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Antarctica is the coldest, driest, windiest, southernmost, and least-populated of Earth's continents; a polar desert mostly covered by ice. Even before it was discovered, a continent called Terra Australis was placed on several maps, based on the theory that the continents of the northern hemisphere must be balanced out by a landmass in the southern hemisphere. This appeared as early as the fifth century.

British explorer James Cook (1728–1779) was commissioned by the Royal Society to lead an expedition in search of this hypothetical land. Cook headed south into the summer sea ice, icebergs and fog until he reached latitude 71°10′ South on 30 January 1774, when they could go no further.

After his voyage, Cook wrote in his journal:

I firmly believe there is a tract of land near the Pole which is the source of most of the ice which is spread over this vast Southern Ocean.¹

Russian explorers Fabian Gottlieb Benjamin von Bellingshausen and Mikhail Lazarev proved him right in 1820: they first sighted the land of Antarctica, and circumnavigated the continent twice.²

The sheer isolation of the region, as well as its inhospitable climate and treacherous seas, meant that the first confirmed landing was achieved only in 1895 by a Norwegian team; the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration had begun.

Nansen’s novel approach << Terra Australis >> Edward Wilson (1872–1912)

1. J. Cook, A Voyage Towards the South Pole, and Round the World (London: W. Strahan and T. Cadell, 1777), 268.
2. F. Debenham, The Voyage of Captain Bellingshausen to the Antarctic Seas 1819–1821, Translated from the Russian (London: Hakluyt Society, 1945).