Madhouse at the End of the Earth: The Belgica's Journey into the Dark Antarctic Night

by Julian Sancton

The contribution of the Belgica’s scientists to Antarctic scholarship cannot be overestimated.

Racovitza cataloged thousands of specimens from hundreds of species of plant and animal life—moss, lichen, fish, birds, mammals, insects, pelagic organisms—many of them new to science.

It is significant that de Gerlache declined to stake any claim of Belgian sovereignty over the strait that today bears his name. (Unlike, for example, James Clark Ross, who in 1841 formally took possession of Victoria Land on behalf of Great Britain.) In his belief that science transcended politics and borders, the commandant set the stage for more than a century of peace in Antarctica.

“That’s who I think of when I’m writing about the physician role,” Stuster told me. “I think of Frederick Cook.” When we do reach Mars, we will, in some small part, have Cook to thank.

Yet the very concept of Antarctic tourism is in some ways disheartening: thousands of people a year are drinking martinis and singing karaoke on the same waters that de Gerlache and his men navigated with such trepidation when they were the only people on the entire continent.