In 1996 a man walking on an isolated isthmus on an isolated island deep in the Antarctic was startled by a noise. Looking up, he saw coming towards him a large, round orange ball, with windows in it. The man was Sir Guy Green, Governor of Tasmania. The object was a Tasmanian-manufactured Wallhead Igloo, a trusted human living and working module for sub-polar regions, being delivered to Macquarie Island by helicopter. The story of the igloo's invention, construction and global marketing has just been released as a book, published by Forty South Publishing. So when, in November, 2022, Sir Guy Green officially launched the book at Hobart Bookshop, much of the research for his speech came from memory and personal anecdote. This is his launch speech. 

For all its interesting features and stark beauty, Antarctica is not designed for human beings. The essential quality of the igloo is that it carves a sphere out of the unforgiving Antarctic environment and creates a refuge in which people can live, sleep, eat and work. It is that quality that converts the igloos from being mere pieces of Antarctic equipment into human artefacts with emotional associations for all those who encounter them.

~ Sir Guy Green, November 10, 2022

Early in 1996 I was walking on the isthmus at the northern end of Macquarie Island, enveloped in the othwerwordly atmosphere of that extraordinary sub-Antarctic outpost of Tasmania. Suddenly, the atmosphere became even more otherworldly when I heard a thrumming sound, looked up and was startled to see floating above me a shiny orange sphere with large portholes peering down at me.

As it turned out, what I was experiencing was not a close encounter with an alien space craft but my introduction to one of the fibreglass igloo satellite cabins that are the subject of the book we are launching today. The one I saw was suspended beneath a helicopter that was carrying it to a remote location in the southern part of Macquarie Island where it would provide living and working space for scientists and Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife staff.

The history of these igloos started with Malcolm Wallhead’s design for a portable fibreglass cabin inspired by a curious but fascinating publication called the Last Whole Earth Catalog, which I well remember intriguing me when I first came across it in the 1970s.

A business was established to manufacture and market these igloos, initially run by Malcolm and his wife Anthea – the author of this book – and later, following Malcom’s death in 2000, by Anthea in association with Penguin Composites.

Following discussions with the Australian Antarctic Division’s field equipment officer, Rod Ledingham, in October 1982, the first igloo field hut was manufactured and delivered to the division, transported to Antarctica and located near Davis station. It is a tribute to its durability that it remains there to this day.

The story of the igloos epitomises some of Tasmania’s most valuable assets and distinctive qualities as a society.

Going right back the great contributions they made to the 1851 Crystal Palace Exhibition in London, Tasmanians have been responsible for a truly remarkable list of inventions and innovations of global significance. They include the ordinary notepad (a humble device but since its invention used by billions of people throughout the world), the humidicrib, portable sheep yards, rapidly deployable life raft systems, Incat’s large high-speed wave piercing vessels, and scores of others

The Wallhead igloo satellite cabin rightly takes its place in the vanguard of that impressive list.

Their reach first took on global dimensions at 4.30 one morning in 1986 when Anthea received an unexpected phone call. It was the director of the Scott Polar Research Institute in the UK. He was aware of the time difference but said that he thought that perhaps they would like to know that the institute had decided to order one of their igloos for use as a research station in the Arctic. His suggestion that “perhaps they might like to know” about this decision was a classic piece of British understatement. It was not only the first export order for an igloo they had received but it was made by one of the most prestigious polar research institutes in the world and, in contrast to the orders they had received until then which had been confined to Antarctica, this one was destined for the far north. That export order turned out to be the first of many.

In the years that followed, 215 igloos have been sold in 19 countries on six continents.

The extent of their penetration of the market has not just been geographical. The igloos have also been instrumental in bringing Tasmania to the attention of distinguished institutions all over the world. As well as the Scott Polar Research Institute, they include the United States Marine Mammal Laboratory in Seattle, the German Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, the French Polar Institute Paul-Émile Victor, the German Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources, the National Science Foundation in the US, the Norwegian Polar Research Institute and museums in Canada, France, Estonia, Ireland, Australia and the US, including the famous American Museum of Natural History in New York.

Being highly photogenic, the igloos have also become icons which have spread the Tasmanian brand around the world. They have been depicted in calendars, postcards, badges, labels, stickers and postage stamps and a large number of Tasmanian, national and overseas newspapers, magazines and books, and they have starred in TV news and science documentaries.

. . .

The story of the igloos also provides an instructive and interesting case study in marketing. Reduced to its simplest terms, the purpose of marketing is to identify the requirements of a market and provide products which satisfy those requirements. But the story told in this book demonstrates that when marketing innovative products like the igloo, things are more nuanced both from the point of view of the supplier and the customer.

Those who attended the Polar Technology Expo held in Hobart in 1988 were typically interested in things like traversing equipment, polar air services, communications, clothing, electricity generation and the like.

But like the famous saga of 3M’s yellow post-it stickers (which are said to have solved a problem nobody knew existed), I think that many of those who attended the expo didn’t know they needed a Wallhead Igloo until they saw a Wallhead igloo. In the nine months following the Hobart expo, orders for 13 igloos to six polar institutes were generated.

The converse has applied to the suppliers as well. Although the igloos were conceived as portable cabins to provide shelter in polar conditions, they have also been adapted for purposes as diverse as field huts for the observation of birds and wildlife in national parks, a control base for Outback searches, fire watchtowers, armed forces medivac units, laboratories, housing equipment for TV documentaries and living quarters for Alpine resorts and a mining company.

Perhaps the most unusual use to which they have been put, which to me borders on the bizarre, came in 2017 when Google ordered four igloos in the corporate colours of red, yellow, green and blue to be used as small meeting rooms inside the shiny new offices they were constructing in Zurich – perhaps a small act of defiance by the architects against the fashionable trend to open plan offices.

This book records the many challenges faced in developing and bringing the igloos to market: finding suitable packaging for these somewhat unusually shaped products, delivering igloos to a variety of destinations using a variety of methods of transport on sea, air and land, securing intellectual property rights in the igloos and their design, negotiating thickets of export and customs regulatory requirements, and dealing with not always reliable transport providers.

One of the problems encountered was complaints about the components of igloos not fitting properly. It was not through any failure in manufacture but because the engineers assembling the igloos regarded themselves as being above doing anything so pedestrian as to actually read the instructions which came with the unit and persisted in tightening the bolts joining the panels of the igloo as they went. Had they read the instructions, they would have seen that they should leave the bolts untightened until the end.

This reminds me of some DIY enthusiasts I know.

Malcolm and Anthea Wallhead have made important contributions in two other ways. As well as publicising Tasmania and its brand through their company, they have helped to reinforce the network and enrich the culture of those involved in Antarctic science, operations, technology and services in Tasmania which are such important Tasmanian assets. They were inaugural members of what became the Tasmanian Polar Network. At first some Antarctic companies were not entirely convinced of the value of such an association, but Malcolm helped lift their horizons so that they came to appreciate that it was more than just an industry association – an organisation that promoted and gave voice to the whole Tasmanian Antarctic community, academic, business and government.

Anthea Wallhead also gave the organisation its name. Originally it was proposed to call it the Tasmanian Antarctic Network but its acronym of TAN didn’t quite work. Not only is there not a lot of sunbaking in Antarctica but the name unnecessarily restricted its scope to Antarctica, so Anthea’s suggestion that it be called the Tasmanian Polar Network was adopted.

The other contribution was by starting a Tasmania Antarctic magazine called Ice Breaker. With the help of their sons Robert and Peter, Malcolm and Anthea published this journal of useful and interesting Antarctic news and information for 15 years.

This book touches many aspects of the story of the igloo cabins. But towards the end of the book there is a vignette which reminds us of what is perhaps their most distinctive quality.

At an international Antarctic conference held in Hobart, a red igloo was part of a display of Antarctic equipment organised by the Tasmanian Polar Network. Upon seeing it, an American delegate exclaimed in delighted recognition and rushed over and embraced it.

For all its interesting features and stark beauty, Antarctica is not designed for human beings. The essential quality of the igloo is that it carves a sphere out of the unforgiving Antarctic environment and creates a refuge in which people can live, sleep, eat and work.

It is that quality that converts the igloos from being mere pieces of Antarctic equipment into human artefacts with emotional associations for all those who encounter them. It was to that quality which the American delegate was responding with such enthusiasm.

This well-written work, replete with detailed information and evocative pictures, is a fine history of the inspiring saga of the development of the igloos and their transition from a bush block in Kettering, Tasmania, to Antarctica and  the world.     

It is with great pleasure that I launch Igloo Ripples.

Sir Guy Stephen Montague Green, AC, KBE, CVO, born in Launceston, is a retired judge who served as the Governor of Tasmania from 1995 to 2003. He was the first Tasmanian-born governor of the state.