Riksantikvarieämbetet

In 1901, Otto Nordenskjöld led the first Swedish South Polar expedition with a multidisciplinary team of researchers in geology, geography, biology and medicine. The original plan was to hibernate in Antarctica and stay for one year to survey the land, measure the climate, and collect samples, but their ship was wrecked and the expedition came to last more than two years. Today, the remains from this expedition are protected as cultural heritage according to the Antarctic Treaty and they have been maintained by Argentinian efforts. Among five protected cultural environments, the wooden research station on Snow Hill Island stands out. Sweden joined the Antarctic Treaty in 1984 but has not actively engaged in the management of cultural heritage there until the CHAQ2020 expedition in 2020. The fieldwork presented in this report was carried out in Antarctica with the purposes of documenting and assessing the condition of the remains and providing a knowledge base for policy and decision-making concerning Swedish cultural heritage in Antarctica.