In New Zealand and "other southern hemispheric nations, the geographical proximity of the Antarctic has meant that this is a part of the world that commands considerably more importance than would be accorded to it by northern hemispheric counterparts" (Dodds 1997:2). Dodds argues that geographical indicators such as proximity and geological continuity are employed to justify and explain polar interests to public audiences in the Southern Hemisphere. However, the historical and Cultural legacies of polar exploration and commerce are usually taken for granted by political leaders and the general public, so that while many citizens in the southern hemisphere can recall the names of famous explorers and/or expeditions, there is often little critical appreciation of what motivated claims to polar territory or to participation in scientific programmes such as the 1957-58 IGY. As Dodds "...the geographical proximity of the Antarctic has exercised a powerful (1997:xi) states: hold on the collective and individual geographical imaginations of those Southern Hemisphere nations". The discovery of New Zealand by European explorers is closely linked to the search for the last continent. When Abel Tasman reached the North Island of New Zealand in 1642, he "discovered" one of the last and most significant landmasses still to be discovered by Europeans. In the 1770s, Captain James Cook circumnavigated New Zealand and the "ghost of this continent was finally laid to rest" (Simpson-Housley 1992:7). "New Zealand's discovery by the European world was the undoing of the Terra Australis myth and from its beginnings 'New Zealand' was intertwined with what was to become 'Antarctica"' (Gee 199814). In New Zealand and "other southern hemispheric nations, the geographical proximity of the Antarctic has meant that this is a part of the world that commands considerably more importance than would be accorded to it by northern hemispheric counterparts" (Dodds 1997:2). Dodds argues that geographical indicators such as proximity and geological continuity are employed to justify and explain polar interests to public audiences in the Southern Hemisphere. However, the historical and Cultural legacies of polar exploration and commerce are usually taken for granted by political leaders and the general public, so that while many citizens in the southern hemisphere can recall the names of famous explorers and/or expeditions, there is often little critical appreciation of what motivated claims to polar territory or to participation in scientific programmes such as the 1957-58 IGY. As Dodds "...the geographical proximity of the Antarctic has exercised a powerful (1997:xi) states: hold on the collective and individual geographical imaginations of those Southern Hemisphere nations". The discovery of New Zealand by European explorers is closely linked to the search for the last continent. When Abel Tasman reached the North Island of New Zealand in 1642, he "discovered" one of the last and most significant landmasses still to be discovered by Europeans. In the 1770s, Captain James Cook circumnavigated New Zealand and the "ghost of this continent was finally laid to rest" (Simpson-Housley 1992:7). "New Zealand's discovery by the European world was the undoing of the Terra Australis myth and from its beginnings 'New Zealand' was intertwined with what was to become 'Antarctica"' (Gee 199814).