pole between 1910 and 1912 and he was the first person to reach both the North and South Poles. He is also known as the first to traverse the Northwest Passage....
  
   (1872–1928): Norwegian – First Mate. Amundsen learned much from his experience on this expedition, in particular how to prevent scurvy.
• Frederick Cook
  Frederick Cook
  Frederick Albert Cook was an American explorer and physician, noted for his claim of having reached the North Pole on April 21, 1908. This would have been a year before April 6, 1909, the date claimed by Robert Peary....
  
   (1865–1940): American – Surgeon, anthropologist and photographer.
• Henryk Arctowski
  Henryk Arctowski
  Henryk Arctowski was a Polish scientist, oceanographer and Antarctica's explorer.Henryck Arctowski, PhD, was born in Warsaw on 15 July 1871, and educated in Paris, Liege, Zurich and Lemberg. He was in charge of physical observations on the Belgian Antarctic Expedition of 1897–1899...
  
   (1871–1958): Pole – geologist, oceanographer and meteorologist
• Emile Danco (1869–1898): Belgian – geophysical observations. Danco died while overwintering.
• Emil Racoviţă
  Emil Racovita
  Emil Racoviţă was a Romanian biologist, zoologist, speleologist and explorer of Antarctica.Together with Grigore Antipa, he was one of the most noted promoters of natural sciences in Romania...
  
   (1868–1947): Romanian – biologist (zoologist and botanist) and speleologist
• Antoni Bolesław Dobrowolski (1872–1954): Polish – assistant-meteorologist
• Jules Melaerts (1876–?): Belgian – third lieutenant
• Henri Somers (1863–?): Belgian – chief mechanic
• Max Van Rysselberghe (1878–?): Belgian – mechanic
• Louis Michotte (1868–1926): Belgian – cook
• Adam Tollefsen (1866–?): Norwegian – sailor
• Ludvig-Hjalmar Johansen (1872–?): Norwegian – sailor
• Engelbret Knudsen (1876–1900): Norwegian – sailor
• Gustave-Gaston Dufour (1876–1940): Belgian – sailor
• Jean Van Mirlo (1877–1964): Belgian – sailor
• Carl August Wiencke (1877–1898): Norwegian – sailor. Wiencke was washed overboard and drowned on the way to Antarctica.
• Johan Koren (1877–1919): Norwegian – sailor and assistant-zoologist

See also

• Belgian Antarctic Program
  Belgian Antarctic Program
  Belgium was one of the 12 countries that initially negotiated and signed the Antarctic Treaty . -History:The first Belgian expedition of scientific nature was led by Adrien de Gerlache aboard the La Belgica. The expedition involved over wintering and spanned from 1897 to 1899...
  
  
• List of Antarctic expeditions
• Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration
  Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration
  The Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration defines an era which extended from the end of the 19th century to the early 1920s. During this 25-year period the Antarctic continent became the focus of an international effort which resulted in intensive scientific and geographical exploration, sixteen...
  
  
• Bayard Islands
  Bayard Islands
  The Bayard Islands are a small group of islands lying northeast of Cape Willems, off the west coast of Graham Land. They were charted by the Belgian Antarctic Expedition under Gerlache, 1897–99, and named by the UK Antarctic Place-Names Committee in 1960 for Hippolyte Bayard, a French civil...
  
  

Literature

• H. Decleir (ed), R. Amundsen, Roald Amundsen's Belgica Diary. The first scientific expedition to the Antarctic (Bluntisham 1999).
• A. de Gerlache de Gomery, M. Raraty (translation), Fifteen months in the Antarctic (Bluntisham 1998).
• H. Decleir, C. de Broyer (eds), The Belgica expedition centenial: perspectives on Antarctic science and history (Brussels 2001).
• T.H. Baughman, Before the heroes came. Antarctica in the 1890's (Nebraska 1994).

Contemporary sources

• Bulletin de la Société Royale de Géographie d’Anvers vol 20–24(1896–1900).
• Bulletin de la Société Royale Belge de Géographie vol 20–24 (1896–1900).