How Spinning Yarn Can Help Sir Douglas Mawson: The Huts at Cape Denison

The Hut belonging to Sir Douglas Mawson's Hut is at Commonwealth Bay at the edge of the Antarctic continent. It’s importance is far beyond the pleasure that it might give the occasional visitor-- It’s the site of the first big expedition to Antarctica, home of Sir Douglas Mawson and his men during the 1911-14 Australasian Antarctic Expedition, and the birthplace to Australia's claim to the Australian Antarctic Territory.

It was because of Sir Douglas Mawson and his heroic team, that Australia claims 42 per cent of the whole of the Antarctic continent. It's a vital part of the world's last great era of adventure and discovery.

This is where Antarctica begins. The 97-year-old wooden hut is embedded, preserved in ice, at Cape Denison. Tonnes of permafrost packed like concrete into the floor, burying the items Sir Douglas Mawson used to survive his epic one-thousand kilometer journey across Antarctica, a trip that killed his two comrades.

Although it was built at the windiest site on earth, Mawson's Hut has survived so far and a new resolution by the 45 Antarctic Treaty nations aims to ensure its preservation.

The Mawson’s Hut site is unique amongst those associated with early exploration on the Antarctic continent, because the majority of the portable artifacts outside the huts are still in essentially the same locations they were in when Mawson left the site in 1914 .

When Marion sets up her wheel and begins spinning yarn, the resulting skein of yarn will be knitted into a replica balaclava and will be auctioned to raise funds to aid the restoration of the historic Mawson’s Huts.