MERTZ AND NINNIS

PROUD OF HIS EFFORTS, Royal Fusiliers Lieutenant Belgrave Edward Sutton Ninnis grabbed a nail and hammer and made his personal mark on newly cut timber–nail point by nail point. Recently landed in January 1912 on an unexplored coastline, Ninnis and 17 companions from the Australasian Antarctic Expedition (AAE) had been hard at work erecting a prefabricated hut nearly 2700km south of Hobart, on Cape Denison–a tiny, recently named peninsula on the frigid shores of Commonwealth Bay.

Fearsome winter blizzards would shortly descend on them, and the small party was wasting no time getting organised for their expected year-long stay. After two weeks of strenuous effort, the hut neared completion and a soon-to-be enclosed skylight frame offered Ninnis the perfect opportunity for some illicit graffiti. It was an irresistible ‘I was here’ moment for the spirited 24-year-old English subaltern–a personal time capsule that would not be uncovered until 1998 when the Mawson’s Huts Foundation conducted the