Nicolai Hanson

Nicolai Hanson [NB 1] ( born August 24, 1870 in Kristiansund, † October 14, 1899 at Cape Adare, Antarctica ) was a Norwegian zoologist and polar explorer. He was the first person who was buried on the Antarctic mainland.

Life

Nicolai Hanson was born in 1870 as the eldest son of the Ship Broker Anton Hanson (* 1836) and his wife Sophie Hanson (* 1844) in Kristiansund. He studied biology at Robert Collett (1842-1913) at the University of Kristiania and then presented in northern Norway preparations for the collections of the British Museum in London and the Zoological Museum in Christiania ago. Collett, it was he who recommended the young scientists for the Southern Cross expedition to Antarctica. The head of this private, by the publisher Sir George Newnes (1851-1910) funded expedition, Carsten Egeberg Borchgrevink, hired him as a zoologist and taxidermist. During the crossing Hanson ill in September 1898 of typhoid difficult, recovered until the arrival in the Antarctic but complete. The expedition wintered in 1899 at Cape Adare in Victoria Land. Hanson, who was a skilled hunter and skier, took the time to help with his assistant Hugh Evans (1874-1975) to create a comprehensive collection of specimens of Antarctic wildlife. In July diseased Hanson, probably in moist beriberi, reinforced by his previous intestinal infection. He died on October 14, 1899 and was buried on 20 October high above the Cape Adare at a place he had chosen for yourself. He was buried the first man on the Antarctic mainland. Hanson is survived by his wife and his little daughter Johanne Hanson Vogt ( 1898-1999 ).

Hanson's grave was visited in 1902 by Robert Falcon Scott's Discovery Expedition. Ten years later, the northern group of the Terra Nova expedition stopped at Cape Adare for her ship. The boatman Frank Vernon Browning (1882-1930) was cleaning the grave and laid with white quartz stones on a black background made ​​of basalt the word " Hanson " and a white cross. Today it stands as a historical monument HSM -23 under the protection of the Antarctic Treaty.

Scientific estate

Hanson zoological preparations were passed after the return of the Southern Cross in October 1900, the Natural History Museum. To the scientific journals, which, according to Louis Bernacchi Hanson, the meteorologist of the expedition, had passed on the death camp at Borchgrevink, a dispute erupted between the museum and Borchgrevink, who has been publicly held in the press. The fact that the notes were lost, made ​​it difficult to assign the preparations that were largely unlabeled. The museum then turned to Hanson's widow, his personal diary, so far as it contained biological observations released. 1902, the zoological results of the Southern Cross expedition from the Museum director Ray Lankester published as Report on the Collections of Natural History made ​​in the Antarctic Regions falling on the Voyage of the " Southern Cross " to over 300 pages.

Honors

The 1255 m high mountain Hanson Peak ( 71 ° 21 ' S, 170 ° 18' O 71.35170.3 ), which is located six kilometers south of Cape Adare, reminiscent of Nicolai Hanson. George Albert Boulenger named the Antarctic cod Trematomus hansoni after him.