Local Antarctic explorer focus of new book

WILSON McOrist’s latest book, The Boy from Long Gully tells the story of an unsung hero of early twentieth century Antarctic exploration.

Richard Richards was born in Long Gully in 1894 and was educated at Bendigo High School, and worked as a science teacher, before joining renowned explorer Ernest Shackleton on an expedition to Antarctica in 1914.

McOrist, who has previously written on Shackleton, wrote The Boy from Long Gully as a tribute to Richards, and said he believes he was as heroic as Australian Antarctic explorer Douglas Mawson.

“Yes, Douglas Mawson was an Antarctic hero, but this guy ranks up with him,” McOrist said.

Mawson is most well-known for being the sole survivor of a three-man party investigating unexplored regions of the continent from 1911 to 1914 and contributed much to Australian geology in the 1900s.

In a separate mission in 1914, Richards was part of a food depot laying party with five Englishmen, placing supplies for Shackleton’s team on the Imperial Trans-Antarctic expedition, the last major trek of the Heroic Age of Antarctic exploration.

When Shackleton’s boat was destroyed, the expedition took a turn with the party never trekking across to meet up with Richards’ ream.

“The story is quite dramatic, one Australian, this boy from Long Gully called Dick Richards and five Englishmen, they get caught by a blizzard in their 350-mile trip back to safety,” McOrist said.

“Richards, even though he’s only 22 years old, seems to take over a leadership role with one of the Englishmen, and managed to save all their lives,” McOrist said.

Leading the party when conditions became life-threatening, Richards steered the group and helped rescue three of the men when they became lost in the snow.

McOrist said he read through the men’s diaries and was captivated by the explorers’ attitudes as they faced blizzards and food shortages.

“They ran out of food after a day-and-a-half and then their fuel ran out so they couldn’t even melt ice to have a drink of water, but their demeanour doesn’t seem to change,” he said.

“They never seem to get angry, they never blame anyone else, they just matter-of-factly get on with what they’ve got to do.”

McOrist said Richards went relatively unknown because he wasn’t the leader of the expedition, however his tale of decision making and survival prowess place him among Australia’s greatest explorers.

To purchase The Boy from Long Gully head to bit.ly/3tnwXd6.