Shirase Antarctic Expedition: New Zealand to Antarctica

When Shirase's little ship Kainan Maru reached Wellington, New Zealand,, the locals were amused and suspicious: the season was late, the vessel looked frail and the crew had hardly any charts. One newspaper mocked the Japanese as "gorillas sailing about in a miserable whaler". Their only map beyond 60°S was a small photocopy of an admiralty chart showing Shackleton's 1907 route. The expedition left Wellington on 11 February.

Precisión del lugar: The harbour is large and the sources do not name the berth; the pin marks the harbour as a whole.

Turned back by ice, the expedition spent the Antarctic winter in Sydney. After a cool welcome, a Vaucluse resident let Shirase's men pitch camp at Parsley Bay. Professor Edgeworth David accepted the expedition as genuine and vouched for them, and Shirase later gave him his 17th-century samurai sword. Life in camp was frugal, "almost a beggar's life", Shirase wrote. On 19 November 1911 the ship sailed again, with crowds waving. A memorial tablet was placed here in 2002.

Para el visitante: Parsley Bay is a public bay in Vaucluse, Sydney; a memorial tablet there marks the expedition's stay.

On 16 January 1912, the Kainan Maru found a small inlet in the barrier edge that looked like a landing place. An advance party climbed up and reported a surface "full of crevasses", too dangerous for long travel. Shirase named the spot Kainan Bay after the ship, and it still carries the name. The expedition sailed on.

Precisión del lugar: The pin is the centre of Kainan Bay as given on Wikipedia, not the exact spot where the advance party climbed.

Approaching the Bay of Whales, the Japanese found to their astonishment another ship moored there: Amundsen's Fram. Two Fram officers visited on 17 January. Shirase then landed a five-man Dash Patrol, which set out on 20 January with dogs and, avoiding Amundsen's tracks, went south-east. They reached 80°5'S, about 250 km out, buried a canister and named the plain Yamato Yukihara. The return took only three days.

Precisión del lugar: The bay shifts with the ice; the pin marks the bay, and the patrol's route is not tied to one spot.

While the dash patrol marched south, the Kainan Maru sailed east to King Edward VII Land and anchored in Biscoe Bay on 23 January 1912. Two parties went ashore; a three-man group reached the foothills of the Alexandra Mountains before an unbridgeable crevasse stopped them. The Japanese were the first to land on this coast from the sea. The ship then passed Scott's easternmost mark, reaching 151°20'W. On the way back, all the expedition's dogs had to be left behind at the Bay of Whales.

Precisión del lugar: The peninsula is a large ice-covered region and the landing spot is only given as Biscoe Bay; no single pin is shown.

Back in Japan, Shirase spent most of his remaining life clearing the expedition's debts. His hometown, Nikaho, in Akita, raised a statue to him in 1981 and in 1990 opened a museum devoted to the expedition. The museum includes a replica of Shirase's ship.

Precisión del lugar: The pin is not shown: the museum is described only as being in Nikaho, so the place on the map is general.

Para el visitante: Shirase Antarctic Memorial Museum is in Nikaho, Akita, Japan.