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Mawson's Will: The Greatest Polar Survival Story Ever Written

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This slim volume details the plight of the Antarctic expedition of the Australian explorer Douglas Mawson in 1911. Seemingly few people are aware of this particular foray into the polar south, as the Scott tragedy looms largest in the public consciousness and there is a new vogue for the remarkable exploits of Ernest Shackleton in this same time frame. However, this is a story worth telling.

For those who are not obsessively interested in accounts of polar exploration, this books serves as a good introduction to the genre. It's almost novelistic in its easy yet vivid narrative flow, and unlike more encylopedic works, it avoids getting bogged down in excessive side treks about rival explorers or earlier achievements in the mapping and scouting of the continent.

Even so, it has a glaring weakness in its lack of footnotes or a bibliography. Bickel recounts entire conversations verbatim and even details the thoughts of several individuals, all without documenting the sources for such material. Since some of the quoted individuals died on the journey, one can only assume that the author is drawing from their expedition journals, and yet there is only a vague allusion to this in the afterword. More annoyingly, Bickel describes the immediate events preceding the death of one of the men from the point of view of the soon-to-be-deceased explorer, even though his two surviving comrades weren't even eyewitnesses to the moment of the tragedy. This gives rise to the suspicion that poetic license may have been somewhat abused in the composition of this book.

There are a number of photos of expedition members, their ship, and their camp. Sadly, no map is provided, making it difficult for the reader to follow Mawson's progress.

Bickel certainly does good work in shedding some light on this little known expedition, especially on the causes of the death of the second explorer. But the lack of notation of sources is a serious drawback.

I read this book when it was first published and was captivated by the heroic nature of Mawson's journey druing which both of his companions died.It is a remarkable tribute to a man of very unusual abilities. Unlike the Scott expeditions, which were of no significant scientific importance, Mawson was a trained geologist with an interest in locating the South Magnetic Pole and extablishing its geographic variation. He was also the first to establish communication by radio to Australia from Antarcticia via a relay station on Mcquery Island. Read this book to appreciate how a man driven to the extreme manages to survive under conditions which are almost impossible to believe. Ponder on his accomplishments compared to those of Scott and marvel at how the British managed to make a hero out of Scott, a villain of Amundsen and a foot note in polar history of Mawson. Amundsen is reported to have described Scott as one of the better sled dogs the British brought to Antarcticia. This was in part a response to the way his success was received by them. For those interested in the details of Mawson's Austrialian- New Zealand expedition, a reprint of his own book is now available. It makes interesting reading as well

I first 'heard' Mawson's Will as it was read, unabridged, on PBS in 1979. I soon found the book and have read it repeatedly over the years. Mawson's Will, along with Niven's Known Space series of Sci.Fi. adventures might be all a soul would need if sealed up with only a few books to choose from.
The description of the soles of Mawson's feel as they separted from his body and had to be tied on with leather strips is something you'll never forget, remembering he was hundreds of miles from safety. He ate what he could find without knowing he was slowly poisoning himself with excess vitimin A with every bite. The author writes in a way that makes the story seem immediate and real.

Douglas Mawson is one of the great explorers of our millenium and this is probably the best survival adventure story ever told. The harshest conditions imaginable are revealed to Mawson in body, mind and spirit.

Leonard Bickel attains exceptional results transcribing Mawsons field notes, creating a readable account of an enormous struggle few have heard of and one not likely to be matched. Not even Shackelton's story measures up to this one.

Recommneded for those who must persevere.

Rarely has fiction served the truth so well. Rarely has the truth served fiction so well.

Mawson's own account of his ordeal, in "The Home of The Blizzard", seems relatively matter of fact. We may not have marvelled at Mawson's accomplishment in surviving if we relied only on his way of telling it. Although a good writer, his specialities were geography and exploration.

Bickel's presentation here in "Mawson's Will" makes Mawson's accomplishment more touching than Mawson's own presentation. But it took an extraordinary writing accomplishment by Bickel to convey Mawson's accomplishment. Poetic license? To fail to understand how much faithful art it took to go from Mawson's diaries and book to Bickel's account would be to not appreciate how much effort and skill it took for Bickel to bring Mawson's tale so fully alive. If Bickel hadn't taken poetic license, this tale may have been of more interest to the most purist historian but it would have been of far less human interest. Sensitive to our lack of understanding of the Antartic experience, Bickel put us there in a way we never could have gotten from Mawson's own account. The last one hundred pages of "Mawson's Will" are as riveting as anything I've read in years.

Bickel's faithfulness to Mawson has made this a special work of art. Because of Bickel, we can be amazed at how Mawson survived and understand something profound about the human will.

P.S. I wake up the next day to find the story is still strong on my mind. Mawson returned to Australia to find his beloved waiting, married her, in time actually returned to the Antartic for exploration, and lived til 73. While we may never face as extreme a challenge as he did, there seems lessons here in the value of perserverence, in the benefits of careful self-management, and in the role of loved ones in making life worth living. This is an unusual book and Mawson and Bickel have made a special contribution far beyond whether land was claimed through exploration.

There is something buried deep within us all called the survival instinct. It's in the cancer patient fighting for another day no matter how painful, it's in the Apollo 13 astronauts alone and thousands of miles from safety, the lone sailor or even that person you pass on the street and barely notice.

Perhaps it's the result of 4 billion years of evolution, an involuntary reaction to the need to continue the species forward. Or maybe it's altogether more spiritual, part of the journey that gives life meaning and value. Whatever, clearly it's a very important part of what makes us who we are.

But in these comfortably numb times, it's all too easy to lose touch with these very basic principles of existence. We are not challenged for survival and we barely understand that such a need can exist.

Which is why Mawson's Will, the story of the epic battle for life by Antarctic explorer Douglas Mawson, is more than just an epic tale of adventure. While his lonely struggle to cross 300 miles of frozen wasteland after the death of his colleagues is in itself a wonderful tale of courage and resourcefulness, it resonates far deeper than just an explorer's tale.

Wracked by the pain of mysterious illness (later discovered to be fatal levels of Vitamin A poison from eating husky dog livers to stay alive) and caught in the most hostile environment on the planet, Mawson has many reasons to give up. Agony, loneliness and despair were his constant companions. On more than one occasion, dangling suspended by a rope through a fallen crevice all it would take was to reach into his pocket for the knife that would cut the thin line that held him in limbo. It a moment it would be over, the pain and useless struggle over.

But Mawson refused to succumb, and eventually, through extraordinary efforts, survived. Even to this day it hard to imagine how.

In his wonderful account of this story, culled mostly from Mawson's own heart wrenching diary of the events, veteran Australian writer Lennard Bickell has managed to capture superbly the details of Mawson's battle to survive.

While he spends little time contemplating the inner meaning of such a struggle, it is plainly there for the reader to contemplate. We are left to consider our own resources, our own inner strength. For anyone involved in a difficult situation that requires courage and fortitude, 'Mawson's Will' is an inspiration. And for those of us merely intrigued by the real nature of existence, here at least is a definition of the outer borders of human willpower, that strange and unknown land where the real world meets the spiritual.

A wonderful book.

It's remarkable that people well-versed in the classic polar adventures of Shackleton, Amundsen, and Scott often barely know who Douglas Mawson is. Mawson's story of survival in the Antartic--alone and without food following the death of his companions--is the equal of these more familiar tales and dates from the same era. Bickel has a good grip on his story and writes well.

Every reader looking to complete his/her knowledge of polar exploration, or just looking for another adventure "fix," will want to read this story. Readers new to the topic may find they understand Mawson's story better if they begin with the better-known stories.

Lennard Bickel has written the story of one of the most courageous of his countrymen in history--and that's saying alot when the country is Australia! The depictions of trekking through the worst blizzards, glaciers and crevasses that the worst continent can offer are vivid and true. The recreation of the fortitude and humanity of Mawson's 1912-13 expedition's members shines with a humbling reality- humbling to us in our 21st century ease. The pathos of reading about the suffering of these warm, brave men (and dogs) finds compensation in tracing Mawson's own barely successful trek back to camp. While the author's subtitle seems self-important, any unbiased reviewer couldn't quibble over its accuracy.

The reader from Houston has touched upon the one weak spot in the book, but Bickel reconstructed the thoughts and conversations of the men from their diaries. My only beef is that he provides no footnotes, and in places the thoughts seem to be intrusions of Bickel's own(especially in cases such as what is going through the mind of a trekker just before he falls to his death). At least Bickel's artistic license is used with skill in such places. This book makes these explorers' efforts come to life even better than Shackelton's own books, which shouldn't be missed either.

Lennard Bickel's "Mawson's Will" is the story of Australian geologist Douglas Mawson's 1911-1912 Expedition to Antarctica, and more particularly, his desparate struggle to return alone from a sledging expedition gone badly.

While exploring a previously untraveled portion of the Antarctic coastal plateau, Mawson loses one traveling companion, and most of his team's supplies and sled dogs, in a crevasse. His other companion dies an agonizing and lingering death of a mysterious illness. Mawson, himself suffering the same symptoms, marshals his remaining food and limited strength to walk back to the expedition's base through horrendous conditions of weather and terrain.

Bickel, working from the surviving diaries of the expedition members and interviews with family members, does a remarkable job of recreating Mawson's heroic struggle. The story is told in the third person, yet through Bickel's narrative, we are able to share in Mawson's heart-breaking daily dilemmas, as he leans out his remaining food, adapts his gear to overcome the ice and snow, and forces his rapidly deteriorating body to carry on. Mawson, possessed of a fierce will to live and a strong faith in God, was determined to fight to the last step and be open to any possibility of survival or rescue. Bickel's narrative allows us to appreciate the inner struggle of will as well as the outer one against the elements.

Mawson's expedition occured in the same timeframe as the Amundsen and Scott expeditions to the South Pole, and consequently received much less notice at the time. Bickel's narrative does an excellent job of capturing the dramatic arc of the expedition's story. This book is highly recommended to readers of polar exploration.

It's good to see this book back in print. Douglas Mawson, a veteran of the 1907-1909 Shackleton expedition, returned to the Antarctic in 1912 with his own team. His sledge journey with two companions turned from a harsh but rewarding exploration into a terrifying fight for survival in an instant. At almost the same time as Scott was busily scribbling inspiring hoo-hah in his diary trying to cover up his appalling faults of leadership and organization, Mawson was courageously fighting for his life and refusing to lie down and die. An incredible story! One hopes that Australia remembers Sir Douglas Mawson and his fortitude. He is an example to all of us.