It is a question which has been asked over and over and over but never resolved in print.
TCC lists Queen Maud land as one of its destinations. But only Southern Queen Maud Land reaches the South Pole. In the past people who went to the South Pole counted it as visiting Queen Maud. Is this true?
Would be nice if the Board would comment on this issue?
Replies
No, sailing in the waters does not count as a visit. You have to get your feet on the hard ground. With your above itinerary, you can count the Falklands, South Georgia, and for the Palmer Peninsula--British, Argentine, and Chilean Antarctica--if you get off the boat in those places.
does the described area mean that if I sailed from the Falklands to South Georgia, the Orkneys and Palmer Peninsula that I passed through and therefore can claim having visited the Norwegian claimed area ?
unlike many I can do both; have always been a traveler but also can travel to simply check off. Even the check offs, solely to locations which are repetitious for me, have their merits.Many South Sea islands are best viewed from the plane and the cultures and landscapes are not that different.
Soon will swim to an island to touch it with fins and then back to the boat - walking on this island is not allowed - nature preserve. It is a check off for MTP but I will see the island from the boat.
My TRAVELING part will soon do The Road of Bones in Siberia...in March....that is an adventure.
An utterly fantastic trip and the adventure is what really counts--not some list.
thanks
this is a sour pill to swallow for the many who THOUGHT they had completed the list.....my wife and I have been to Antarctica on three different occasions but never to the pole....on our bucket list.
No, and my impression was the guy from the Scott Polar Research Institute wasn't in any hurry. Don Parrish's input from the senior advisor of the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs seems pretty comprehensive and would obviously be the stance the TCC would take.
Pam: any update on this...reply from the Scott Polar Research Institute?
thanks
Don Parrish writes on the MTP site:
In 2018, someone (incorrectly) updated the Wikipedia article on Queen Maud Land to extend the borders all the way to the South Pole. I contacted Brent Bakken again. He was no longer in that part of the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and gave me the correct email to use.
I was contacted by Mette Strengehagen, a senior advisor of the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I will copy her complete email below because others may want to know the official position of the Norwegian government. Their position remains the same since 1939. To aid readers who are interested in the main points, I took the liberty to bold three of her sentences.
Dear Mr Parrish,
Reference to your e-mail to the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs 16. January 2018.
There have been no changes in the position of the Norwegian Government on the geographic extent of Dronning Maud Land. The geographic extent is defined by the wording of the claim, as made in 1939 by Foreign Minister Koht. He defined the area as ‘the portion of the mainland shoreland of Antarctica stretching from the border of the Falkland Islands Dependencies in the west (the border of Coats Land) to the border of the Australian Antarctic Dependency in the east (45° eastern longitude), including the land inland from this shore and the ocean abutting it …’. With this formulation, Norway underscored that our polar policies rested on the same principles in both the north and the south by indicating that the Norwegian claim in Antarctica did not constitute a sector. Since the early 1900s it had been an important part of Norwegian polar policy to reject the ‘sector principle’, on which a number of States had based claims in both the northern and southern Polar Regions. The wording of the claim was not, however, intended to imply a great difference in practice.
The Norwegian Government has not, and will not, redefine the geographic extent of our claims in Antarctica. As one of the signatory parties to the Antarctic Treaty, Norway is committed to the core principles of the international cooperation in Antarctica, including the Treaty’s article IV,2: No acts or activities taking place while the present Treaty is in force shall constitute a basis for asserting, supporting, or denying a claim to territorial sovereignty in Antarctica or create any rights of sovereignty in Antarctica. No new claim, or enlargement of an existing claim, to territorial sovereignty in Antarctica shall be asserted while the present Treaty is in force.
As for your reference to the articles on Wikipedia and in the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten, the respective authors will have to speak for themselves. However, it may be noted that the borders of Dronning Maud Land have appeared in various ways on maps ever since the claim was made in 1939, while the wording of the claim remain unchanged.
hopefully there was a definitive answer from the Scott Polar Research Institute on whether or not Maud Land goes all the way to the South Pole. And if it does not, will be interesting to see if there is a message from TCC to all those who claim to have been there because of their visit to the South Pole telling them that they have not really completed The List.
Thanks....I can assure you that several people who CLAIM to have finished the TCC list counted going to the South Pole as doing Queen Maud Land
-
1
-
2
of 2 Next