First, a bit of Reuters history:

Reuters links with Sir Douglas Mawson, Australia’s most celebrated Antarctic explorer, began in 1911 when the company helped finance the young explorer’s maiden voyage to Antarctica.

In 1911, the Reuters Telegram Company Ltd sent a hand written telegram confirming it had pledged 1,000 pounds to the Australasian Antarctic Expedition lead by Mawson (see picture above.)

The significance of Mawson’s expedition was that it was largely financed and led from Australia, which as a nation was little more than 10 years old. East Antarctica, the greater mass of the Antarctic continent that lies south of Australia, the Indian Ocean and Africa, was one of the least-explored parts of the ice continent.

Mawson sailed a stout whaling ship named Aurora from Hobart in December 1911, bound for Macquarie Island and Antarctica, intent on mapping the unknown coast around Cape Denison, an area west of the region visited by Britain’s Robert Scott and Ernest Shackleton.

He set up a wireless relay station on Macquarie Island, which would later transmit the first Antarctic radio signals.

On January 8, 1912 Mawson reached Cape Denison, at the western end of a great bay Mawson named Commonwealth Bay, the windiest place on Earth.

Reuters correspondent  Pauline Askin is sailing in early December to the Antarctic for a six -week expedition  on the ice continent where she will help restore Mawson’s huts on Commonwealth Bay.

During the expedition, Pauline will report on topics ranging from climate change and the environment to tourism and Christmas celebrations in Antarctica.

You can follow Pauline’s experiences in one of the harshest environments on Earth in this blog.