Nobu Shirase
An Antarctic explorer
Life
Birth and Death
1. Born July 20, 1861, Japan
2. He died September 4, 1946, ???
Early life
As a boy he was quite fond of polar exploration
Military conflicts punctuated his life and hampered his dreams
He was seven when Japan was convulsed by the civil Boshin War of 1868-69
In 1893-94 Shirase spent a year in the Alaskan Arctic on a covert military assignment
Story Of His Journey
When Japan's first expedition to the Antarctic sailed from Tokyo on December 1, 1910, only a handful of students watched the departure. Their vessel, the KAINAN MARU, was only 100 feet in length. The ship arrived at Wellington, New Zealand on February 7, 1911 and four days later departed for the Antarctic. Clawing their way south through the drifting bergs, the coast of Victoria Land was finally sighted on March 6. Scott and Amundsen were not the only ones racing to the south pole as Nobu and his team were also in the race, even though he did not win, he still went strong.