Date/Time
Date(s) - Tue 17 October
18:00 - 19:00
Location
Lecture Theatre One (GBLT1), Old Government Buildings, VUW
SIR HOLMES MILLER MEMORIAL LECTURE 2023
Summary:
Spanning 182 years of human history, Mt Erebus, Antarctica’s most famous volcano, has
played an important role for all who have lived and worked on Ross Island.
Haunting and searingly beautiful, Erebus has attracted explorers, mountaineers, artists
and scientists; each drawn to the mountain by their own particular vision or curiosity.
The mountain is a truly unique geological phenomenon with its lava lake— an active
volcano sheathed in ice, with hundreds of ice caves and steaming fumarole towers
around its summit. Also, in the minds of many New Zealanders, it is a place of
destruction and despair, wrought by a single momentous accident.
The Sir Holmes Memorial lecture will weave history, science, art and adventure into a
compelling tale, supported by superb images selected from Colin’s lifetime of working
and voyaging in Antarctica.
Erebus The Ice Dragon: A Portrait of an Antarctic Volcano, Colin’s 13th book, is the first
Antarctic book to focus on a single mountain.
PRESENTER
Colin Monteath
Polar and Alpine photographer and writer, Christchurch
Biographical note:
Colin Monteath has had 32 summers in Antarctica, 10 of them based out of Scott Base
(1973-83). As a mountaineer and Field Operations for the DSIR, Antarctic Division he took
part in three science expeditions to Mount Erebus, culminating in a descent into the Inner
Crater in 1978. The following year, Colin helped with the recovery operation after the Air
New Zealand crash on Ross Island. Since 1983 Colin has been a freelance polar and
mountain photographer working with a number of adventure companies in Antarctica:
lecturing, driving Zodiacs, yachting, guiding peaks on the Antarctic Peninsula and crossing
South Georgia. In the Arctic Colin has made ski crossings of Greenland, Svalbard and
Alaska’s Denali and the Arctic Ocean by nuclear-powered icebreaker. He has taken part in
21 expeditions to the Himalaya.
ALL WELCOME
Contact: Peter.Barrett@vuw.ac.nz