Case file · Declassified record
The Belgica: the first Antarctic winter and its madness
In March 1898 the Belgian ship Belgica under Adrien de Gerlache was frozen into the Bellingshausen Sea and became the first expedition to spend a winter in the Antarctic, with the polar night lasting from 17 May to 23 July.
1898 CE · -70.50, -85.00 · status: official
The account
The crew included Roald Amundsen and the American doctor Frederick Cook. Lieutenant Émile Danco died of a heart condition and scurvy spread. Cook, convinced that fresh meat cured scurvy, made every man eat penguin and seal each day, and the hardships of the long dark became a classic early record of what is now called winter-over syndrome. The ship broke free in early 1899 after the crew cut a channel through the ice.
Connections in the atlas
- Mawson, Mertz and the poisoned livers
- Byrd alone at Advance Base
- Winter-over syndrome and the 'Antarctic stare'