Conserving Antarctic artefacts

Conor Tullock is an object conservator with the Antarctic Heritage Trust. His job involves curating and restoring artefacts left behind by early Antarctic explorers like Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton.

Questions for discussion 

• Why do you think the Antarctic Heritage Trust keeps all the artefacts in the old huts, exposed to the extremes of the Antarctic environment, instead of placing them in a climate-controlled museum? 

• Why conserve the old items when we have digital ways of preserving them? 

• What types of stories might these old objects tell us? 

Transcript

Conor Tullock

I’m an artefacts conservator or an objects conservator, which is a pretty broad, you know, kind of jack of all trades approach, which is useful when you get a variety of objects.

Already this morning I’ve photographed all these as a record that will go onto the database there, and so we can kind of keep a log of what’s happened to it. You’ll see actually on all of these objects there’s little numbers attached one place or another. Not only do we have a record of the condition but we also have the exact location of the hut that they were found or that has been decided that they will live there.

So everything here we will be able to put back on the, you know, the exact right book with the exact right shelf or under the right bunk. So we have architectural plans of every view of the hut basically. And if you go through the huts, you can pick up a thimble on the shelf and it’ll have a number on it.

So this is a very, very common problem. It’s not just iron, you know, there are paper artefacts, there are items of clothing.

Dianne Christenson

And leather here.

Conor Tullock

Lots of leather. And this is a part of a dog harness here. I’m pretty sure it’s like this. So this goes around the body behind the legs, this goes around the front of the chest, and then this goes under the, under the neck.

So I’ll just clean them up a bit, prepare them for another 10 or 20 years of sitting in a frozen hut.

So you can see you kind of do that, you take it away, and then I will use this solution of tannic acid, which converts whatever corrosion is left to a more stable form of iron. And then once that’s done, I will get this – this is an acrylic glue in the solvent – and coat this with that and just give it another protective layer. If you do leave these things kind of without it, they rust very quickly.

Sometimes you need extra specialism. For things like this, we will ideally get a textile conservator.

And in the past, there’s been paper specialists, and paper’s one of those materials that can be very complicated. So there’s people who’ve really dedicated their careers to those specific questions. How do you wash the stains away without removing the inks? And, you know, what solvents work and what concentrations of detergent can you withstand? And how much will this paper swell if you wet it? And, you know, will it go back the way it was when it dries or will it just crumble?

So this was in the stables at Cape Evans and it’s – I think it’s like a waterproof or a windproof. Is that a hood? Is that a sleeve?

Carol Brieseman

And I guess, like the patch, would be fabric from somebody else’s.

Conor Tullock

Exactly, it’s that kind of thing.

Dianne Christenson

Great sewing skills.

Conor Tullock

Oh, they were real handy, those guys at the sewing machine and, you know, repairing sleeping bags and making shoes and putting new soles on, like they were almost to a man, kind of quite, quite handy, handy people.

Some of these random bits of leather or, you know, a tin can, and individually, they are not the most exciting objects. But then when you put them in the context of the story, it starts meaning something completely different. And then all these little things like patch repairs or like at Cape Evans in particular, you start seeing, you start seeing objects that are kind of very homemade looking.

And then when you hear the story of the Ross Sea Party who were laying depots in Ross Island for the group of Shackleton’s men from the Endurance that were supposed to be traversing across Antarctica. And they had lost their ship. Their ship had been blown out to sea with all their supplies. So they were having to look after themselves by improvising a lot of their materials that they didn’t have. So they were relying on things that had been left by Scott’s previous expedition. And so you start getting this kind of amalgamation of Scott’s expedition, Shackleton’s expeditions and just the necessity of this Ross Sea Party as well.

Acknowledgements

Conor Tulloch, Antarctic Heritage Trust
Carol Brieseman
Dianne Christenson

Floor layout plan, blubber stove area and Ross Sea Party clothing hanging inside, all at Scott’s Discovery hut, Hut Point; dog chain and milk of magnesia label, before and after conservation, both from Cape Evans; Levick’s notebook after restoration; C & E Morton baking powder tins; Huntley and Palmer fruitcake found among artefacts from Cape Adare; Ross Sea Party negative of Alexander Stevens, Chief Scientist and Geologist on board the Aurora by hut. All courtesy of Antarctic Heritage Trust
Black and white photo, Douglas Mawson and two others with dog sled team, Australasian Antarctic Expedition (1911–1914). Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales
Ramornie luncheon beef tin from Hut Point before and after conservation treatment; Programme Manager, Artefact Conservation Lizzie Meek conserving the cuttings at end of Bower’s bunk in Scott’s Terra Nova hut. Photos by Jana Stefan, courtesy of Antarctic Heritage Trust
Taxidermy emperor penguin and Illustrated London News on the chart table in Scott’s Terra Nova hut
Levick’s notebook (AHT10396.1) from Scott’s Terra Nova hut, inscription page. Photos by Lizzie Meek, courtesy of Antarctic Heritage Trust
Ernest Joyce and Frank Wild making/repairing equipment in Shackleton’s hut at Cape Royds. British Antarctic Expedition 1907–1909. Kinsey, Joseph James (Sir), 1852–1936: Photographs relating to Antarctica and mountaineering. Ref: PA1-q-216-059. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand
Petty officers Edgar Evans and Tom Crean mending sleeping bags. 16 May 1911, from Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s Terra Nova expedition. Photo by Herbert Ponting
Ross Sea Party survivors on board the Aurora, 1917; dog team resting in harness, c1915; Mt Hope sledging party, 1916; L-R: Hayward, Joyce, Wild and Richards. E E M Joyce Collection, Canterbury Museum
Historic still of men and dogs from the Ross Sea Party, with supply sleds. Public domain
Improvised boot from the Ross Sea Party, Scott’s Terra Nova hut. Photo by Bryce Lewis, courtesy of Antarctic Heritage Trust
Footage of Conor Tulloch, courtesy of Dianne Christenson and Carol Brieseman
Dianne Christenson and Carol Brieseman visited Antarctica with support from the Antarctica New Zealand Community Engagement Programme