Tim Jarvis AM (b. 1966), environmental scientist, author and adventurer, was the Australian Geographic Society’s Adventurer of the Year in 2013 and its Conservationist of the Year in 2016 – the only person ever to have received both awards. Amongst his expeditions are the all-time fastest unsupported journey to the South Pole in 1999; the retracing of Sir Douglas Mawson’s starving and arduous polar journey in 1913, using the same gear, equipment and (scant) rations as Mawson, in 2007; and the retracing of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s 1500km ocean journey on the James Caird and his exploration of South Georgia’s mountainous interior, using the same rudimentary equipment, clothing and technology as Shackleton used, in 2013. Several of these journeys were recorded in documentary films. Jarvis’s books include The Unforgiving Minute and Mawson: Life and death in Antarctica; he is co-author of the academic volume The Frozen Planet, released alongside Sir David Attenborough’s television series of the same name. He regularly speaks about environmental issues relating to climate change and won the Bettison James Award for documentary filmmaking for 25Zero, about the world’s 25 melting equatorial glaciers, in 2016.
Gimesy photographed Jarvis on a glacier as they traversed sections of Shackleton’s route on South Georgia.
Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Purchased 2019
© Doug Gimesy
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