Ōtamahua/Quail Island #3: The Antarctic expeditions

Unloading horses onto the stock jetty, 1910. Leslie Hinge photograph, Canterbury Museum

The stock Jetty achieved some fame in the early years of the twentieth century when four successive expeditions to the South Pole in Antarctica based their operations in Christchurch and Lyttelton and used Ōtamahua/Quail Island for quarantine and training purposes. 

In 1901 Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s British Antarctic Expedition used Lyttelton as its base. Scott’s 23 Siberian huskies were quarantined on Quail Island prior to departure south on the expedition ship Discovery. The dogs had travelled from Siberia to London, London to Melbourne and then on to Lyttelton via Port Chalmers. How happy they must have been to be let loose on Quail Island for training and to get fit again after their long confinement! Sadly the Antarctic conditions, lack of suitable food and the heavy workload proved too much for the dogs on the ice. All died either through exhaustion or because they were fed to the rest of the dog team. 

When Lieutenant Ernest Shackelton mounted an expedition to the South Pole in 1907-1909 Quail Island became a temporary home for 15 untamed Manchurian ponies. They were transported from Shackelton’s ship Nimrod to the island by lighter, to be 'broken in' and trained for work in the Antarctic. Nine dogs were also brought up from Rakiura/Stewart Island. 

On 31 December, two weeks after landing on Quail Island, ten ‘lucky’ ponies were loaded at the stock jetty onto lighters and carried in very rough seas to the Nimrod in Lyttelton in preparation for departure to the ice. An unprecedented 50,000-strong crowd covered every available vantage point in the harbour to farewell the Nimrod. Remarkable archived film footage of the departure can be viewed here. No ponies survived to return.  

On the beach at Quail Island preparing for the British Antarctic Expedition 1907-1909 .  Alexander Turnbull Library

 Nimrod leaving Lyttelton to collect members of the British Antarctic Expedition 1907-1909.
Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, 

Captain Scott returned to Lyttelton again in 1910 with the ship Terra Nova. Six weeks in advance of his arrival, on the 15 September, 19 Siberian ponies and 31 Siberian huskies plus two ‘Eskimo dogs’ were landed at Lyttelton having spent around 50 days at sea enroute from Manchuria. The ponies and dogs were loaded onto a lighter which was towed by the launch Canterbury to the stock wharf at Quail Island. The ponies were then hoisted in individual boxes, by hand crane, onto the wharf. The ponies were “very weak in the knees” after their long sea voyage and the dogs as “gloomy”.[1] Six weeks later when the same Lyttelton Times reporter visited the island, he found them much recovered and in fine form. Siberian trainer, Demitri Gerof, was responsible for the dogs.

A small sledge, running partly on two wheels, has been made for exercising the dogs. Five dogs comprise a team for this little vehicle, the animals being harnessed in pairs with the indispensible leader making up the odd number. Armed with a heavy pole, shod with iron and a stout spike at one end [used principally as a brake], Demetri [sic] seats himself on the sledge and immediately he gives an order in some unintelligible monosyllable the dogs dash off at full speed.[2]

The dogs were often exercised in this way on the road running up from the jetty but at low tide dogs and ponies could be exercised on the stretch of sandy beach below. At the end of October Captain Scott inspected the animals and declared himself “exceedingly pleased with both the horses and the dogs.”[3]

Taken from the supplement to the Auckland Weekly News, 22 September 1910.
Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries

Transhipping ponies. James McDonald photographer, 1907-14. Museum of Te Papa Tongarewa

Robert Falcon Scott (2nd from left) and his wife Kathleen Bruce Scott alongside Mongolian ponies on Quail Island in 1910, prior to the British Antarctic Expedition of 1910-1913.
Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/

Dogs in training on Quail Island 1911. The Stock Jetty visible in the centre distance.
 Lyttelton Museum

Dimitri Grove with dogs on Quail Island 1910. Canterbury Museum

Transhipping ponies and 'Eskimo Dogs', James McDonald photographer, Te Papa Tongarewa

Dogs on board the Terra Nova 1910. Canterbury Museum

Lawrence Oates with ponies on board Terra Nova. Herbert Ponting photographer, Antarctica New Zealand Pictorial Collection

Tough little mules provided by the Indian Army were also housed on Quail Island and used on Terra Nova’s second trip to the Antarctic in December 1911. Having been instrumental in the search and recovery of the bodies of Scott, Wilson and Evans, they were taken back to Scott Base and shot. The last dogs to be interned on Quail Island were 15 Yukon huskies intended for Commander Byrd’s US Antarctic Expedition 1928-30. 

I must say that the part the Stock Jetty played in the 'heroic' age of Antarctic exploration makes it all the sadder that this structure was allowed to deteriorate to the point where it was finally dismantled in 2018. It's retention would have been a fine addition to the heritage sites already maintained on the island. Jetties have many tales to tell.

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[1] Lyttelton Times, 16 September 1910

[2] Ibid, 26 October 1910

[3] Ibid, 1 November 1910