The Japanese Antarctic Expedition in 1912: a summary of lectures given at the Norway-Japan Society and the Mariners Society in Oslo, 2012

Abstract

Nobu Shirase's Antarctic expedition in January 1912 is not well known outside Japan. On the occasion of the centenary celebrations of the expedition in Japan, Hilary Shibata's and Lara Dagnell's translation of the expedition report, "Nankyokuki Tanken (Antarctic Expedition)" from 1913 was published (Shibata and Dagnell, 2011). In addition this author was invited to a large Shirase conference in Tokyo in February 2012 to present Roald Amundsen's South Pole expedition, and in that connection was able to visit Shirase's birthplace and museum in northwest Japan. In this summary of her lectures, she gives an outline of Shirase's expedition based on the expedition report, in order to introduce to Europeans what the Japanese undertook a hundred years ago in the Antarctic Continent.