A Profound Life Of Icy Wonder

Our planet’s most inhospitable continent is dotted with landmarks bearing Syd Kirkby’s name.

- Joanna Hartmann

FOR MUCH OF HIS CAREER, toppling off the edge of the known world into vast, uncharted landscapes was all in a day’s work for Antarctic surveyor Sydney ‘Syd’ Kirkby. Recipient of the 2018 AGS Lifetime of Adventure Award, the spirited 86 year old has arguably surveyed more of the Australian Antarctic Territory than anyone. His first expedition to the icy continent was in 1956 – much of it traversing the landscape by dog sledge using a theodolite to survey the uncharted territory. But there’s no boasting by Syd about his extraordinary achievements, or the number of Antarctic geographical features that bear his name – including Mount Kirkby, Kirkby Glacier, Kirkby Head and Kirkby Shoal. Instead, the down-to-earth explorer considers himself privileged to have seen so many of Antarctica’s profoundly beautiful, never-before-seen landscapes and to have fostered enduring friendships along the way.

“When I first became involved, 85 per cent of a continent twice the size of Australia was unexplored,” he says. “Unexplored meant something in Antarctica that it has never meant anywhere else in the world…unexplored meant that in all time, no human being had ever seen it. So, when you’re a 22-year-old kid and you saddle up your dogs and head out, after you get a relatively little way away from the station, with every step you topple off the edge of the known world,” he says, his face filled with whimsy and wonder. “And if you’re lucky, as we were, you could discover vast and wondrous things.”