Since South Africa annexed the Prince Edward Islands in 1948, South African researchers have been making regular expeditions to the Antarctic Continent, the Prince Edward Islands and Gough Island, as well as elsewhere in the Southern Ocean. The Antarctic Legacy of South Africa (ALSA) project aims to preserve the rich human history of these expeditions and South Africa’s presence in the Southern Ocean over the last 70 years.
Aside from the results of biological and physical research, these expeditions have produced a wealth of photographs, videos, and written and oral accounts. This historical record also includes maps, journals, logbooks, newspaper articles, and artworks. The Antarctic Legacy of South Africa collates, digitises and archives these records, along with out-of-print South African research articles and unpublished papers residing in governmental archives, departments and museums, and makes them accessible to the public. This website serves as a public portal to provide access to this information, which currently stands at over 4000 records.
The South African National Antarctic Programme (SANAP) manages three bases: SANAE IV, located at Vesleskarvet, Dronning Maud Land in Antarctica, Marion Island (the larger of the two Prince Edward islands) and Gough Island. There have been three previous South African bases on Antarctica, named SANAE I, II and III. The Antarctic Legacy of South Africa Project focuses on records from these three bases, as well as from South Africa’s successive Antarctic research and supply vessels, the R.S.A., S.A. Agulhas and S.A. Agulhas II, which have transported researchers and supplies between Cape Town and the three research bases and conducted oceanographic research in the Southern Ocean.
The very first SANAE Expedition makes its way through the ice on its way to Antarctica in 1960
ALSA is headed and run by Ria Olivier, an archivist with a passion for the human side of Antarctic research, together with Anché Louw who is focussing on using her sound knowledge on Marion Island and the project’s material towards science communication. Others currently involved in the three-year project include Conrad Matthee, head of Department of Botany and Zoology at Stellenbosch University, John Cooper, a retired marine ornithologist and conservationist who has studied Southern Ocean seabirds; Jaco Boshoff of Iziko Museums of South Africa, Steven Chown of Australia’s Monash University and Annie Bekker of the University of Stellenbosch. The archive is hosted by the Department of Botany & Zoology at Stellenbosch University. Physical artefacts and souvenirs given to ALSA are curated by the Iziko Museums’ Social History Collections Department. ALSA is funded by the National Research Foundation as part of the South African National Antarctic Programme (SANAP).
In addition to providing a portal to the archive, this website also provides information and facts about Antarctica, Antarctic resources for students, and up-to-date news and events from South Africa’s SANAP research.
ALSA’s archive is constantly expanding. If you have any relevant historical records to contribute to the growing archive, you can submit them via this contact form.
