JOURNEY TO THE SNARES

New Zealand Listener, Volume 18, Issue 447, 16 January 1948, Page 16

JOURNEY TO THE SNARES

SHORT time ag0

Dr.

Robert Cushman

Murphy

chairman of the. Depart-

"tent of Birds in the American Museum of Natural History, New York, paid a visit to The Snares, a small group of islets between Stewart. and Auckland Islands, to study (among other things) sea-birds and seals. With him went several New Zealanders-and his wife, Mrs. Grace Barstow Murphy, a veteran of many scientific expeditions. On her return Mrs. Murphy gave a talk about her experiences from 3ZB. From it we take the excerpts printed below.

Nall pioneering countries women have taken hardships along with their men. When the Pilgrim Fathers came. to New ‘England’s harsh shores in 1620, the Pilgrim Mothers not only shared the hardships, but they looked after the Pilgrim Fathers too. Later, in our pioneering era when a whole continent -was being opened up, women travelled and bore babies in covered Wagons on. our great plains and themselves fought off the Indians who were as ferocious fighting against the whites as were your Maoris. Our western towns to-day have many a monument to our pioneer women. Their hardships were part of their lives; there were no comforts to come back to when men and -women, together, were wresting their very existence out of the wilderness. _ The thought of them makes my trip to the Snares the merest gesture. It was definitely uncomfortable, but it was for only a little over a fortnight and now again I live in modern comfort. The Maoris always took" their women on their mutton-bird hunts. Should modern women be too soft to go? Yet even on such a little trip,;?there must be purpose back of it. You can’t go superficially just. to see what it is like. You go either, as the men go, to further a definite piece of work or you go. to further your understanding and appreciation of that work, or you go with a job to do. You leave the demands of your femininity at home. You do not interfere with’ the drive of the men’s work by expecting special attention. You take the cash and let the credit go. You have to care more for the expression on your face than for the makeup you won't have time to bother with as at home. ‘ Women in the Wilds In these days women go on the wildest sorts of trips, with or without their men. I belong to an organisation called the Society of ‘Women. Geographers. There is literally only one corner of the world our members have not been in and that.one corner is the Antarctic. We'll get there soon. Word has. just come in of Mrs. Ronne’s going there, the first woman recorded, I believe. Wives of captains in the old sailing days were taken too much for granted to,be recorded. Marie Peary, one of our members, was born in the Arctic when Admiral and Mrs. Robert: E. Peary were up near the North Pole. Marie has been back often, Another member, Louise Boyd, has done valuable work in the Arctic for the American Geographical Society. Women have done research of every kind or aided their husband’s research in every part of the world, And why not? There is no place where men can go that women .cannot go too. It should hardly be news that I went to the Snares except as the expedition is

news. Many men are consumed with longing to go on adventure and. never have their chance. To-day, if either a man or a woman feels that urge and gets a chance to fulfil it, either may go. Mud and Discomfort My Snares trip was really only a personal matter between my husband and me. He had experienced the Antarctic in 1912-13. His life work has been based on it. I had read millions of words of the proofs of his books aloud to him. So I wanted to see it. And now I have, It was just as uncomfortable for him as for me, We’ve got seven grandchildren! We have camped all over our own country and in a lot of others. We have been, apart or together, in many a tight spot. Yet never have either of us been as thoroughly uncomfortable as we were in the mud of the Snares. Only the marvellous ingenuity, efficiency, and constant consideration of our wonderful New Zea‘land. comrades, who were also uncomfortable, united to make endurance possible, plus the fact that the urgency of a purpose to be fulfilled makes anything possible. The pursuit and thrill of natural history kept everybody,: including me, up on his toes every moment. The gales and the majesty of the spectacular scenery takes one out of oneself. The wilderness breaks one in two and it takes a while on returning to get together again. ‘The’ subantarctic is a different world; it would take a different race of men to populate it. All sensitive people who have been there agree on fs _ First Night Ashore © Vancouver discovered the Snares in ‘Nevember, 1791, and \Captain Cook visited them a little later. They are composed of several small rocky islands rising almost straight from the sea, There are no real harbours and only one small cove, called Boat Harbour, It is so narrow that our small vessel, the Alert, had to back into it after the _dinghy had gone ahead to reconnoitre. Our captain had expected to have us sleep on board, but the seas were beginning to roll in and he had to run for it. By dawn, the little cove was a cauldron where no vessel could have lived, So we and our stores were set ashore at 8 p.m. in cold, rain and mud, with no chance of getting the tents up that night. The only shelter was a Castaways’ Depot built about 1873 -just a tiny building damaged by time and weather. ‘Such depots used to be built and equipped on far-off spots like the Snares as all readers of wild sea tales know. They are no longer necessary now that ships carry radio, I do not think this depot (continued on next. page).

(continued from previous page) ever served its purpose, for the only record of castaways was from 1810-17 when three men were put ashore by a ship too short of food to keep them. They ate seal meat, wore seal skins and collected a huge pile of seal skins, which they took with them when they were finally rescued. It was lucky for us 10 +" castaways that the depot was there, for we huddled in it all night. We sat on a tarpaulin and leaned against duffle bags, everybody cramped, with raindrops finding their way round the canvas the men had stretched over the corroded iron roof. I had breught sandwiches off the vessel, someone had cake, and we found our orange juice and chocolate, so were not too hungry. Watching the Penguins At 4.30 in the morning my husband and I managed to get over everybody’s legs and went out to sit on a rock and watch the penguins, an absorbing entertainment of which no one ever tires. There were thousands of them. If you sit still, they come near you and watch you or walk by slowly. If you have chosen a spot where great waves dash up on rocks and cliffs you have the beauty of the sea in combination with the fascination of the penguins, while great sea-creatures, sea-lions, sea-ele-phants and seals slumber or swim at

stone’s throw. The waves dash the hardy penguins upon the rocks. They are sometimes swept back by the undertow to try a_ second time when with their strong feet and bills they at last make a landing while others jump into the waves and you watch them leaping off like little porpoises, in and out, and swiftly covering distance through the sea. There is too much to tell of all the wonders. The men got the tents up and fortunately we had a sunny day for that. Large fern fronds were used for tent floors, but even at that, one put one’s feet into high, waterproof boots on getting out of one’s sleeping bag and kept those boots on every moment till feet were put back into the sleeping bag. We squelched through mud and slipped and fell in mud. The short walk from sleeping tent to mess tent was a scramble through mud no matter how often branches were cut to fill the path. But the mess tent, with its long table and benches and big fire, gave us much comfort of warmth and_ good 6 whe food.