Dodds Putting Maps in Their Place Faulkland

Cultural Geographies
http://cgj.sagepub.com Putting maps in their place: the demise of the Falkland Islands Dependency Survey and the mapping of Antarctica, 1945-1962
Klaus Dodds Cultural Geographies 2000; 7; 176 DOI: 10.1177/096746080000700203 The online version of this article can be found at: http://cgj.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/7/2/176
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P UTTING
MAPS IN THEIR PLACE : THE DEMISE OF THE F ALKLAND I SLANDS D EPENDENCY SURVEY AND THE MAPPING OF ANTARCTICA , 19451962
Klaus Dodds
This paper explores the political and scientic justication for the mapping of Antarctica by the Falkland Islands Dependency Survey (FIDS). As with the Great Game of the nineteenth century, cartography was politics by another means. Thereafter, consideration is given to how the maps and surveys of Antarctica reected British anxieties concerning Argentina in the immediate postwar world. As a rival claimant state in the South Atlantic, Argentine surveyors and administrators were a source of considerable concern to the FIDS. In the eld, however, the FIDS surveyors were expected to concentrate on surveying while at the same time plotting these foreign incursions in Antarctica. The methods and processes involved in collating information into map form are considered. Ironically, the greatest geopolitical challenge to these aspirations came from the United States rather than Argentina or even Chile. Finally, the paper concludes with the changing political and cartographic remit of the FIDS in the era of the 1959 Antarctic Treaty.
t a time when globalization appears to be in vogue, it is prudent to rememA ber that human knowledge of a part of the earths continental surface remains highly fragmented. Many parts of the Antarctic continent have never
1
experienced the presence of human beings and their machines. Until quite recently, widespread cloud cover around ice shelves of the Antarctic Peninsula prevented the acquisition of satellite imagery of the entire coastline. In 1993, after several decades of multinational endeavour, a seamless digitial map of the polar continent was produced by the British Antarctic Survey based in Cambridge.2 For many scientists and policy-makers, an accurate and detailed map was essential to establish whether the Antarctic was disappearing, as icecaps the size of English counties dissolved in the shifting currents of the South
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Putting maps in their place
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Atlantic.3 Ironically, this cartographic achievement revealed that Antarctica had actually expanded in size as previous rounds of mapping have consistently underestimated the geographical extent of polar ice shelves and outcrops of rock. Some 50 years ago, these remaining gaps in the southern polar map provided a political and scientic justication for an extensive cartographic project in the Falkland Islands Dependencies.4 The British governments employment of surveyors, scientists and administrators in the 1940s and 1950s was designed to provide geographical information and to bolster an earlier claim to the territory. The Falkland Islands Dependency Survey (FIDS) had a staggering remit; 2030 surveyors were expected to map, survey and administer thousands of square miles of ice, sea and rock often in the midst of appalling weather and limited logistical support (Figure 1). The vague outline of the Antarctic peninsula on the ofcial maps of the FIDS conveyed the geographical challenges that lay before these government appointed surveyors. To compound matters still further, however, successive British governments were deeply implicated in a tournament of shadows as territorial competition from South American states cast doubts over exclusive British claims.5 As with the Great Game of the nineteenth century, cartography was politics by another means.6 The map provided a powerful resource for the rhetoric of territorial control; spurred on by the promise of mineral wealth and improved access to strategic islands, Britain was competing with Argentina and Chile for the administrative control of the Antarctic peninsula and surrounding island chains such as the South Shetlands and South Orkneys. By 1943, the overlapping claims to polar territory by Britain, Argentina and Chile had ensured that tension, intrigue and conict would dominate the working ambiance of the FIDS. The struggles of the British surveyors to record the shifting geographies of the Antarctic form the backbone of this investigation into the various contextual frames which determined their cartographic endeavours. While it has been recognized that the map is not an innocent political tool, the practices associated with mapping and eldwork need to be considered carefully because the construction of polar maps did not materialize in a smooth or inevitable scientic manner.7 Despite their claims to scientic rigour, the FIDS staff often had to compromise and adapt as the physical conditions changed. Mapping was never geographically uniform, as surveyors were often made to abandon either their theodolites or their aspirations to walk over the unpredictable landscapes of the peninsula. Any subsequent desire to leave their geopolitical mark on the landscape frequently clashed with their capacity to trace, record, sketch and plot the Antarctics topography.8 This paper is a contribution to the expanding critical corpus of literature on mapping but also an appeal for a movement towards rewriting the histories and geographies of Antarctica. Most accounts of British polar exploration have either overemphasized the heroic struggles of particular explorers or assumed that events connected to exploration and surveying were part of a grander process of scientic colonization.9 As a consequence, less attention has been given to the fractured nature of mapping and how knowledge of the Antarctic emerged through a number of geopolitical, scientic and cultural contexts. While the
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Klaus Dodds
British bases in the Falkland Islands Dependencies
Figure 1 ~ Bases of the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey

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maps that emerged from FIDS could offer reassurance to London-based polar authorities about the accessibility of these remote corners of the British empire, they could also function as cultural goods capable of dening diplomatic dramas and generating considerable prestige for the relevant mapping organizations. As with recent trends associated with new western history, this account combines archival material with narrative in order to reveal and expose the historical possibilities in using the FIDS as a case in point.10 Initial consideration in this account is given to the importance of contextualizing the motivations and processes attached to mapping. Nestled within British claims to scientic rigour lay a virile form of orientalism which effectively represented Argentina as irrational, backward and incapable of mapping Antarctica. These orientalist or, more precisely, Latin Americanist discourses were to play an important role in providing legitimacy to the cartographic and scientic programes of the FIDS.11 Once in the eld, the FIDS surveyors often had to adapt their practices in the face of either inclement weather or geopolitical demands which insisted that they travelled around the ice armed with protest notes in case they encountered any trespassers. Once basic geographical information had been collected, it then had to be processed; the role of the Antarctic Place-Names Committee and the Directorate of Overseas Survey (DOS, previously the Directorate of Colonial Surveys) in assisting FIDS to transform sketches into maps is considered. Thereafter, attention is given to the FIDS and the geopolitical rationale for their operations in the Antarctic peninsula in the 1940s and 1950s. The overlapping territorial claims with South American states and the problematic relationship with the United States shapes this discussion. Finally, the growing internationalization of science and politics in the Antarctic in the late 1950s is examined because (alongside the awkward relationship with the United States) it effectively ended the overtly nationalistic interests of FIDS and their political administrators.
FIDS and British representations of Argentina

There are many accounts of AngloArgentine relations which trace patterns of commercial relationships, colonization and exploration and geopolitical conict.12 During the 1940s and 1950s, AngloArgentine relations were to undergo painful readjustment as new political forces and leaders negotiated a declining trade relationship and growing geopolitical conict over the Antarctic and the Falklands/Malvinas. The rise of Colonel Juan Peron in 1943 had transformed Argentine politics, and his subsequent elevation to President of the Republic ushered in a new phase of AngloArgentine confrontation. Determined to cut ties with British commercial capital and political inuence, Peron ordered the nationalization of British-owned companies and sought to negotiate better returns for Argentine meat exports to ration-hit Britain. Unsurprisingly, British elite representations of Argentina changed from familiar to hostile in tone and substance. Angered by Argentinas neutrality during the Second World War, the then British ambassador to Argentina, Sir David Kelly, captured the mood in 1943:
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Their policy of liberal neutrality is an indication that the people of Argentina, forgetting their past glorious history, have not fully appreciated the true nature of the conict now being waged by the forces of tyranny . . . Latin Americans are temperamental creatures, in dealing with them, effects are often out of all proportion . . . they experience little hesitation in acting contrary to common sense.13
Since Edward Saids Orientalism, few segments of the humanities and social sciences would be insensitive to the undertones of ethnocentrism and racism that were synonymous with British elite representations of Argentina.14 Sir Davids observations were not unusual, and his memorandum to the Foreign Ofce in February 1943 attracted no critical commentary within Whitehall.15 It seemed self-evident to mandarins and their ministers that Argentina was populated with irrational, unpredictable and hysterical characters. These representations were undoubtedly fuelled by a sense of frustration and betrayal that a part of Britains informal empire in Latin America had not only sought to strengthen their own economic position but also challenged British claims in the South Atlantic and Antarctic.16 Tense AngloArgentine negotiations over the export of meat in August 1949 had conrmed to a seasoned British Foreign Ofce ofcial, Sir John Balfour, that:
The Argentines seem incapable of drafting an agreement [over exports of meat to Britain] themselves but they are nished experts at twisting contractual terms in such a way to deprive the other side of their share of the advantage as far as possible.17
While Argentina was apparently populated by irrational and childish individuals, it clearly had the wherewithal to drive a hard bargain with British ofcials over agreed exports of meat in the 1940s.18 Moreover, the wartime government of Winston Churchill had been forced to sanction a secret naval operation called Tabarin which sent surveyors and naval ofcers to the Antarctic for the purpose of restoring British claims and for mapping local areas (close to newly established bases) in the FID.19 These conicting senses of Argentina were to be brought to the fore when the mapping and exploration of Antarctica was considered within British government departments. In the detailed discussions over map scales and projections, a Latin Americanist discourse on Argentina shaped the motivations and funding of FIDS. Several strands within this discourse deserve some elaboration because they reveal the complex and contradictory ways in which FIDS constructed its responsibilities for British Antarctic territories. Underwriting the creation of the FIDS in 1945 was a belief that Argentine claims to the polar continent were compromising British claims to the region.20 Accordingly, the Colonial Ofce, which had been placed in charge of the FIDS issued robust instructions to the FIDS staff in November 1948:
You should restore any British marks of occupation which are found obliterated and you should obliterate any foreign emblems or marks of occupation or claims. Obliteration should not, however, be effected while the parties responsible for setting up the emblems are still in the locality.21
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Dr Vivian Fuchs, the rst leader of the FIDS Scientic Bureau, was instructed to carry his military uniform in his knapsack and assume the rank of Major when dealing with South American intruders.22 Later proposals to splash Argentine invaders with cold water if they approached too close to British Antarctic bases were judged to be ineffective rather than childish.23 These proposals to obliterate Argentine and Chilean traces in the polar landscape were rooted in a fear that these South American challengers had demonstrated a considerable investment in expeditions and panache for publicizing their achievements. In November 1948, for instance, the Canadian ambassador to Argentina noted to the Secretary of State for External Affairs in Ottawa that the Canadian air attach had been given a souvenir by the Argentine authorities at the 4th Pan American Conference on Cartography:
It is a map of the Argentine Antarctic, printed on cloth. The map is published by the Institute of Military Geography [IGM] of the Argentine army, and is an interesting record of Argentine claims.24
The Argentine claims to the Antarctic had already excited considerable passions within Whitehall as British ofcials struggled to project themselves as cartographic pioneers in contrast to opportunistic and militaristic Argentina. However, the appearance of an IGM map of the Argentine Antarctic claims merely conrmed the powerful symbolic effect of such a presentation to the wider world. Pern had ordered the IGM to produce new maps and photographic representations which displayed the Argentine Antarctic sector, and in 1948 a presidential decree declared that it was a federal offence to produce a map of Argentina which did not depict the Argentine Antarctic (Figure 2).25 The reaction of the British ofcials charged with protecting British territorial claims was to declare:
Examples of Argentinas attack on HMGs sovereignty in the Falklands and Antarctica themselves have been frequent during the past ten years . . . . difculties have been raised over postage stamps and through the publication of maps . . . . if the Argentines behave childishly then it seems to me no reason for us to do so.26
As a consequence of these developments in Argentina, FIDS was instructed to expand its activities and additional funds were won from the Treasury in order to build a network of permanent bases at Port Lockroy, Hope Bay, Deception Island and Stonington Island in the late 1940s (Figures 3 and 4). Despite this logistical investment, the Attlee government approved the dispatch of HMS Nigeria and HMS Shefeld to the Antarctic in 1948 in a classic display of gunboat diplomacy. The motivation for this deployment of heavy cruisers lay in the continued provocative actions of the two countries (i.e. Argentina and Chile).27 Their crime, according to British ofcials connected with FIDS, was to threaten and even undermine British claims to the Antarctic by their mapping and exploration programmes. As Brian Roberts of the Foreign Ofce belatedly noted in 1952:
The hydrographer told me last week that he thought it was most unsatisfactory that the Admirality should have to correct their charts of the Falkland Islands Dependencies from Argentine and Chilean surveys and have to acknowledge this in
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print . . . We must act now if there is any hope of stepping up FIDS activity. . . . We are already outclassed by Argentina in the Antarctic . . . We have only one obsolescent vessel . . . We have no aircraft in the region . . . . 28
Figure 3 ~ The remains of John Biscoe House, Deception Island (photograph by Klaus Dodds)
Figure 4 ~ Port Lockroy, near Anvers Island, Antarctica. This base has recently been restored by the British authorities (photograph by Klaus Dodds)
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Klaus Dodds
One positive development to emerge from the deployment of the British naval forces was an agreement with Argentina and Chile in November 1948 that each party would keep the other two states informed as to their intentions regarding the movements of warships below 60 S. The so-called Naval Agreement of 1948 paved the way for the eventual demilitarization of the Antarctic under Articles I and V of the 1959 Antarctic Treaty.29 British elite representations of Argentina between 1945 and 1962 reveal how geopolitics, law and science were beginning to interact with one another in intergovernmental discussions over the future of British claims in the Antarctic. A signicant dimension in this interaction was the citation of science and mapping in defence of British territorial claims in the southern polar region. Ironically, British polar authorities such as Brian Roberts (connected to the Foreign Ofce), whilst acknowledging the scientic achievements of Argentina and Chile, agreed with ofcials in the Admirality and Colonial Ofce that British warships had to be deployed in order to intimidate Argentine and Chilean surveyors and military staff. Ultimately, the situation was draining in terms of time and resources, as a memorandum on future UK policy in the Antarctic from Roberts acknowledged in 1954:
This rejection of our soundings, coupled with the increasing weight of the Argentine challenge, has made the Antarctic problem more pressing than ever . . . and we are now advised that it would be better to concentrate on making our title to selected areas secure . . . We therefore propose that we should increase our activity over the next four or ve years with the object of discovering quickly which parts of the Dependencies would be worth retaining in the event of partition. . . . it would be extremely valuable if we could untertake an aerial survey of the Dependencies . . . We are advised that the best contribution to this would be to obtain maps by an air survey . . . We are dwarfed by those of the Argentine Airforce . . . There is no alternative open to us if adequate maps are to be available in time.30
For different reasons, British policy-makers and surveyors needed accurate and widespread maps of the Falkland Islands Dependencies. On the one hand, ofcials such as Brian Roberts recognized that new sheet maps of the region would not only demonstrate British achievement in the FID but would also illustrate a sovereign capacity for effective action in these icy territories.31 On the other hand, administrators and surveyors needed to produce modern maps in order to full the rationale for the creation of FIDS. Occasionally, the strategic priorities of FIDS would also stretch to cover commercial opportunities as the Colonial Ofce (who administered FIDS for much of its 17-year history) sought minerals in the Antarctic ice.32 The Secretary of State for the Colonies ordered FIDS in 1948 to concentrate on:
Deriving an ultimate view to the economic development of resources of the Dependencies, and thus particular attention should be paid to the chances of nding minerals. 33
Notwithstanding the logisitical and methodological difculties regarding the production of Antarctic maps and the hunt for mineral resources, the chief political obstacle facing British administrators in London and surveyors on the ice
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was the ambivalent role of the United States, and the substantial impact of the US on the international politics of the Antarctic in the 1940s and 1950s.
In the eld with FIDS: linking eldwork to mapping

The task awaiting the FIDS surveyors in the mid- to late 1940s was staggering. Notwithstanding the limited surveying achievements of Operation Tabarin, the rst men attached to Hope Bay and Port Lockroy had to combine the construction of new bases with a detailed programme of surveying, meteorological observation and geological research.34 During the summer season, there were only four or ve surveyors on the ice at any one time, and thus the actual amount of time spent surveying was often limited due to bad weather and incomplete supplies. Despite these limitations, Brian Roberts of the Foreign Ofce reminded the then summer season leader, E. W. Bingham, in December 1946:
Always remember that you have entirely fullled all the essential political requirements and that everything else achieved is sheer gain. I am not nearly so pleased with our achievements this end [i.e. in London] . . . In the long run this has largely been a matter of lobbying in the right quarters and keeping up interest and educating civil servants in Antarctic matters.35
In his recollections for the St Thomas Hospital Gazette, a FIDS doctor, Surgeon Commander Dalglish, acknowledged the physical challenges facing the FIDS team:
On the whole the weather was predominantly bad. Our lowest temperatures were in the minus 40s. But rather than the intense cold, the most unpleasant conditions were the blizzards. . . . . The object of the FIDS were for us, the meteorological observations, geological and biological survey of the west Grahamland coast. . . . We all had an Englishmans outlook to life. Everyone would occasionally blow his top and be allowed to do so. But we were all agreed that the one man who could be temperamental was the cook.36
After completing his two-year secondment to Hope Bay base in the Antarctic peninsula, Dalglish returned to England, where he resumed his naval duties. But his public testimony bears witness to the fact that FIDS staff had to keep a sense of perspective in the face of the physical and political challenges residing in Antarctica. Frank Elliot, who was later to be the FIDS Secretary between 1946 and 1958, joined FIDS in 1945 largely on account of his mountaineering skills.37 As leader of the Hope Bay base, Elliot had the task of organizing sledging parties for travel from Hope Bay to Marguerite Bay in the southern part of the Antarctic peninsula for the purpose of carrying out survey and geological research of the unmapped snow elds. Closer to the base, a weather station was created, and every three hours information on the conditions was sent to Stanley in the Falkland Islands. When not involved in dog sledging or scientic activity, Elliot was expected to visit neighbouring Chilean and Argentine bases in order to deliver by hand notes of protest concerning their illegal presence in the Falkland Islands Dependencies.38
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Klaus Dodds
This combination of mapping the Antarctic peninsula while plotting foreign incursions into the Falkland Islands Dependencies was time consuming and weather dependent. In these testing circumstances, good planning was essential. Before the start of any dog sledging trip, the FIDS surveyors went through a series of steps to ensure that they were equipped for any (reasonable) climatic and political eventuality.39 Every surveyor (and not just Dr Fuchs) had to carry a series of protest notes in their pockets just in case they encountered any South American competitors on the shifting ice sheets, as well as critical items of equipment such as the theodolite, sketch-book, halfchronometer, wireless set, tobacco and cigarettes, aircraft compass, and protective clothing such as goggles which were acknowledged to be his most treasured possessions and with every sledging party there was always a spare pair of goggles.40 Once in the eld, the FIDS surveyors had strict instructions governing their surveying behaviour. Every 40 or 50 miles, the team were expected to take bearings and sketches as you go along, and so the topography of the country is gradually built up on the surveyors eld sheets, and to ensure that proper recordings were taken in the eld notebooks. The DOS had instructed the FIDS staff to gather astronomical xes and to use light plywood boards as plane tables in order to help compass bearings and heights to be taken by clinometers.41 Survey chains were gradually constructed over the Antarctic landscapes, and all FIDS staff had to have considerable condence in their navigation, surveying and mountaineering skills as they traversed ice and rocks. The Directorate of Overseas Survey (DOS) had issued guidelines for eld techniques in 1954 which covered the steps that had to be taken in order to transform those triangulation chains into so-called reliability diagrams by selecting control stations, xing measurements and then sketching and photographing in detail the landscapes covered by the surveyor. The grounding of these eld observations was essential in terms of ensuring that the surveying data collected in conjunction with any aerial photography could be codied and geographically controlled in terms of location.42 Ultimately, most surveyors aspired to produce so-called Grade A reliability diagrams which highlighted the fact that the surveyed terrain in question had been travelled over and drawn and photographed with the assistance of at least two triangulation stations.43 When the weather was fair, condence in these techniques grew accordingly, as Duncan Carse noted in 195152: Used well a photo-theodolite should enable a surveyor to transport the country-side into the ofce . . . yet as he later admitted, in poor visibility we had to travel blind . . . weather was our single biggest obstacle, and difculty and danger of travel slowed work considerably.44 On a good day in the eld, therefore, FIDS surveyors would boast that the map grew each night we travelled. It was new country and we were the rst to put it on the map.45 The FIDS teams often travelled at night over glaciers and ice packs because the ice was considered to be more stable and cloud cover was frequently reduced during the short polar nights of the austral summer. On bad days, the dangers of fog, the instability of ice and the contrariness of equipment took their toll on the FIDS teams and tested the humour of even the most
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experienced operatives. As the geologist E W K Walton noted in his account of the South Georgia Survey of 195152:
Up to this stage, both the surveyors (Heaney and Smillie) had been talking rather airily of a triangulation scheme working from the south to the north, just like travelling around the English countryside and it was very hard to say tactfully that such ideas were quite impossible . . . I wanted in black and white a general directive about the aims of any journey and hated the airy way we were just sent out to explore . . .46
When surveying and photography was impossible, the FIDS teams were expected to sketch the landscapes they encountered on their journeys.47 From an administrative point of view, sketches were considered to be the least useful in terms of producing accurate sheet maps. Detailed triangulation diagrams of islands and mountain ranges were considered more rigorous and easier to transfer onto detailed contour relief maps. By the 1940s, geometeric representations had undoubtedly replaced drawing and painting as the principle means for recording Antarcticas landscapes. Nonetheless, there were moments when it was considered desirable to record the landscapes via drawings as the men attached to Duncan Carses surveying expedition in South Georgia acknowledged:
Even with the aid of photographs, there is much to be said for getting the topography drawn while the country is still fresh in the draughtmanss eye and preferably before he has travelled new country.48 [See Figure 5.]
Painting and sketching were, however, never simple tasks in the Antarctic, as the FIDS team ran the risk of frostbite to exposed ngers, even if the sketch-pad and paints were considerably lighter to carry than the theodolite and geological specimen bags.49 Most of the private reports of the FIDS surveying teams record time and again that the weather was the largest obstacle to their operations: time loss in the eld could be approximately 35% of total expedition time.50 Such losses in the eld often had an overall detrimental effect on the success of a particular expedition, as FIDS staff were under considerable pressure to maximize their time on the ice during the short summer season (Figure 6). Inevitably, in times of poor weather or mishap, other research too, such as geological sampling in the Antarctic, suffered much, to the general chagrin of geologists attached to FIDS. As Alan Trendall, a geologist attached to the South Georgia Survey expeditions 195152 and 195354 complained, movements are controlled mainly by the demands of topographical survey as opposed to geology or biology.51 These pressures in the eld took their toll on the organization of paperwork, and ofcials in London often complained that FIDS surveyors had either been sloppy or incomplete in their writing up of research and results.52 Occasionally, disagreements over work routines and schedules for writing up research resulted in arguments in the eld. Duncan Carses South Georgia Survey expedition is a case in point: Carse fell out with the surveyor, George Smillie, over working conditions and the maintenance of eld notebooks.53 In a letter to Colin Bertram, the Director of the Scott Polar Research Institute, in March 1954, Carse noted:
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I have had a hell of a time this season, all of it quite unnecessary, but despite repeated attempts to get the work off the ground, Smillie wouldnt work until it was too late . . . There is surely enough dirt in South Georgia without my fast adding to it.54
In order to ensure that these distant eruptions in the eld did not migrate from the margins to the centre of the public geographical imagination, FIDS with the appproval of the Foreign Ofce was instructed to ensure that good publicity was secured within the UK. In 1948, negotiations with the BBC led to a radio broadcasting agreement which ensured that 12 weekly 15-minute programmes were transmitted from Base E in Stonnington Island. Duncan Carse later secured permission to produce Antarctic venture: the story of the FIDS, which recounted the rationale and achievements of FIDS in March 1950. With the background
Figure 5 ~ Field sketch from the South Georgia Survey, 19517

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Figure 6 ~ Surveyors working in the Antarctic peninsula during the 195557 Falkland Islands Dependency Aerial Survey Expedition (photo reproduced with the permission of Peter Mott, leader of the FIDASE)
music of Ralph Vaughan Williamss Antarctica Sinfonia , Carse noted that his listeners should not think that youre going to hear a programme only about the daredevil feats and hairbreadth escapes. Work in the FIDS is adventurous right enough, but its something more than that as well. Im here merely because long before I or anyone else had heard of Dick Barton, I was down in the ice and once you have been there you are a part, however small, of the British Antarctic tradition.;55 Unsurprisingly, FIDS staff on return to the UK were actively encouraged to give slide-illustrated presentations which demonstrated that the work of FIDS was leading to new maps as well as giving value for money.56 As Douglas Mason noted in his address to the Royal Geographical Society in May 1950: Ladies and Gentleman, as you paid for the expedition as taxpayers, I hope you feel from those words and also from what you have heard and seen tonight that you are getting good value for your money.57 Maps and photographs were greatly valued by FIDS, as they were testimony to the movements of the surveyors and their capacity to trample over remote and hostile parts of the Antarctic.
Producing the maps: FIDS, the Directorate of Overseas Surveys and the Antarctic Place-Names Committee
Despite the widespread usage of aerial surveying and air photography, the need for on-the-ground observations in remote places remained (Figure 7). The ight path and the aerial camera had not yet replaced the land-based surveyor and his theodolite. As Vivian Fuchs implictly acknowledged in 1950 in the Listener magazine:
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In the course of 1948 and 1949 some 700 miles of coastline were surveyed by Brown and Blaiklock. Though most of this was previously known to exist, many areas were inaccurate. The maps had been compiled from air photographs without the control of accurate xed points on the ground or rigid ight control.58
Over the 1940s and 1950s it became apparent that FIDS was always going to struggle with this demand for grounded observations, given the size of the region to be surveyed and the number of surveyors employed by the organization. As the years unfolded, American expeditions (both private and government funded) demonstrated their capacity to meet the needs of American civil servants charged with monitoring this remote and inhospitable region. Unfortunately for British ofcials, American administrators were decidedly ambivalent about British colonial claims, and at times exposed their administration to ridicule (see below). As Stephen Payne has noted, American explorers in the 1950s were simply overwhelming the British Antarctic programme in terms of information generation and logistical co-ordination.59 Thus the loss of information in the eld was critical: detailed Antarctic maps not only invited respect but also enabled negotiators to press their territorial, geopolitical and commerical interests further in diplomatic exchanges. The production of maps and surveys of the FID was the most visible evidence of a British presence in the polar landscape. Maps (and the sketches and notes
Figure 7 ~ Aerial photograph of Half Moon Island, South Shetlands, Antarctica (reproduced with the permission of Peter Mott, leader of the FIDASE)
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which led to their production) were valuable artefacts, and were the evidence of British endeavour on the ice. Surveys in the Falkland Islands Dependencies was completed in the mid-1950s and was intended to provide a record for administrators of the cartographic achievements of FIDS personnel (Figure 8). While most of the northern tip of the Antarctic peninsula had been covered by aerial and land-based survey, knowledge of the southern part of the peninsula and outlying islands was fragmentary, reecting the difculties in covering such a massive area of polar ice and sea. The map of Scotland in the corner of the diagram was intended to provide a sense of scale for readers and a reminder that work was being carried out on a wild and untamed landscape (hence the depiction of Scotland rather than England). It would be unrealistic, as Fuchs frequently argued, to expect the FIDS team to survey and map such a large area of British territory in a comprehensive manner. Adaption and concession were often the order of the day as was reected in the ofcial guidelines from the DOS for polar surveying. As the Director of Colonial Surveys acknowledged in June 1952:
The object of this meeting [with FIDS staff] is to suggest that the standard of accuracy required is not so high as has been assumed to be necessary . . . We recognize that the standard of accuracy of these surveys cannot compare with that necessary for inhabited British colonial possessions . . . We wish to emphasize the difference of accuracy that exists between the requirements for non polar territories and those that would serve areas such as the Falkland Islands Dependencies.60
These apparent concessions over surveying were reected in the nal production of maps and their scales. The DOS also approved a sliding scale for map projection with 1:500 000 being judged sufcient for administrative and political purposes and 1:200 000 or even 1:100 000 being required for practical assistance in developing awareness of the detailed topographies of the Antarctic peninsula and surrounding seas. Mapping scales performed different political and administrative tasks: the more detailed the map, the greater the sense of ownership and control. While British civil servants were inclined to romanticize about imperial surveying, they also expected results:
The scientic eldwork which is carried out in the Dependencies is not research for the benet of colonial peoples. It is done to maintain an UK interest . . . It is UK, not FIDS policy that the activity should be maintained at a sufcient level to enable us to compete with our South American rivals, and it is inescapable that the receipt, coordination, working up, and publication of results of eldwork at the bases must be regarded as integral to these activities.61
The relationship with the DOS (the ofcial producer of all UK state maps) was crucial for FIDS collective political and scientic legitimacy. Vivian Fuchs, the head of the Scientic Bureau attached to FIDS, acknowledged that the Directorate provided advice and training for FIDS surveyors during and after their voyages to the Antarctic. However, the co-ordination between the DOS and FIDS could be problematic, as correspondance between Frank Elliot and Colonel Wiggins of the DOS conrmed in February 1957. After several months of complaints from FIDS personnel in Antarctica, new instructions on
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Figure 8 ~ Surveys in the Falkland Islands Dependencies

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surveying and information exchange were prepared after Elliot had noted:
With the appointment of Sir Raymond Priestly and the reorganization of FIDS London Ofce and the Scientic Bureau under one roof, this impression that we have too many cooks should disappear.62
The complaint regarding interference had been prompted when Elliot wrote to Wiggins in November 1956 noting that polar surveying guidelines for the FIDS surveyors had been amended by FIDS without the professional input of the DOS. This inability to co-ordinate information collection and processing was a constant problem for the FIDS management. Brian Roberts and Vivian Fuchs were only too aware of the pressing need for greater co-ordination and consistency in authorizing particular research programmes. A constant thorn in the side of the administrators responsible for FIDS was the marked reticence of surveyors to write up their research notes into a form useful to the DOS for the production of the nal sheet maps. In February 1949, the Colonial Ofce had already warned FIDS of this danger:
During the three seasons 1946-1948 . . . a considerable amount of work was done, the results of which were sent to London in the form of scientic notes, data and collections. This material has accumulated but it has not until now been possible to make comprehensive arrangements for it to be analysed . . . This must be clearly done if the eldwork is not to be largely wasted and HMG thereby incurs justiable criticism both internationally and in the scientic world.63
The creation of the FIDS Scientic Bureau in 1952 was intended to assist in the process of generating reliable survey information from the notes, sketches and reports submitted by returning FIDS surveyors. Limited monies had been set aside by the FIDS in order to support these surveyors during the writing-up process.64 However, as the FIDS geologist, Raymond Adie, acknowledged:
It was a constant problem to encourage eld workers to complete their work. Some of them sought places in universities with a view to obtaining a higher degree, but unfortunately much of the eldwork remained unpublished.65
The reasons for this tardiness lay in a combination of factors including a desire to seek paid employment on return from Antarctica and a reluctance to commit oneself to writing up research without suitable remuneration. In recognition of this intellectual wastage, the veteran polar explorer Raymond Priestly negotiated in 1956 an exchange with the Geology Department of the University of Birmingham so that FIDS staff could write up their results in Edgbaston.66 However, the take up of this exchange scheme did not save the FIDS Scientic Bureau from being subjected to political pressures concerning the optimal utilization of this eld research.67 This desire to maximize research output was most clearly witnessed in the meetings of the Antarctic Place-Names Committee, which was responsible for approving newly named features on the sheet maps. Formed in June 1932, the subcommittee on Names in the Antarctic was created by the interdepartmental Polar Committee, and by 1934 it had issued the rst guidelines for naming Antarctic features. In 1948, Brian Roberts was appointed Secretary of the renamed Antarctic Place-Names Committee, and he was responsible for
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coordinating changes, since new surveys are effecting very substantial corrections to the shape and location of even the largest features.68 New names were to be regraded on the basis of 5 variants: accepted names, rejected names, proposed alterations, temporarily discarded names, proposed new names and proposed ofcial acceptance of existing names. Before that stage, however, the Committee also enforced strict rules for the naming of features and the submission of evidence regarding the identication of new features. For a place to be a name on the map, evidence had to be provided of where and what it was.69 The published accounts of FIDS and related expeditions such as Duncan Carses South Georgia Survey expeditions of 195157 record the difculties in either conrming location or leaving their trace (such as a cairn) on the landscape. During a particularly nasty season, two surveyors, Bomford and Paterson, admitted that some places could not be seen:
Inevitably, on a survey of this sort, some odd patches of ground on the offshore side of the long peninsulas remain obstinately hidden from surveyors . . . . These may amount to 5% of the Island of South Georgia. On a further 20%, it must be admitted that the future traveller with the map in his hand will be at once aware that the map lacks perfection. But on the remaining 75%, it is hoped that he wont.70
Roberts and the Antarctic Place-Names Committee were hoping for rather better assessments than those of the other surveyors in South Georgia. In this particular case, the leader of the South Georgia survey was instructed to close the remaining gaps on the map armed with sextant, compass, camera and common sense.71 Duncan Carse returned to South Georgia in 19567 to complete the task concentrating on the inhospitable Fortuna Bay and Hound Bay areas. If successful, leaders of expeditions such as Duncan Carses South Georgia Survey could be rewarded with one of the most important tributes imaginable in British polar administration: a personally named feature on the map (Mount Carse in his case). The Antarctic Place-Names Committee was not only charged with approving new names on denitive maps of the Antarctic but was also concerned to protect British interests in the FID. In this context, the act of naming was an important geopolitical strategy which served to highlight British endeavours and occupation of the southern polar region. The agreed guidelines for naming new features reected the Committees desire to ensure that no names in any foreign language including Scottish, Welsh and Irish would be approved.72 While the FIDS teams could and did propose descriptive names for the physical features they named and photographed, the nal decision on their inclusion in the sheet maps lay with the Committee composed of individuals from the Foreign Ofce, the Colonial Ofce and the DOS based in London. Notwithstanding these naming endeavours, the remit of the Antarctic PlaceNames Committee was increasingly being challenged from the late 1940s onwards by Britains erstwhile Cold War ally, the United States, and the US Board of Geographical Names.
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The limits of power: FIDS and Anglo-American geopolitical interests in Antarctica

The role of the United States in the immediate postwar history of the Antarctic was substantive in terms not only of shaping the exploration of the continent but also of the accompanying international political ramications.73 In terms of exploration and research, the United States was simply in a class above its western allies such as Britain, New Zealand and Australia.74 Since the 1920s, explorers and aviators such as Richard Byrd had pioneered modern techniques in polar exploration.75 While Britain had a considerable store of polar experience, the Americans established a widely emulated model of exploration through their widespread usage of aerial ights, overland dog sledging and base camps. Whereas British expeditions such as the 193437 Grahamland Expedition and the FIDS staff were neither hapless amateurs nor inexperienced in dog sledging or polar ight, the real contrast was in the scale of the US operations, which dwarfed British endeavours on the ice.76 In some cases this was to be a source of considerable tension as the Americans demonstrated a supreme capacity to produce countless maps and aerial photographs of territory already legally incorporated into the FID. A case in point was the 194748 American Expedition organized by Commander Finn Ronne of the US Navy. In his recollections of the expedition, Ronne recalled that a $50 000 grant from the federal government had assisted an exploration programme which generated 14 000 trimetrogon photographs and photographic coverage of 750 000 square miles of the polar continent.77 Despite these impressive aerial achievements, the well known geographer, Isaiah Bowman noted in the foreword of Ronnes Antarctic Conquests that there remained considerable opportunities for new discoveries:
The unexplored reaches of Antarctica still exercise their spell over the imagination and still excite the ambitions of young men. The irresistible call is still heard from that vast wilderness of ice and rock that no eye has yet seen . . . explorers should continue to beam the light of scientic inquiry on Antarctica.78
These worthy sentiments were not exactly replicated on the ground, and the AngloAmerican special relationship was tested rather than validated during the 194748 season. In the midst of his expedition, Ronne recalled an incident with the FIDS surveyor, Pierce-Butler, who had complained that the American ag ying over Stonnington base in the Antarctic peninsula effectively challenged British sovereignty in the FID.79 This seemingly banal expression of nationalism encouraged British ofcials in London to dispatch the Antarcticbased Pierce-Butler to deposit a protest note with Ronne. Ronnes recorded reaction revealed a great deal about American frustrations with the British desire to protect territorial sovereignty:
It was ridiculous that such a situation could arise on a continent of six million square miles, two thirds of which is still unknown . . . The main interests of the British were to maintain settlement for the purposes of colonization and claims, scientic studies and local triangulation surveys.80
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Earlier in 1946, however, Ronne had actually been approached by a British delegate, Neil Macintosh, at the International Whaling Commissions inaugural meeting in Washington DC, and urged to conduct his exploration outside the FID.81 This desire to exclude Finn Ronnes expedition team was the product of intense British uncertainty over the intention of the US administration towards either pressing a claim to territory or seeking an international settlement to the Antarctic which would unquestionably touch upon British sovereign interests. Worse still, the subsequent production of maps of the Antarctic peninsula by the American expedition were usually interpreted as threatening to British interests even though it was admitted that FIDS had been slow to translate geographical information into sheet maps. As Brian Beves, a FIDS surveyor, noted in 1948:
The mass of un-cordinated scientic data which has been collected has not been fully sifted or worked up into a readable whole. . . . These British achievements have, however, unfortunately received only a fragment of the publicity they deserve, due to the traditional British reticence and to the highly coloured but unfortunately also highly biased reports on the progress of the sledging parties sent out by Commander Finn Ronne.82
In modern parlance, Beves was effectively admitting that FIDS and the British government needed to employ spin doctors in order to ensure that the work of the Survey was duly recognized in the wider public domain. This inability to match American endeavours mattered to British ofcials because of the concern that their claims could be compromised by this research output and by ofcial publications such as the US Board of Geographical Names The geographical names of Antarctica, produced in May 1948.83 This almanac of acknowledged placenames not only listed the conrmed geographies of the Antarctic peninsula but also explicitly acknowledged the achievements of particular surveying teams. At the same time, however, the Department of State had approached eight nations including Britain with a proposal to internationalize the political management of the Antarctic through a condominium of shared sovereignty. The British government under Prime Minister Attlee had expressed a willingness to explore this possibility even though some American commentators recognized that Unofcial observers suggested that Britain, highly sensitive to postwar losses of British imperial territory and to recent affronts to British sovereignty [in British Honduras] and dignity by small powers, probably would scrutinize the American proposals most carefully before agreeing to anything.84 Privately, British ofcials such as Brian Roberts were adamant that this American plan for a sovereignty condominium was unworkable because Britain could never secure exclusive control over the FID without Argentine and Chilean withdrawal from the region. 85 The uncertainty over whether the United States would declare an Antarctic claim also contributed to a feverish atmosphere in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The implications for this geopolitical reticence on the part of the United States had implications for British ofcials and the polar survey. While successive British governments had funded numerous FIDS expeditions and the 195557 Falkland Islands Dependency Aerial Survey Expedition (FIDASE), and
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assisted the 195157 South Georgia Survey, the scientic and political results of these endeavours were ambivalent. On the one hand, there remained many gaps on the sheet maps as terrible weather and poor logistical support had prevented access to the troublesome eastern margins of the Antarctic peninsula.86 High-altitude aeroplanes deployed in the FIDASE could not reach the fearsome Larsen ice shelf and helicopters had crashed in the Antarctic peninsula. On the other hand, the Americans had not been persuaded to support the British claim to the FID. The Truman and Eisenhower administrations showed a marked reluctance either to acknowledge the cartographic achievements of the FIDS or to refrain from surveying and mapping the FID. One implication of these circumstances was to lead to the questioning of the value of survey and subsequent map generation. In a discussion paper produced by Brian Roberts in August 1954 on Future UK policy in the Antarctic (which was circulated to major government departments and interested Commonwealth parties such as Australia and New Zealand), it was acknowledged that Britain would inter alia have to approach the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to seek a judgement on the conicting claims to the Antarctic. The most striking omission from this paper is any acknowledgement that the Argentine surveying activities matched the achievements of FIDS; not surprisingly, the Pern government had shown little inclination to discuss the conicting sovereignty claim. As Roberts then noted, This rejection of our soundings, coupled with the increasing weight of the Argentine challenge, has made the Antarctic problem more pressing than ever. In the event, the ICJ was not able to deliver a verdict on the overlapping territorial claims because Argentina refused to submit evidence, claiming that these areas were already incorporated into the Republics national territory. It was then acknowledged that the best route for the British would be to concentrate mapping and surveying in particular places with the object of discovering quickly which parts of the Falkland Islands Dependencies would be worth retaining in the event of partition.87 Robertss aspiration to produce a complete and accurate map of the entire FID was effectively jettisoned by the Falkland Islands Dependencies Scientic Committee in the face of geopolitical pressures from Argentina and the United States.88 Americas unwillingness either to press a claim to the so-called Pacic sector of the Antarctic or to actively support Britain in its exclusive claim to the FID persuaded London ofcials that its Commonwealth partners would have to be approached for moral and practical support. Sensitive to the charges of neocolonialism, British ofcials sought from the mid 1950s to devise schemes such as the Trans Antarctic Expedition (TAE), which would appear to present opportunities for Commonwealth claimant states such as Australia and New Zealand to improve their legal and geopolitical presence in Antarctica rather than simply act as a call for the mutual defence of British claims in the FID.89 This geopolitical sleight of hand was revealed in a Foreign Ofce memorandum to Commonwealth partners in August 1954:
We believe that a project of this nature [the Trans Antarctic Expedition] could provide a valuable demonstration of Commonwealth solidarity in the Antarctic . . . it could demonstrate to the world our leadership in the area.90
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The TAE was eventually organized by Britain and New Zealand in 195556 and inspired the rst mechanized crossing of Antarctica in 195758 by Vivian Fuchs of FIDS and the New Zealand mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary. While the TAE could boast the participation of South African, Australian and New Zealand personnel alongside their British colleagues, few ofcials in the southern hemisphere doubted that the primary motivation for the venture was to bolster the weakened British position in Antarctica. As the Canadian Department of External Affairs had noted in a private response to a British request for help with the organization of the TAE:
The dead horse of British imperialism can still be ogged if the occasion arises . . . even for Commonwealth solidarity we will not trudge the wastes of Antarctica . . . If they wanted to buy some huskies or something of that sort we could do what we could.91
By the mid-1950s, the diplomatic atmosphere surrounding the territorial claims to the Antarctic had changed from the unsubtle territorial politics of ag-waving and base construction to co-operative ventures and joint agreements on science and exploration. The geopolitics of claimant states such as Britain increasingly revolved around the apparent paradox of making good a particular territorial claim whilst at the same time avoiding blatant strategies such as destroying the occupational evidence of other claimant states such as ags, bases and plaques.92 The British government could not rely on the support of the United States in the mid- to late 1950s, and therefore decided that their polar endeavours needed greater publicity within the UK and the Commonwealth. This change of emphasis was also inspired by a recognition that the achievements of Argentine and Chilean surveyors were compromising those of FIDS. The position was summarized in a Memorandum produced by Brian Roberts in February 1954:
The FIDS Scientic Committee cannot but be acutely aware that the expanding occupational and scientic work of other powers in the Antarctic threaten to forestall FIDS work in some elds and restrict it in others. Argentine occupational activities are restricting FIDS areas of operations . . . In these circumstances, there is a danger that FIDS may be robbed of the fruits of its work already done at great effort and considerable cost. To prevent this FIDS must aim to produce an expanded programme.93
Mapping and surveying were, therefore, having to be deployed in an increasingly sophisticated manner which recognized that the activities of the Cold War superpowers could ultimately determine the international politics of Antarctica. British activities in the mid-1950s such as the Trans Antarctic Expedition coincided with preparations for an International Geophysical Year (IGY 195758) and with feverish AmericanCommonwealth negotiations over the role and intention of the Soviet Union in Antarctica.94 The IGY was intended to be a global scientic programme which would have a special emphasis on the Antarctic. Scientic research was to be carried out throughout the Antarctic regardless of the sensitivities of claimant states. The Soviet Union had conrmed that a large scientic programme would be assembled for the IGY, and Soviet
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bases were later constructed in the so-called Australian Antarctic Territory. As Ivor Pink of the Foreign Ofce acknowledged in July 1957 to a Commonwealth meeting: It is quite unrealistic to think that the Soviet Union could be kept out of the Antarctic. They are on the spot and clearly intend to stay after the Geophysical Year ends. Moreover, Pink said, the Soviet claim was just as sound as most of the western claims. 95 The politics of territorial claims and exclusive sovereignty coexisted uneasily with the international scientic rhetoric of the IGY.96 Throughout the 1950s, American geopolitical movements regarding the international politics of Antarctica could have imperilled the activities of FIDS and the British claim to the FID. The key element in this drama was the ambiguous attitude of American ofcials towards any US claim to the polar continent. Had the Americans pressed a claim, then it is doubtful whether the British would have been in a position to mount an effective legal and political challenge if that claim had encompassed the FID. The Canadian Department of External Affairs, which attended many Commonwealth meetings over common Antarctic policies, recorded in March 1957 that the British delegation at a recent meeting had recognized that the United States was a potential rival claimant but also an obstacle to a concerted effort by existing claimants against Soviet encroachment in the Antarctic.97 The dilemma confronting British ofcials responsible for FIDS and its mapping programme were wider than simply negotiating the AngloArgentine relationship. This view had been cemented in March 1956 when the US Secretary of State, J. F. Dulles, had conrmed to the Foreign Ofce that the bogey of communist penetration as a means of enlisting American support in your [i.e., British] dispute with Argentina and Chile had backred.98 The Americans rejected the notion that the growing scientic interests of the Soviet Union had to be stopped, and Dulles had expressed open reluctance to intervene in the UKs dispute with Argentina and Chile. For much of FIDS 17-year history, the wider geopolitical currents shaping the mapping and surveying programmes were rarely favourable. The British not only had to endure the indignity of being outclassed in the eld by Argentine and Chilean surveyors, but were also dismayed that traditional patterns of Cold War support were overturned in the Antarctic.99 The American governments of Eisenhower and Truman showed no inclination either to support Britain against South American territorial intrusion or actively to press a claim to the Antarctic continent. Moreover, Dulles and the Department of State were adamant that no attempt should be be made to prevent the Soviet Union from participating in the IGY and from collecting scientic information from their stations.100 Successive British governments recognized that the activities of FIDS would have to be supported through higher research grants, high-prole events designed to supplement the mapping programme and greater Commonwealth cooperation. As Harold Macmillan acknowledged in the House of Commons in May 1957:
HMGs policy in regard to Antarctica is to continue the tasks of surveying and exploring the FID with a particular view to ascertaining their value, particularly from the economic and scientic point of view, and by the establishment of our
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administration of the necessary bases in our area and in consultation with other Commonwealth governments concerned.101
Maintaining this complex balance of priorities was to climax in 195758, as the wider political and scientic currents of the Antarctic and the Cold War meant that the work of the FIDS was about to be subsumed under the wider apparatus of the Cold War.
Internationalizing science and politics: the IGY and the end of FIDS?
The scientic motivation for the International Geophysical Year, 195758, lay in a number of directions, and included: a recognition that the last multinational scientic programme involving the polar regions had occurred over 30 years ago; a belief that research had to be directed towards the upper atmosphere because of a prediction that there would be a highly unusual sunspot activity in 195758; and a growing interest in the Antarctic as a focal point for research into the earths surface and interplanetary space.102 By the mid-1950s, therefore, it had been widely appreciated that Antarctica was but one component of an information-collecting campaign sponsored by leading industrialized nations such as the United States, equipped with aeroplanes, tractors and satellites and inspired by cybernetics, system theory and geomagnetism. The rst movement towards the IGY had been made in 1951, when a proposal from the International Council of Scientic Unions (ICSU) was accepted by the executive board of the ICSU. As a consequence, the ICSU created a Comit Spciale de lAnnee Geophysique Internationale (CSAGI) for the purpose of co-ordinating scientic programmes and research priorities. In the context of the Antarctic, it was proposed that a ring of research stations should be created so that maximum coverage of the continent could be obtained. With the help of the new maps being created by the American, British and Soviet authorities, it was possible to specify particular sites for these new bases with considerably more condence. While the CSAGI established the principle of free exchange of movement and unimpeded access in the Antarctic, the IGY was shot through with geopolitical tensions over geophysical research and mapping.103 The internationalization of scientic endeavour had considerable consequences for the administrators of FIDS. August institutions such as the Royal Society replaced the FIDS Scientic Bureau as the premier representative of British Antarctic endeavours. In part, this reected the fact that FIDS had been indelibly implicated in nationalistic endeavours and parochial scientic concern for the FID rather than for the entire Antarctic continent. New bodies such as the British National Committee for the IGY were staffed with Royal Society representatives. More worryingly, the Royal Societys ad hoc Committee on Antarctic Research had argued in February 1958 that FIDS research was inadequately scientically supported:
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It was agreed that the best development of scientic research in the UK sector of Antarctica would depend on a ow of scientists from establishments in the UK and not, as at present, scientists recruited by the FIDS performing tasks on the Grahamland penisula of Antarctica, without necessarily having strong links with UK experts . . .104
In short, the British National Committee for the IGY concluded that FIDS mapping research was inadequately linked to other scientic expertise on the Antarctic, and later also inferred that FIDS geopolitical rationale was an obstacle to further scientic work in the context of the IGY.105 In his review of the Royal Societys contribution to the International Geophysical Year, Sir David Brunt noted that the construction of Halley Base in 1956 was the culmination of ve years preparation by British polar scientists and administrators.106 In response to a request from the Special Committee for the IGY (CSAGI), the Royal Society had agreed to sponsor a research station in the Vahsel Bay region of the Ronne Ice Shelf. By December 1952, the British National Committee for the IGY had been established by the Royal Society under the chairmanship of Sir James Wordie. In complete contrast to the nationalistic aspirations of the FIDS, Halley Bay was intended to be a showcase for international scientic cooperation, even though Sir David admitted: the CSAGI resolution did not name any particular nation: but Vahsel Bay lies within the area of the Falkland Islands Dependencies and it was therefore natural that the resolution aroused particular interest in Britain.107 As if to reinforce this new disposition towards collective endeavour, Sir David Brunt also recorded that the Union Jack ag uttering above the roof of the new base had to be taken down again because it interfered with solar radiation readings.108 The removal of the Union Jack from the Halley base came at a time when the British government, through FIDS and the TAE, sought to maximize its presence on the ice. Given the activities of the IGY, the nationalistic aspirations of FIDS were beginning to appear at best anachronistic and at worst rendering FIDS incapable of fullling its mandate, which was to produce comprehensive mapping of the Antarctic peninsula. This does not mean (contrary to Stephen Paynes recent claim) that eldwork was being subsumed by laboratories and libraries as the major centres of knowledge accumulation in the 1950s. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, eld-based and aerial surveys were widely used techniques in polar exploration, paleontological research and nuclear engineering.109 However, it is fair to note that the intellectual, logistical and political power of the United States was superior to that of the seven claimant states including the United Kingdom.110 By the end of the IGY, the United States Antarctic scientic community had generated 13 tons of information and sponsored countless numbers of experiments and activities above and below the Antarctics surface.111 A decade later, of course, American endeavours in Antarctica had been eclipsed by some spectacular eldwork on the moon.112 More broadly, the ending of the IGY precipitated further political movement towards a nal settlement on the Antarctic question. Fearful of a return to the geopolitical competition between Argentina and Britain, the American government, led by Department of State representative Paul Daniels, called the 12 parEcumene 2000 7 (2)
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ticipants of the IGY Antarctic programme to a special meeting on the future of Antarctica in December 1959. After months of preparation and secret meetings, the parties agreed to sign the Antarctic Treaty, which inter alia determined that competing territorial claims should be suspended in favour of international scientic cooperation. This was a particular priority for the British delegation, anxious to secure a treaty which would relieve them of their historical obligation and embarrassments in the Antarctic without injuring their national pride.113 In 1962, within two years of the signing of the Antarctic Treaty, FIDS was renamed the British Antarctic Survey, with new research priorities stressing collaborative research rather than mapping in the Antarctic peninsula for purely geopolitical gain. Information which was once considered privileged was now being shared via the Scientic Committee on Antarctic Research (created by the IGY parties) rather than hoarded by the Royal Navy, the FIDS or the Foreign Ofce.114 After 15 years of toil and sometimes heroic struggle, the FIDS men succumbed to a combination of political expedience and changing technologies such as satellites and rockets.
Conclusions
This paper has used the archival details of FIDS in order to elucidate issues currently of interest to cultural and historical geography. While it is well appreciated that the map is not an innocent representational tool, it is imperative that the specic values invested in mapping are acknowledged. This paper has shown how Antarctic mapping was often considered to be an invaluable form of defence against the irrational and childish ambitions of South American competitors such as Argentina and Chile. However, these Latin Americanist representations of Argentina frequently failed to confront the ironies and inconsistencies inherent within the strategies of FIDS administrators. As geopolitical circumstances changed, the scientic value of mapping was re-evaluated, and by the mid-1950s administrators had concluded that a well-publicised expedition such as the crossing of Antarctica was of greater value to Britains prole in Antarctica than the painstaking practices relating to eldwork and the construction of maps. The records of FIDS also bear testimony to the fact that mapping was greatly inuenced by a desire to maintain territorial control in a remote part of the British empire, rather than being part of a seamless tradition of polar exploration dating back to the voyages of Captain James Cook in the eighteenth century. The difculties and contradictions inherent within the activities of FIDS reveal a broader contemporary relevance concerning AngloArgentine relations and disputes over the Antarctic and the Falklands/Malvinas. The endeavours of FIDS and subsequently the British Antarctic Survey are often cited by British policymakers and scientists who draw favourable comparisons with Argentine and Chilean surveyors in order to point to Britains long and productive tradition of polar research.115 This account should caution those who seek to make such a claim, as the records of the FIDS reveal an organization determined to protect (in a rather haphazard manner) British imperial interests, even if the surEcumene 2000 7 (2)
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veyors and scientists on the ice were more concerned with mapping and research.116
Coda
On the eve of the 1982 Argentine invasion of the Falklands, Ministry of Defence ofcials in London were reduced to travelling to Scotland in search of maps and photographs belonging to academics who had worked in the South Atlantic.117 By a strange twist of fate, the most accurate and up-to-date maps were held by the Argentine authorities. Acknowledgements I owe a debt of gratitude to Don Mitchell for his very helpful comments as editor of Ecumene. I also would like to thank the Arts and Humanities Research Board for a research leave award in 1998-9. Thanks also to Denis Cosgrove, Robert Headland, Keith Richards, and the staff at the British Antarctic Survey, the Royal Society and Scott Polar Research Institute for their help over the last ve years. Further thanks are also due to Noble Caledonia and Special Expeditions who enabled me as a guest lecturer on their Antarctic expedition in March 1999 to visit some of the old FIDS bases in Antarctica. Nigel Page at the Department of Geography, Royal Holloway, University of London kindly redrew the maps for this paper and Peter Mott gave permission for these images to be reproduced for this paper. Notes
1
The literature on globalization is now large, but for a good recent review of the literature and its implications for remote regions such as Antarctica, see J. Baylis and S. Smith, eds, The globalization of world politics (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1997) and J. Vogler, Global commons: a regime analysis (Chichester, John Wiley, 1999). See A. Fox and J. Thompson, Mapping coastline changes in Antarctica (Cambridge, British Antarctic Survey, 1996). See C. Ward, Mapping ice changes of the Muller ice shelf, Antarctic peninsula, Antarctic Science 7 (1995), 1978. A fact acknowledged in FIDS: Scientic report number 1: organization and methods (London, HMSO, 1953). For the wider political background, see K. Dodds, The end of a polar empire? The Falkland Islands Dependencies and Commonwealth reactions to British polar policy 194562, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 24 (1996), pp. 391421. See K. Raj, Counting paces, mapping places: the nineteenth century Indo-British survey of Tibet and Central Asia, paper presented to the conference on eldwork in geography: cultures, practices and traditions at Royal Holloway, University of London, 5 May 1999. See the recent contribution by Matthew Edney, Mapping an empire: the geographical construction of British India 17651843 (Chicago, Chicago University Press, 1997) which details how mapping was critical to sustaining British administrative power in India despite numerous problems with weather, terrain and relations with native populaEcumene 2000 7 (2)
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tions. On the role of sketching in shaping British geographical knowledge, see L. Martinss excellent essay Navigating in tropical waters: British maritime views of Rio de Janeiro, Imago Mundi 50 (1998), pp. 14155. The recent collection of essays edited by H. Kuklick and R. Kohler, Science in the eld (Chicago, Chicago University Press, 1996), highlights the signicance of examining how eldwork skills helped to construct particular bodies of scientic knowledge. See e.g. G. Fogg, History of Antarctic science (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1992). See D. Mitchell, Writing the western: new western historys encounter with landscape, Ecumene 5 (1998), pp. 729. For further consideration of Latin Americanist discourses with specic reference to Argentina, see A. Hennessy and J. King, eds, The land that England lost (London, British Academic Press, 1992) and K. Dodds, Geopolitics in the Foreign Ofce: British representations of Argentina 19451961 Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 19 (1994), pp. 27390. See e.g., H. Ferns, Britains informal empire in Argentina 18061914, Past and Present 4 (1953), pp. 6075, D. Rock, ed., Argentina in the Twentieth Century (London, Duckworth, 1975), A. Graham-Yooll, The forgotten colony: a history of the English-speaking communities in Argentina (London, Hutchinson, 1981), E. Milensky, Argentinas foreign policies (Boulder, Westview Press, 1978), and A. Thompson, Informal empire? An exploration in the history of AngloArgentine relations 18101914, Journal of Latin American Studies 24 (1992), pp. 41936. FO 371 33518, Sir David Kelly to the Foreign Ofce in London, letter dated 21 July 1943. See E. Said, Orientalism (London, Penguin, 1978). It was very common in the 1940s for British Foreign Ofce ofcials to complain of Argentinas neutality during the Second World War. Perons reluctance to condemn Nazism by formally entering the war against Germany led to many unattering assessments of the Argentine Republic. Perons democratic electoral victories in 1946 and 1951 provided further sources of concern for those same ofcials, who claimed that Peron reected the Argentine assumption of superiority. See FO 371 90475, Notes on Argentina prepared by the British Embassy in Buenos Aires for the Foreign Ofce in November 1951. This representational consensus regarding Argentina was also widely replicated in the newspaper media, especially after the election of President Peron in 1945. See G. Howells, The British press and the Perons, in Hennessy and King, eds, The land that England lost, pp. 21326). See C. MacDonald, End of empire, the decline of the AngloArgentine connection 1918-1951, in Hennessy and King, The land that England lost, pp. 11430. FO 371/74375, letter from Sir John Balfour to the Foreign Ofce, 14 August 1949. CAB 66 (1944) (21). This was noted by the Foreign Ofce minute which reminded members of the Cabinet that 30% of Britains meat supply came from Argentina. See also T 162/1013 which contains a le from the Ministry of Information detailing plans to produce strip cartoons which conveyed the dangers of Nazism for Argentine and other Latin American audiences. In August 1944, the British Treasury approved a grant of 3400 for the production of a series of 24 pictures detailing the exploits of HMS Tartar , super-spy Bob Stanton, and the amiable toff Lord Wavell of Winchester and Cyrenaica. Cartoons were considered to be an important visual source which could be used to persuade Argentine public opinion to declare war on Nazi Germany. ADM /1/19509 contains the rationale for Operation Tabarin, which was secretly orga-
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nized by the Royal Navy with the advice of the Colonial Ofce for the purpose of rebuilding Antarctic bases and for restoring British claims to the Antarctic. The name Tabarin was derived from a Parisian night club which was apparently renowned for its mysterious atmosphere. BAS AD3/1/A5/183/1/A Part 1, letter from P. Carter of the Colonial Ofce to V. Fuchs of FIDS dated 28 September 1951, which noted that Argentine and Chilean maps and surveys would have to be acknowledged in any new British maps of the Antarctic. CO 537/4010, telegram from the Secretary of State for the Colonies to the Ofce of the Government of the Falkland Islands, 4 November 1948. CO 537 4946, internal correspondence from the military staff at the Colonial Ofce, 13 November 1947. Ironically, the trade section of the Foreign Ofce was actively encouraging arms sales to Argentina even though the American section of the Foreign Of ce was concerned that these weapons and planes might be used against British personnel in Antarctica and or the Falkland Islands. See FO 371 68122, Notes on Argentina prepared by the South American Department of the Foreign Ofce, which noted that in 1947 the UK was proposing to sell 100 Meteor jet planes and 30 Lincoln bombers to Argentina. The sale was later reviewed and cancelled. CO 537/4010, letter from P. Carter of the Colonial Ofce to C Shuckburgh of the Foreign Of ce, dated 26 October 1948. National Archives of Canada RG25 vol 4765 50070-40 part 2 This was contained within a telegram from Warwick Chipman, Canadian Ambassador to Argentina to the Secretary of State for External Affairs, dated 4 November 1948. See J. Peron, Peron expounds his doctrine (New York, AMS Press, 1948; repr. 1973). For further details on Argentine Antarctic activities and the geopolitical rationale for Perons polar vision, see K. Dodds, Geopolitics in Antarctica: views from the southern oceanic rim (Chichester, John Wiley, 1997). ADM 1 25082, lLetter from the Lord Chancellor to the Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, dated 9 February 1953. ADM 1/21126, letter from Secretary to the Admirality to the Commander-in-Chief based at Admirality House in Bermuda, dated 5 May 1948. Robertss memorandum to the Foreign Secretary is to be found in a telegraph to the High Commissioner for the UK in Ottawa from the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations dated 10 February 1953. See RG 25 4765 50070-40 part 3. See P. Beck, International politics of Antarctica (London, Croom Helm, 1986) for further details on the 1948 Naval Agreement and its connection with the 1959 Antarctic Treaty. Foreign Of ce memorandum on Future UK Policy in the Antarctic which was produced by Roberts in September 1954 and circulated to all old Commonwealth governments and relevant UK government departments. See RG25 25 4765 50070-50 part 3. A point acknowledged in the Memorandum prepared by the FIDS Scientic Committee in February 1952 entitled Memorandum on the possibility of survey with the aid of air photography, BAS AD8/1/34 (1). Funding for FIDS was initially derived from the Colonial Ofce. But by 1948 the nancial and administrative control of FIDS had been transfered to the Governor of the Falkland Islands, largely because it was felt that the organization would be better managed from Stanley rather than in London. Funding for mapping and surveying was derived from whaling revenues collected from South Georgia from Norwegian rms. One immediate consequence of this shift in funding and political
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control was that greater emphasis was placed on collecting meteorological data for the South Atlantic rather than mapping the Antarctic. See BAS AD3/1/A5/155A (1), statement made by Sir Miles Clifford to the FIDS Committee in London, dated 5 May 1950, but also A. Stephenson, British polar exploration 10 years before and after World War II Polar Recor d 20 (1981), pp. 31728. BAS AD3/1/A5/155A (1), letter from the Secretary of State for the Colonies to the Governor of the Falkland Islands, 25 April 1948. On life in the FIDS bases, see the recollections of A. Butson, Life in Grahamland, Science News 11 (1948), pp. 97113, where he admits that women were not missed unduly; J. Roberts, The FIDS, British Medical Journal 15 (1949), pp. 8634; R. Critchley, The Crown Agents and FIDS, Corona (1954), pp. 41819; and V. Fuchs, Of ice and men (Oswestry, Anthony Nelson, 1982). BAS AD6/15/17/7, letter from Brian Roberts to E. W. Bingham, dated 6 December 1948. See D. Dalgleish, Two years in the Antarctic, St Thomas Hospital Gazette 2 (1950), pp. 625, 11117. On his return, Dalgleish took two adult penguins to London Zoo for their penguin pool, but unfortunately they died after two weeks. See D. Mason, The FIDS, explorations of 19478, Geographical Journal 115 (1950), pp. 14560. AD6/16/1997/4, interview with Frank Elliot, Commander of FIDS Hope Bay base and Secretary to FIDS between 1946 and 1958. See J. Wordie, The FIDS, 19431946, Polar Record 32 (1946), pp. 37284. See BAS AD6/15/12, BBC Home Service broadcast 26 March 1950, which included testimonies from FIDS staff such as David Mason and Anthony Butson who commented on the importance of various items of protective clothing such as goggles and gloves. B. Beves, Work of the FIDS, Crown Colonist 18 (1948), pp. 61315. For further details on the role of air photography, see K. Dodds, To photograph the Antarctic, British polar exploration and the FIDASE, Ecumene 3 (1996), pp. 6389. AD8/1/34 (1). In a meeting on 11 June 1952 between FIDS staff and the DOS, Grade A reliability diagrams were dened as representations of landscapes which had been travelled over, drawn and photographed from at least two stations. In contrast, Grade B diagrams were those compiled from similiar sources but with local errors remaining, and Grade C diagrams were mapped from uncontrolled photographs only. BAS AD6/2M/1952/L, South Georgia Survey 19512, expedition reports, prepared by Duncan Carse. When sent to the Foreign Ofce, the le was annotated by an unanmed ofcial who wrote in the margins that Carse was warned about the weather. BAS AD6/2M/1955/L, South Georgia Survey 19556, expedition reports, prepared by Duncan Carse. BAS AD6/2M/2952/l, The South Georgia Survey 19512, expedition reports, prepared by E. W. K. Walton. Previously, Walton had served with FIDS and had been Secretary for the joint 1951-2 Norwegian, British and Swedish expedition. On the importance of sketching and the link to the growing corpus of British geographical knowledge, see L. Martins, Navigating in tropical waters, British maritime views of Rio de Janeiro, Imago Mundi 50 (1998), pp. 14155, and more generally the essays in D. Cosgrove, ed., Mappings (London, Reaktion Books, 1999). BAS AD6/2M/1955/L, The South Georgia Survey 19556, expedition reports, prepared by Duncan Carse for the Foreign Ofce. A point reiterated by the polar authority Frank Debenham in his popular account,
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Antarctica (London, Herbert Jenkins, 1959), p. 9. BAS AD6/2M/1955/L, The South Georgia Survey 19551956, expedition reports, prepared by Duncan Carse. Cited in SPRI (*7), pp. (80), Final Report by Duncan Carse of the South Georgia Survey, 19517. BAS AD3/1/A5/155/A (1), Colonial Ofce internal document 25 February 1949, which noted that FIDS surveyors should be employed for another 36 months on their return from Antarctica in order to ensure that FIDS did not fail to convert their eld notes and drawings into sheet maps. For general details on Carses expedition, see R. Headland, The island of South Georgia (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1984), and D. Carse, The Survey of South Georgia 19511957, Geographical Journal 125 (1959), pp. 2037. While Carses expedition was separate from the FIDS work, which tended to concentrate on the Antarctic peninsula, the pressures facing surveyors from both organizations was similiar in the eld and in the ofce. SPRI (*7), pp. (80) 16, Letter from Duncan Carse to Colin Betram, dated 17 March 1954. BAS AD6/15/12, BBC Home Service broadcast 26 March 1950, Antarctic venture, the story of the FIDS. This was a recurrent theme in the published papers on the FIDS and their expeditions. See E. Bingham, Recent British activity in the Antarctic, United Empire 39 (1948), pp. 315, J. Wordie, The FIDS 19431946, Polar Record 32 (1946), pp. 37284 and V. Fuchs, The FIDS 19481950, Journal of the Royal Society of Arts 4866 (1952), pp. 193211. See Mason, The FIDS. V. Fuchs, Two years in the Antarctic, The Listener , 8 June 1950. See S. Payne, The Ice: a journey to Antarctica (Seattle, University of Washington Press, 1998). BAS AD2/1/34/(1), comments made by the Director of Colonial Surveys to the FIDS Scientic Committee on 11 June 1952. AD3/1/A5/155/A (1), letter from the Colonial Ofce to the Treasury, dated 15 September 1952. Ad3/1/A5/183/1 (1), letter from Frank Elliot to Colonel Wiggins of the DOS, dated 14 February 1957. BAS AD3/1/A5/155/A (1), Colonial Ofce internal document dated 25 February 1949. Interview with Sir Vivian Fuchs, the rst head of the FIDS Scientic Bureau and Trans-Antarctic Expedition leader, on 1 July 1998 at Cambridge. R. Adie, Twenty ve years of Antarctic exploration, University of Birmingham Gazette 20 (1968), pp. 1279. Ibid., p. 127. BAS AD3/1/A5/164/B/(3), memorandum of the 20th meeting of the FIDS Scientic Bureau on 10 February 1954. SPRI MS 1277/4, Brian Roberts in a memorandum on Notes for FIDS Surveyors, 3 May 1956. SPRI A 1521/4, notes on a technical discussion on survey held at the DOS 3 May 1956, which saw Roberts explaining the purpose of the Antarctic Place-Names Committee to the DOS and representatives of FIDS. SPRI (*7), pp. (80) 16, note by Duncan Carse to Colin Bertram of SPRI on the South Georgia Survey 19561957, dated 30 December 1957.
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BAS AD6/2M/1955/L. SPRI MS 1277/4, letter from B. Roberts to W. Wiggins, 8 August 1956. See F. Klotz, America on the ice (Washington, DC, National Defense University Press, 1990), and C. Joyner and E. Theis, Eagle over the ice: the US in the Antarctic (Hanover, NH, University Press of New England, 1997). A point made by K. Bertrand, Americans in Antarctica 17751948 (New York, American Geographic Society, 1948). Richard Byrds expeditions to the Antarctic combined astute organization with technological and nancial backing from the American governments of the 1920s and 1930s. Byrds accounts of life in and around his base, Little America convey how he imagined a new way of life on the ice. See R. Byrd, Little America (New York, G. P. Putnam & Sons, 1930). See J Rymill, Southern Lights (London, Chatto & Windus, 1938) on the 19347 British Grahamland Expedition. See F. Ronne, Antarctic conquests (New York, G. P. Putnam, 1949). I. Bowman, Foreword, in F. Ronne, Antarctic conquests (New York, G. P. Putnam, 1949), p. x. Ronne, Antarctic conquests , pp. 5861. Ibid., p. 34. Ibid., p. 36. B. Beves, Work of the FIDS, Crown Colonist 18 (1948), pp. 61315. BAS AD3/1/A5/183/1/A Part 1. Further disagreements over the Ronne expedition were to emerge in a letter from Finne Ronne to Brian Roberts dated 13 April 1950 when Ronne reminded Roberts that there was no agreement for the Americans to hand over air photos of the Antarctic because the British had not provided ground control data for those areas concerned. Comments contained within a memorandum prepared for the Under-Secretary of External Affairs in Ottawa by staff attached to the Department of External Affairs dated 19 November 1948. RG 25 4765 50070-40 part 2. AD6/14/APC/48/12. These fears were expressed by Roberts at the meeting of the Antarctic Place-Names Committee in August 1948 after the American proposal had been announced by the Department of State in June 1948. CO 1024/230 Minutes and Agenda of the 30th meeting of the FIDSC, 19 September 1957. Sir Raymond Priestly and Dr Raymond Adie produced a paper on the future of FIDS which acknowledged that the Treasury would demand further economies and that effort should now be concentrated around the six bases in the FID. In doing so, they were effectively admiting that there was neither the time nor the money for a complete survey of the FID. A copy of Robertss position paper, Future UK policy in the Antarctic, is to be found in RG254765 50070-40 part 3, which is attached to a letter from Robin Ross Ofce of the High Commissioner of Canada in London to the Department of External Affairs in Ottawa, dated 19 August 1954. This was evident in the instructions by the DOS issued to the FIDASE (1955-1957) in October 1955, when they instructed the leader of the expedition, Peter Mott to concentrate on particular parts of the Antarctic peninsula rather than trying to carry out aerial photography over the entire FID region. See CO 1024/116, Peter Motts brieng instructions to the FIDASE, 7 October 1955. This appeal for Commonwealth solidarity is documented further in K. Dodds, The end of a polar empire? The Falkland Islands Dependencies and Commonwealth reactions to British polar policy 19451962, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History
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24 (1996), pp. 391421. A summary of this document is contained in a letter from Robin Ross, Canadian High Commissioner in London to Edward Cote of the Department of External Affairs in Ottawa, dated 19 August 1954. RG25 4765 50070-40 Part 3. Internal memorandum prepared by the American Division of the Department of External Affairs, dated 4 September 1954. RG25 4765 50070-40 part 3. A point acknowledged by the British prime minister Harold Macmillan in Parliament on 14 May 1957. See Hansard, 14 May 1957, cols 21315. BAS AD3/1/A5/155/A(1) Part 1, memorandum to the FIDS Scientic Committeee prepared by Brian Roberts in February 1954. Funding for FIDS was going to be increased from 250 000 in 19589 to 500 000 in 195960, according to gures released to the Daily Telegraph on 10 December 1958. This increase in expenditure was due to Britains committment to the IGY Antarctic programme. Recorded in a telegram from the Canadian High Commissioner in London to the Department of External Affairs dated 23 July 1957. RG 25 4765 50070-40 part 4. A similiar point is made by P. Fara, Northern possession, laying claim to the Aurora Borealis, History Workshop Journal 42 (1996), pp. 3757. As noted in a summary point made by the Canadian Department of External Affairs dated 7 March 1958. RG25 4765 50070-40 part 5. As recorded at a meeting at the Commonwealth Relations Ofce in London, 12 March 1956. A 1838/283 1495/1/9/1 part 4. FO 371 97367 Memorandum prepared by Brian Roberts of the FO to other interested government departments, 22 December 1952, is indicative of this gloomy assessment by British ofcials. Roberts notes that the Argentines are about to create an Antarctic air force, and that their planes and ships had in the 19512 season charted 21 harbours, surveyed and mapped 500 miles of Antarctic coastline and created an airmail service for their bases. He also noted that the Americans were proposing to launch several new US Navy-led operations to the Antarctic (Operation Deep Freeze I and II) which would dwarf British endeavours in the region. See Joyner and Theis, Eagle over the ice, pp. 2933. Macmillan, 14 May 1957, Hansard. See G. Fogg, A history of Antarctic science (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1992) for further details on the motivation for the IGY. American and Soviet scientists raced to discover how and with what consequences new technologies such as satellites and nuclear technology could be used to explore the upper atmosphere and outer space. Given the tensions of the Cold War, conicting military and political concerns prevented the large-scale and collaborative geophysical study of the North Pole. See W. Sullivan, Quest for a continent (New York, Secker & Warburg, 1957). Royal Society CMB 106a, concluding remarks by Sir David Brunt at the British National Committee for the IGY meeting, 8 May 1958. This is appparent in the recorded minutes of the British National Committee on Antarctic Research dated 27 January 1959. RS Box 23 A. See D. Brunt, The Halley Bay expedition and the IGY, in The Royal Society IGY Antarctic Expedition Halley Bay, Coats Land, Falkland Islands Dependencies 19551959 (London, Royal Society, 1960), pp. 17. Ibid., p. 2. Ibid., p. 3. See e.g. S. Kirsch and D. Mitchell, Earth moving as the measure of man, Edward
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Teller, geographical engineering and the matter of progress, Social Text 54 (1998), pp. 10034, and the special issue on Nuclear engineering and geography, Ecumene 5 (1998), pp. 263322. See Payne, The Ice . As recorded ibid., p. 101. During the 1960s NASA experimented with lunar vehiches in the Dry Valleys region of the Antarctic continent. These iceless landscapes were considered physical analogues for the moon. As reported within the Australian Delegations Ofcal Summary of the Washington Conference, 11 January 1960. A 1838/283/1495/3/2/9 part 3. See Fogg, A history of Antarctic science. See L. Kirwin, The white road (London, Hollis & Carter, 1959), and H. King, The Antarctic (London, Blandford Press, 1969). See B. Stonehouse, Antarctic adventure, John Bull 88 (1950), pp. 79. I owe thanks to Professor David Sugden of the University of Edinburgh for providing me with this priceless story.
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Dodds Putting Maps in Their Place Faulkland

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Cultural Geographies

Putting maps in their place

British bases in the Falkland Islands Dependencies

Figure 1 ~ Bases of the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey

Putting maps in their place

FIDS and British representations of Argentina

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Putting maps in their place

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Putting maps in their place

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In the eld with FIDS: linking eldwork to mapping

Putting maps in their place

Figure 5 ~ Field sketch from the South Georgia Survey, 19517

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Putting maps in their place

Figure 8 ~ Surveys in the Falkland Islands Dependencies

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Putting maps in their place

The limits of power: FIDS and Anglo-American geopolitical interests in Antarctica

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Putting maps in their place

Putting maps in their place

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Putting maps in their place

Putting maps in their place

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