The Home of the Blizzard

Record summary

Douglas Mawson’s The Home of the Blizzard recounts the 1911–1914 Australasian Antarctic Expedition, including the deaths of Belgrave Ninnis and Xavier Mertz and Mawson’s celebrated solo return. The book became a foundational Antarctic survival narrative and offers material for studying how environmental catastrophe is converted into heroic legend. It includes scientific observations, expedition logistics and descriptions of extreme terrain, but also retrospective self-fashioning. Its value for folklore comparison lies in narrative structure and memorialization, not in claims of supernatural intervention or ancient catastrophe knowledge.