"Not all of the dogs had survived the voyage south, and others perished during the first winter. On November 10 [1912], when Mawson, Ninnis, and Mertz set off from the hut, they took seventeen dogs to haul three sledges. The total weight of their impedimenta was 1,723 pounds. Of that, 475 pounds was food for the men, based on a calculation of nine weeks of travel, each man consuming a little less than two and-a-quarter pounds per day. The dog food -- almost entirely seal meat, seal blubber, and pemmican -- added up to 700 pounds, or two-fifths of the team's total supplies. Even so, it was taken for granted that if a dog could not keep up, it would be shot and fed to the other huskies."
"On the 5th, Pavlova gave birth to a litter of pups. They were instantly devoured by the huskies, including their own mother. [Such an event, so shocking to the dog-loving armchair observer, was a norm in the gruelling conditions of Antarctic travel.]"
"Gadget, too, was pregnant. 'A rather miserable animal', in Mawson's view, since she seemed incapable of hauling, Gadget was carried in a box on top of a sledge through the day's march on November 15. When she failed to give birth, she sealed  her fate. 'We leave camp at 10 minutes to 12 [noon]', Mawson wrote dispassionately on November 17, 'after killing and cutting up Gadget as she could not walk nor we carry her. She cut up into 24 rations counting 7 [unborn] pups'. That evening, 'Dogs did not like 'Gadget' tonight, dogs very quarrelsome today'. By the next day, however, hunger trumped the huskies' reluctance. 'They ate 'Gadget' meat voraciously', noted Mertz, 'except 'Shackleton [husky], who turned his nose up."
David Roberts, Alone On The Ice

Sir Douglas Mawson

This is an excerpt from a book detailing the dramatic story of one man. the leader, on a scientific mission to map the Antarctic in the wake of slightly earlier exploratory expeditions launched by Robert Falcon Scott and later Ernest Shackleton, men dedicated to exploration of the farthest reaches of the Globe, where neither extreme atmospheric and geological conditions nor the dangers that lurked in the vast, freezing white landscape of the unknown was a deterrence to their ambition.

It's striking and heart-rending to hear of the expectations of the Eskimo huskies taken along to haul the immensely clumsy and overburdened ice sledges used by these early expeditions. The idea, of course, was not only to use the energy and working instincts of these dogs accustomed to labouring by hauling heavy objects, but also to use them as emergency rations in the case of unforeseen events that left the exploring scientists with no other food source.

It was either lack of oversight or intentional that the huskies were neither spayed nor neutered to prevent pregnancies from occurring in such dismal, distant circumstances, when reliance on the strength and capacity of these working dogs to make the most of their efforts in hauling supplies required for the success of the expedition was seen as a necessity. The dangers that the men faced were also faced by the dogs.

The misfortunes suffered by the men, as when immense, surface-hidden cracks in the ice, either on the immense glaciers they encountered and traversed, or the thickly snow-and-ice-laden plains necessitated the greatest of care and vigilance as they would suddenly swallow man, dogs and sledge. On most occasions swift reaction and quick thinking would save them from the ultimate tragedy, yet on occasion the catastrophe was so immediate and intractable that nothing could be done.

"A moment later the faint indication of a crevasse passed beneath the sledge but it had no appearance of being in any degree specially dangerous. However, as had come to be the custom I called out a warning to Ninnis. The latter, who was close behind walking along by the side of his sledge, heard the warning, for in my backward glance I noticed that he immediately swung the leading dogs so as to cross the crevasse squarely instead of diagonally as my sledge had done. I then resumed my work and dismissed the matter from my thoughts."
"There was no sound from behind except a faint, plaintive whine from one of the dogs which I imagined was in reply to a touch from Ninnis's whip. I remember addressing myself to George, the laziest dog in my own team, saying, 'You will be getting a little of that, too, George, if you are not careful'."
"When next I looked back, it was in response to the anxious gaze of Mertz who had turned round and halted in his tracks. Behind me nothing met the eye except my own sledge tracks running back in t he distance. Where were Ninnis and his sledge?"
"I leaned over and shouted into the dark depths below. No sound came back but the moaning of a dog, caught on a shelf just visible one hundred and fifty feet below The poor creature appeared to have a broken back, for it was attempting to sit up with the front part of its body, while the hinder portion lay limp. Another dog lay motionless by its side. Close by was what appeared in the gloom to be the remains of the tent and a canvas food-tank containing a fortnight's supply."
"We broke back the edge of the hard snow lid and, secured by a rope, took turns leaning over, calling into the darkness in the hope that our companion might be still alive. For three hours we called unceasingly but no answering sound came back. The dog had ceased to moan and lay without a movement. A chill draught rose out of the abyss. We felt that there was no hope."
Australasian Antarctic Expedition

The last photo of Mawson's Far Eastern Party, taken when they left the Australasian Antarctic Party's base camp on November 10, 1912. By January 10, 1913, two of the three men would be dead, and expedition leader Douglas Mawson would find himself exhausted, ill and still more than 160 miles from the nearest human being. Photo: State Library of New South Wales via Wikicommons.