Here we have the Vinson Massif, a large mountain which is thirteen miles long and eight miles wide. It is part of the Ellsworth Mountains, and it was only discovered in 1958, by aircraft belonging to the American Navy - it was later named, officially, after Carl G. Vinson, the congressman for Georgia, but also an outspoken, long-term supporter of Antarctic exploration.
After this card was issued there was a discovery, namely that it was two mountains, so these have been split into the Vinson Massif and Mount Vinson. And if you are wondering what a massif is, it is one of the groups of risen land that together add up to making an entire mountain range.
As for why this card is here, well the reason is that Antarctica is the only country in the world that has never had a single migrant apply to live there.
In fact it has never had a permanent inhabitant either, the only people there are temporary, they are either tourists on holiday, calling briefly in, or scientists and researchers who come for a short stay, six to seven months of what is considered the summer, and then go back to work on their findings. And if anyone did apply to live there, they would find an alien world, with no towns, no infrastructure, and no jobs, except, maybe, for those six or seven months when the researchers come, though they keep themselves to themselves in the research hubs and everything they need is brought with them.
New Zealand, where this card was issued, has quite some claim to fame regarding Antarctica, and not just because it was the birthplace of Sir Edmund Hillary, the mountaineer and also the builder and planner of Scott Base, from which the 1957 Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition started out.
Since 1923, New Zealand has also controlled the Ross Dependency, though this area was first claimed, in 1841 by the United Kingdom.
Even earlier than that it is believed that the first person to stand on the Antarctic ice, in January 1895, was Alexander von Tunzelmann, a New Zealander who was a crew member of the Norwegian whaling ship, the Antarctic. Whether or not it was actually his foot that first slithered out along the ice is not proven, but he was definitely amongst the first group who disembarked.
This card celebrates, and remembers, Gary Ball and Rob Hall, who climbed Mount Everest in 1990 on his second attempt, along with Peter Hillary, the son of Sir Edmund Hillary. Gary Ian Ball was also a survival training expert at Scott Base in the late 1970s, and he died in 1993 on the Himalayan mountain Dhaulagiri - whilst Robert Edwin Hall was actually the subject of the 2015 film Everest, taken from a book written about his life and death, on Everest, in 1996, called "Into Thin Air".
Peter Edmund Hillary is still alive at the time of writing.
This card is only recorded in our Australian and New Zealand Index, part II, or RB.33, which was published in 1993. That is why the code looks a bit different. It was also a local set, only issued in New Zealand and not Australia, so it is in section 1 of the Sanitarium listings, under "(e) - Dated cards". It is, however, listed with a different title, namely :
1991-1 New Zealand on top of the World. 73 x 57. Nd. (20) .... SA2-89-10
The code at the front tells us that it was the first set to be issued in 1991, there being four others, these being, in order of issue :
- 1991-2 Saving the World`s Endangered Wildlife (20 cards - measuring 73 x 57)
- 1991-3 New Zealand Disasters (12 cards - but slightly larger at 97 x 75 m/m)
- 1991-4 Airliners of the 90s (12 cards - but split into two sizes - 97 x 75 m/m and 101 x 79 m/m)
- 1991-5 New Zealand Inventions and Discoveries (12 cards - 97 x 75 m/m)