Catalyst – The Antarctic Peninsula

Clip 2: An amazing rescue

2 min 5 sec

Taken from the TV program Catalyst – The Antarctic Peninsula (2006)

Original title classification PG – this clip chosen to be PG

A video which normally appears on this page did not load because the Flash plug-in was not found on your computer. You can download and install the free Flash plug-in then view the video. Or you can view the same video as a downloadable MP4 file without installing the Flash plug-in.

Availability of the complete title

Curator’s clip description

Captain Larsen’s rescue boat, The Antarctic, sank in the ice off Antarctica in 1902. His crew of 21 built a hut to live in until they were themselves rescued a year later. They were forced to eat penguins to stay alive and made their way through a diet of 3,000 of them until picked up by the Argentine navy in 1903.

Curator’s notes

The amazing thing about Antarctica is that it retains all the evidence of earlier explorers; the huts, the empty tins, the sense of human habitation. It’s frozen evidence. And Dr Paul Willis tells a great yarn of high adventure and near disaster, all in the name of science. The story is very effectively brought to life by the combination of archival photos and stock footage, and actuality footage of Willis on the actual location, personalising the material in a warm and accessible manner.

Janet Bell, curator

australian screen