Adrien Victor Joseph de Gerlache de Gomery (2 August 1866-4 December 1934) was an officer in the Belgian Royal Navy , who led the Belgian Antarctic Expedition of 1897-1899.

Adrien de Gerlache

His early years

Born in Hasselt, Belgium, de Gerlache was educated in Brussels, Belgium. Studying Applied Science at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, he spend his holidays as a cabin boy on board transatlantic ocean liners. After graduating in 1885, he joined the Belgian Navy on 19 January 1886.

After graduating from the nautical college of Ostend as first lieutenant, he was assigned to the Belgique, a hydrography ship. It was while serving there that he came up with the plan to explore Antarctica.

The first expedition

In 1896, de Gerlache purchased the Norwegian-built whaling ship PATRIA, which following an extensive refit, he renamed the BELGICA. Together with a multinational crew which included Roald Amundsen and Frederick Cook, he set sail from Antwerp on 16 August 1897.

During January 1898, the BELGICA reached the coast of Graham Land. Sailing in between the Graham Land coast and a long string of islands to the west, de Gerlache named the passage Belgica Strait . Later, it was renamed Gerlache Strait in his honor. After charting and naming several islands during some 20 separate landings, they crossed the Antarctic Circle on 15 February 1898.

On 28 February 1898, de Gerlache's expedition became trapped in the ice. Despite efforts of the crew to free the ship, they quickly realised they would be forced to spend the winter on Antarctica. Several weeks later, on 17 May, total darkness set in, which lasted until 23 July. What followed were another 7 months of hardship trying to free the ship and its crew from the clutches of the ice. Several men lost their sanity, including one Belgian sailor who left the ship 'announcing he was going back to Belgium'. The party also suffered badly from scurvy.

Finally, on 15 February 1899, they managed to slowly start down a channel they had cleared during the weeks before. It took them nearly a month to cover 7 miles, and on 14 March they cleared the ice. The expedition returned to Antwerp on 5 November 1899.

In 1902, his book Quinze Mois dans l'Antarctique (published in 1901) is awarded by the Académie Française.

Later Life

de Gerlache participated in several other expeditions, including:

• a commercial and scientific expedition to the Persian Gulf (1901)
• the Antarctica expedition of Jean-Baptiste Charcot , which he abandons before they reach Antarctica due to the bad atmosphere on board (1903)
• Expedition to the Greenland Sea on board the BELGICA (1905)
• Expedition to the Barents Sea and Kara Sea (1907)
• Expedition to Greenland, Spitsbergen and the Frans-Jozef archipelago onboard the BELGICA (1909)

He had two children with his first wife, Suzanne Poulet , whom he married in 1904: Philippe (1906) and Marie-Louise (1908). After this marriage ended in 1913, de Gerlache married Elisabeth Höjer from Sweden. With her, he had another son, Gaston de Gerlache in 1919. In the 1950's, Gaston followed in his fathers' footsteps, participating in a Belgian research station on the Antarctic.

Adrien de Gerlache died in Brussels, Belgium on 4 December 1934 of paratyphoid .