A second, and equally successful, AAP Mawson’s Huts Foundation work party expedition of eight persons visited the site between December 2000 and January 2001 as a follow-up of the 1997/98 expedition.

Works completed included:

• an assessment of works undertaken by the 1997/98 expedition, measurement of snow and ice build-up since the 1997/98 expedition inside the Living Section of the Main Hut and removal of approximately 190kg of snow and ice;
• removal of 8 tons of snow and ice inside the Workshop to gain access to the collar ties;
• calibration and reconfiguration of the monitoring equipment deployed inside the Main Hut;
• the addition of six short lengths of 50mm X 15mm battens over gaps between tongue and groove boards to the southern plane of the Main Hut roof in an attempt to reduce snow and meltwater ingress through the most visible location of this ingress;
• documentation and removal of post-BANZARE artefacts, including the remains of post-1950s occupation inside the Magnetograph House; a clean-up of the area between the 1978 Granholm Hut and the edge of Boat Harbour that involved cutting up and removing two large 1970s ‘Sealainers’ full of ice and rubbish, removing rusty fuel drums and removing rubbish from inside the Granholm Hut;
• continuation of site fabric investigations and artefact recording across the site, including surface moisture content measurements, snow and ice sampling for conductivity and chloride content analysis, wood sampling for deterioration analysis, and measurement of ambient light and ultra-violet radiation; and
• initial investigation of sub-floor conditions.

Work planned but not completed in 1997/98 and also not completed during this expedition included the repair of collar ties in the Workshop and the removal of the Granholm Hut from the Historic Site. A number of the rafters in the Workshop were found to have failed where they connected to the collar ties and repair was considered to be outside the scope of the expedition’s time and resources. It was considered by the expedition that the Granholm was a useful resource during the undertaking of significant works programs and should remain at least until completion of significant works.

Expedition members, in their reports, made a range of recommendations regarding potential future works, including repairing the Living Section roof to prevent snow and meltwater ingress and removing ice from the Main Hut, ongoing research, site recording and additional areas of monitoring.