Gino Watkins
Henry George "Gino" Watkins (born January 20, 1907 in London , † August 20, 1932 in Tugtilik Fjord , East Greenland ) was a British polar explorer . He became well known at a young age as the leader of the British Arctic Air Route Expedition , the most important polar expedition in the interwar period . He died in a hunting accident in Greenland at the age of only 25.
Life
Early years
Gino Watkins was born in 1907 to a wealthy family in London. His father Henry George took part in the First World War as a colonel , his mother Jennie had Irish roots.
On several holidays in the Alps , Watkins became passionate about mountaineering and skiing at the age of 16. In the winter semester of 1925/26 he began studying geography at Trinity College in Cambridge . There he attended lectures by the polar explorer Raymond Priestley .
First expedition to Spitzbergen (1927)
About Priestley Watkins met James Wordie , a member of Shackleton's crew of the Endurance Expedition (1914-1917), who invited him to take part in an expedition to East Greenland planned for the summer of 1927. When the expedition was canceled a few months before the start, Watkins decided to set up his own expedition to the Arctic. With the support of the Royal Geographical Society (RGS), he put together a team of seven scientists with whom he set sail on July 23, 1927 on board the Norwegian whaler Heimen in Tromsø . On July 30th they reached their destination, Edgeøya in the southeast of Svalbard . Despite bad weather conditions, the group explored the island extensively in the following four weeks. Watkins published the results under the title The Cambridge Expedition to Edge Island in the journal of the RGS. The expedition was such a success that the RGS immediately appointed him a Fellow , ignoring his own minimum age requirements.
Expedition to the Labrador Peninsula (1928-29)
In the following summer, Watkins set out on the next Arctic expedition. Together with two companions, his future biographer James Maurice Scott and Lionel Leslie, he was to explore the Labrador Peninsula in the area of the Churchill River and determine the border between the then still independent Dominion Newfoundland and Canada .
In late July, the group arrived with supplies for a year in the North West River settlement on Lake Melville , which was to be their headquarters. However, the further progress of the expedition was delayed when its guide seriously injured himself with an ax. The expedition goal of determining the Canadian border had to be given up. The men reached the lower reaches of the Churchill River by canoe across the Kenamu River and the Traverspine River. At the onset of winter, the group returned to North West River, where Leslie, as previously planned, left the expedition and made the return trip to England.
Then Watkins and Scott set out on dog sleds towards Hopedale north of the Churchill River. They managed to cross Goose Bay south of Lake Melville over a dangerously thin ice sheet . But when they got lost and their supplies ran out, both of them were just able to save themselves in a shelter built by Inuit . They reached Hopedale at Christmas and returned to North West River on January 26, 1929.
On the next - third - scouting voyage , Watkins and Scott advanced to Lake Ossokmanuan before returning to North West River on April 1st. With fresh dogs and replenished supplies, both then set off on the journey to Bonne-Espérance , 800 km away , where they finally boarded a ship to England.
The British Arctic Air Route Expedition (1930–31)
Soon after his return, Watkins was entrusted by the Royal Geographical Society with the conduct of another expedition to the Arctic. The aim of the enterprise, later known as the British Arctic Air Route Expedition (BAARE), was to investigate the possibility of a flight route from Great Britain to the west coast of the USA via Iceland , Greenland, Baffin Island , Hudson Bay and Edmonton .
On July 6, 1930, the group of 14 men, average age 25, including John Rymill and Bill Wager , set sail aboard Shackleton's Quest . They reached Ammassalik on July 24th and spent the next two weeks building the base, some 40 miles west of the settlement. The equipment also included two de Havilland DH.60 Moth double-deckers, with which numerous reconnaissance flights could be carried out during the duration of the expedition. In the next step, a meteorological station was built on the Greenland ice cap ( Ice Cap Station ), which was completed on September 8, about 225 km from the coast. Two men remained at the station as the first crew to record data such as wind speed and maximum and minimum temperatures over the following weeks. On October 26, a group of three with fresh supplies left the base station to relieve the crew of the Ice Cap Station. However, as the weather had deteriorated dramatically, the group made slow progress in persistent snowstorms and did not reach the station until December 3rd. Some of the supplies had to be left behind on the way, and all participants had suffered mild frostbite and frostbite . It was therefore decided to let only one man - Augustine Courtauld (1904-1959) - spend the winter alone in the station, while the remaining men returned to the base.
The following March, a first group left for Ice Cap Station to relieve Courtauld. However, she had to return without having achieved anything, as she had been able to discover no trace of the station. Another group, led by Watkins, then set out and reached the point where the station had been in early May. After some searching, the men discovered the tips of a ventilation pipe and scientific instruments protruding a few inches from the snow. The station was quickly excavated and Courtauld, who had lingered in the buried station for months, was rescued largely unscathed.
In the period that followed, the expedition made several trips to the area before finally returning to Great Britain in the autumn. Due to the extensive data collected and the maps that could be created over the hitherto largely unknown area, the BAARE is considered the most important British polar expedition since 1918. In 1932, the Royal Geographical Society awarded Gino Watkins its Founders's Medal .
Pan Am Expedition and Death (1932-33)
Encouraged by the success of BAARE, Watkins soon started planning another expedition. However, he had to abandon the idea of circumnavigating the world along the Arctic Circle due to the poor economic situation during the Great Depression . A crossing of the Weddell Sea , based on Shackleton's famous endurance expedition , could not be carried out due to a lack of sponsorship funds. Finally, the American airline Pan Am suggested that he finance another expedition to Greenland, during which the results of the BAARE should be deepened and expanded.
On August 1, 1932, the group returned to Ammassalik . After a short time, the base was set up on the Tugtilik Fjord , on the northern bank of which there was a lake that could be important for air traffic. While the rest of the group members began their scientific work, it was Watkins task to provide the group with food by hunting seals. However, this turned out to be dangerous, as large pieces of a glacier repeatedly broke off into the fjord and caused high waves there. On August 14th, Watkins capsized his kayak and was only able to save himself with difficulty. A few days later, the other members of the expedition discovered Watkins capsized kayak floating on the fjord. Watkin's body was never found. John Rymill now took over the leadership of the expedition and brought it to a successful conclusion.
Watkins Island , one of the Biscoe Islands off the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula , was named after Watkins , as was the Watkins Mountains on Greenland.
Literature and web links
- James Maurice Scott: Gino Watkins. Hodder & Stoughton, London 1935.
- John Ridgway: Gino Watkins. Oxford University Press, London 1974. ISBN 978-0-19-273136-4
- William James Mills: Exploring Polar Frontiers: A Historical Encyclopedia . tape 2 . ABC-CLIO, 2003, ISBN 1-57607-422-6 , pp. 681–684 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
- Duncan J. Smith: Watkins, Explorer, England. (PDF; 245 kB) Accessed September 15, 2015 (English).
Individual evidence
- ↑ List of Gold Medal Winners from the Royal Geographic Society , accessed June 17, 2018.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Watkins, Gino |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Watkins, Henry George |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British polar explorer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 20, 1907 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | London |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 20, 1932 |
| Place of death | Tugtilik Fjord , East Greenland |