2022-2023 Summer Season Complete

1 May 2023

The Trust’s On-Ice Conservation team spent seven weeks in Antarctica undertaking a comprehensive monitoring and maintenance programme on the historic Ross Island explorer bases of Captain Robert Falcon Scott, Sir Ernest Shackleton, and Sir Edmund Hillary.

 The team, led by Lizzie Meek, the Trust’s Collections Conservation Manager, included Lead Conservator Jane Hamill, Conservator Megan Absolon, Lead Heritage Carpenter Zack Bennett, and Conservation Support Lachie Cromar.

“With a short season and an intensive work programme, we were fortunate to have skilled and experienced team members Zack, Jane and Meg, and the energy of our first time Antarctican Lachie,” says Lizzie.

In addition to the annual monitoring and maintenance programme for each historic site, artefacts that had undergone stabilisation treatments by the Trust’s On- Ice Conservators during Winter 2022 were returned to the sites: 574 artefacts were returned to Shackleton’s Nimrod hut and 399 returned to Scott’s Terra Nova hut, including pony snowshoes and tack from the stables, and an expedition medical kit.