Caroline Mikkelsen Explained

Caroline Mikkelsen
Birth Date:1906 11, df=yes
Nationality:Denmark, Norway
Known For:First woman on an Antarctic island

Caroline Mikkelsen (20 November 1906[1]  - 15 September 1998,[2] later married Mandel) was a Danish-Norwegian explorer who on 20 February 1935 was the first woman to set foot on Antarctica,[3] although whether this was on the mainland or an island is a matter of dispute.

Antarctic exploration

Caroline Mikkelsen was born on 20 November 1906 in Denmark, later she married her first husband Norwegian Captain Klarius Mikkelsen and moved to Norway.In the winter of 1934–1935, Mikkelsen accompanied her Norwegian husband Klarius on an Antarctic expedition sponsored by Lars Christensen, on the resupply vessel M/S Thorshavn with instructions to look for Antarctic lands that could be annexed for Norway.[4] [5] Mount Caroline Mikkelsen is named for her.[6]

On 20 February 1935, the expedition made landfall somewhere on the Antarctic continental shelf.[7] Mikkelsen left the ship and participated in raising the Norwegian flag and in building a memorial cairn.[8] Mikkelsen never made any recorded claims to have landed on the mainland, but was initially thought to have landed on the Vestfold Hills not far from the present Davis Station. She did not publicly speak about her Antarctic voyage until sixty years after her landing in 1995 when she spoke about her journey to the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten having been contacted by Davis Station Leader Diana Patterson.[9] [10]

In 1941 her husband Klarius died and in 1944 she married Johan Mandel from Tønsberg. Mikkelsen-Mandel died in 1998.

In 1998 and 2002, Australian researchers published historical articles in the Polar Record concluding that the landing party from the Thorshavn—and thus Mikkelsen—landed on the Tryne Islands where a marker at Mikkelsen's Cairn can still be seen today.[11] [12] [13] [14] The landing site is an approximately five kilometres from the Antarctic mainland. No alternative mainland landing site for the Mikkelsen party has been discovered, in spite of years of searching by Davis Station workers.[15] [16]

Consequently, Mikkelsen is regarded as the first woman to set foot on Antarctica, and Ingrid Christensen as the first to stand on the Antarctic mainland.

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Dødsfall i Norge 1945–2001 . Arkivverket Norge.no . no . 27 March 2017 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20170328021135/http://gda.arkivverket.no/cgi-win/webcens.exe?slag=visbase&sidenr=1&filnamn=DODSFALL&gardpostnr=266569&merk=266569#ovre . 28 March 2017 .
  2. Web site: Reported deaths in Norway (1947) 1995–April 2001 . Digitalarkivet Norge.no . en . 27 March 2017.
  3. Women in Antarctica: Sharing this Life-Changing Experience . 4th Annual Phillip Law Lecture . 2 . It is now more than seventy years since Danish-born Caroline Mikkelsen became the first woman to step onto the Antarctic continent, not far from the present Davis station... . 18 June 2005 . Antarctic Midwinter Festival . . 23 January 2022 . https://web.archive.org/web/20200116120612/https://www.stategrowth.tas.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0013/2092/Dr_Robin_Burns_Lecture_-_No._4.pdf . 16 January 2020 . live.
  4. News: Famous firsts Long list of accomplishments by women in Antarctica. 13 November 2009. The Antarctic Sun.
  5. Web site: Frozen voices: Women, silence and Antarctica. Blackadder. Jesse. 2015. ANU Press.
  6. Web site: Antarctic Gazetteer. Australian Antarctic Data Centre. 2012-03-03.
  7. News: Dean. Cornelia. After a Struggle, Women Win A Place 'on the Ice'; In Labs and in the Field, a New Outlook. 2012-02-03. The New York Times. 10 November 1998.
  8. http://www.anta.canterbury.ac.nz/resources/treaty/meetings/xx-utrecht/p2annexb.html Annex B Measures: Measure I (1996) Revised Description and Management Plan for Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI)
  9. News: Abenteurerin: Der eisige Tag der Caroline Mikkelsen. 2015-02-19. Frankfurter Rundshau. fr-online.de. de. Adventurer: The icy day of Caroline Mikkelsen. 2016-07-10.
  10. Web site: Die erste Frau in der Antarktis - 80. Jubiläum . Focus.de . de . 27 March 2017.
  11. Web site: HSM-72. ats.aq. Area Protection and Management. 2016-07-10. https://web.archive.org/web/20190207015257/http://www.ats.aq/devPH/apa/ep_protected_detail.aspx?type=1&id=146&lang=e. 7 February 2019. dead.
  12. Web site: List of Historic Sites and Monuments approved by the ATCM (2012). 2012. Antarctic Treaty Secretariat. 2014-01-05.
  13. http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=5426736 Klarius Mikkelsen's 1935 landing in the Vestfold Hills, East Antarctica: some fiction and some facts
  14. Norman. F.I.. Gibson. J.A.E.. Jones. R.T.. Burgess. J.S.. 2002-10-01. Klarius Mikkelsen's landing site: some further notes on the 1935 Norwegian visit to the Vestfold Hills, East Antarctica. Polar Record. 38. 207. 323–328. 10.1017/S0032247400018015. 129578857 . 1475-3057.
  15. Jesse . Blackadder . October 2013 . Illuminations : casting light upon the earliest female travellers to Antarctica . Western Sydney University Thesis Collection . 59–60.
  16. Crary. M. 1978. It's about time!. Newsletter of the Antarctican Society. 3–7.

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