Festival serves up taste of Antarctica

NOT far from the spot where Sir Douglas Mawson set off on his legendary voyage of adventure and derring-do more than a century ago, the Australian Antarctic Festival has opened at the centre of Hobart’s Antarctic gateway.

The festival was launched at Macquarie Wharf by Premier Will Hodgman yesterday, before an audience of VIPs from the Chinese, Norwegian, Finnish and Australia polar programs, as well as the ranks of thousands of penguins specially painted by schoolchildren for the event. Mawson’s Huts Foundation chief David Jensen said the festival was intended to give people exposure to the frozen continent.

“While most people never go to Antarctica, we will do our best to bring it to them,” he said.

The first day of the four-day program featured the opening of a photographic exhibition at TMAG, school tours of the Aurora Australis and the Investigator at Princes Wharf and a symposium on climate change research at IMAS.

The weekend will feature an Antarctic Exhibition at Princes Wharf, film premieres and polar history walks.

Officially opening the festival, Mr Hodgman said the Antarctic sector employed 1200 people in Tasmania and was worth $180 million a year in the state’s economy.

“Our Antarctic connections are very well established — historic to the present day — and they continue to be part of our economic and social fabric,” he said.

“This is something special and unique about our state and something that is worth celebrating with this festival.”