Wings Over the Ice Cap: The 1930 Watkins BAARE Expedition

The Vision of a 23-Year-Old Leader

In 1930, commercial aviation stood upon the threshold of the transatlantic era. Yet flying directly between London and New York in propeller-driven aircraft was severely restricted by fuel payload constraints and relentless North Atlantic headwinds. A northern route—hopping across the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland, and Baffin Island—offered a viable alternative, provided the meteorology and topography of the Greenland ice sheet could be surveyed.

The man who proposed to map this route was Henry George ‘Gino’ Watkins, an energetic, charismatic 23-year-old Cambridge undergraduate. Despite his youth, Watkins had already led two successful expeditions to Edgeøya and Labrador. Gifted with boundless optimism, effortless authority, and an uncanny ability to inspire loyalty, Watkins assembled a team of thirteen gifted young Britons—including surveyor Augustine Courtauld, geologist Lawrence Wager, and ornithologist Spencer Chapman.

Supported by the Royal Geographical Society and the British Air Ministry, Watkins chartered the veteran sealing ship Quest (the vessel on which Shackleton had died in 1922). Aboard were fifty-five West Greenland sledging dogs, two de Havilland Gipsy Moth biplanes equipped with skis and floats, and enough supplies for a fifteen-month polar campaign.

Air and Dog Sled Exploration

In July 1930, the Quest broke through coastal pack ice to establish Base Camp at Sermilik Fjord, near Ammassalik in East Greenland. Unlike traditional European explorers who imposed military discipline and rigid gear, Watkins embraced the survival techniques of the local Inuit. He became an expert seal hunter, mastered the rolling of light skin kayaks in icy waters, and lived alongside his sled dogs.

Watkins was among the first expedition leaders to integrate aviation with ground sledging. Flight Lieutenants D’Aeth and Cozens assembled the two Gipsy Moth biplanes on the fjord ice. Flying deep into King Christian IX Land across vast expanses of white glaciers, Watkins surveyed terrain never before seen by human eyes.

On one flight in late 1930, flying north toward the 69th parallel, Watkins gazed out the open cockpit into the interior of East Greenland. Protruding through the inland ice sheet rose a colossal, uncharted chain of jagged black nunataks, their dark basalt cliffs contrasting against the gleaming snow. Watkins had discovered the highest mountain range in the Arctic—officially designated the Watkins Range—crowned by an immense pyramid that would later be named Gunnbjørn Fjeld (3,694 m).

Enduring Legacy

While Watkins and his pilots surveyed from above, Lawrence Wager conducted painstaking geological expeditions along the rocky coastlines, discovering the world-famous Skaergaard magma intrusion. Inland, team members crossed the entire Greenland ice sheet on dog sleds, enduring brutal Arctic storms.

Watkins’ brilliant campaign demonstrated that human tenacity and modern technology could master the harshest environments on Earth. Though Watkins would lose his life two years later hunting in a kayak at age 25, his British Arctic Air Route Expedition stands as one of the golden achievements of 20th-century exploration.