We are all familiar with stories of pirates, mysterious maps and buried treasure, but members of the Australian Antarctic Division and the Australian Archives have been searching for many months for clues to the whereabouts of the original Heard Island declaration, signed and buried in a canister on the island at Atlas Cove in 1947. The AAD intends to reinstate the declaration (or a facsimile of it) on the island and to include a copy in its historical records at Kingston.
The Australian Antarctic Division film archive contains footage of a group of men of the first ANARE standing by a flagpole erected in a tussocked mound as the declaration is read, inserted in a canister and buried beneath the flagpole. Members of the 2000–01 Atlas Cove summer party made a thorough search of the area and, though shifting volcanic sand has changed the topography, the original site of the flagpole was found. However there was no sign of the canister. Some word-of-mouth accounts hint that the declaration may have been dug up and souvenired from the mound soon after it was buried.
The declaration reads as follows:
Whereas in time past the sovereign rights of His Majesty in respect of Heard Island (lat 53° 10’S., long 73° 35’E.) and the McDonald Islands (lat 53° 05’S., long 72° 32’E.) have in divers manners been asserted and exercised:
AND WHEREAS His Majesty’s Government in the Commonwealth of Australia has authorised me to organise on behalf of His Majesty’s Government in the Commonwealth of Australia the effective occupation of these Islands:
Now therefore I, Stuart Alexander Caird Campbell, declare that His Majesty’s Government in the Commonwealth of Australia intends forthwith to continue the occupation of these Islands and to administer them as Australian Territories.
Given under my hand at Heard Island where this record is deposited
(Signed) Stuart Campbell
Date 26/12 47
If you have any information about the declaration and its whereabouts or fate, please contact the Australian Antarctic Division.