A year ago, Matt gave a fascinating account to the Siena
Society of his adventures climbing Mount Everest. On Thursday February 14th,
the renowned explorer and author returned to present a riveting lecture about
an exhibition he organised to Antartica in which he and 8 others planned to
trace his own father’s footsteps from half a century earlier. We learnt that
Dickinson Senior had been posted out to Antarctica as a naïve 19 year old to
set up one of the first stations in this most inhospitable part of the world.
Matt planned to sail from the southern-most tip of South America, around Cape
Horn to Antarctica with the particular aim of climbing the highest mountain
down there; a feat his father never sadly accomplished.
Matt punctuated his lecture with video clips and some of the
images we saw of the voyage across the Southern Ocean in their 60 foot yacht,
Pelagia, were truly terrifying! Not being a sailor himself, Matt found this
aspect of the journey especially exhilarating and demanding. As the expedition
neared Antartica they came across widespread evidence of the old whaling
industry. The black and white footage we were shown illustrated very vividly
what a brutal and efficient industry this was, out of the sight and mind of
most humanity. It was good to hear that whale stocks in the region have since
recovered from near extinction but it was a startling reminder of how close to
annihilation these remarkable creatures were. One particularly striking video
shot, was of one of the crew-members standing on deck playing his clarinet to
the whales in sub-zero temperatures! The whales were clearly very appreciative!
What must have been a particularly poignant moment for Matt
was when they came across his father’s camp, abandoned 50 years earlier; tins
and debris lying undisturbed for all that time. With abandoned toxic material
threatening the local wildlife, especially the penguins, Matt was fortunate to
be able to call on the goodwill of the Royal Navy to come and clean up the
mess!
As always with Matt, he passed on much good advice to the
girls; this time he recommended that any girl interested in a career in
journalism, should find something meaningful to campaign for and then write
articles in support.
And yes they did manage to climb the highest mountain in
Antarctica and sail safely back!