Jean-Baptiste Charcot

Physician, Oceanographer and Polar Explorer · 1867–1936

Who is Jean-Baptiste Charcot?

Jean-Baptiste Charcot was a French physician, oceanographer, and polar explorer, born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, the son of the famous neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot. Trained in medicine, he abandoned a conventional career to pursue his lifelong passion for the sea, using his own inheritance to fund France's first Antarctic expedition (1903-1905) aboard the ship Français, followed by a second, better-equipped expedition (1908-1910) aboard the purpose-built Pourquoi-Pas?. These voyages charted extensive stretches of the Antarctic Peninsula coastline and conducted pioneering oceanographic, geological, and biological research, earning Charcot the nickname "the polar gentleman." As a boy, he had answered every doubter of his seafaring ambitions with the reply "Pourquoi pas?" ("Why not?"), a motto that became the name of all four ships he commanded across his career. He died when the fourth Pourquoi-Pas? sank in a storm off the coast of Iceland in 1936. His scientific groundwork helped establish the tradition of French Antarctic and sub-Antarctic research that the French Southern and Antarctic Lands administration continues today.

Sources: Jean-Baptiste Charcot, Le Français au pôle Sud: journal de l'expédition antarctique française 1903-1905 (Paris, 1906) · Ministère des Armées, Cols Bleus magazine, "L'épopée du Français et du Pourquoi Pas? Jean-Baptiste Charcot, le Polar Gentleman" · Wikipedia, "Jean-Baptiste Charcot"

Quotes by Jean-Baptiste Charcot

Pourquoi pas ?

“Why not?”

As a boy, Charcot answered every doubter of his ambition to become a sailor and polar explorer with this reply — he later named all four of his expedition ships Pourquoi-Pas?, including the one that carried French science into the southern and Antarctic seas.

Jean-Baptiste Charcot

Source: Jean-Baptiste Charcot, documented personal motto; Ministère des Armées, Cols Bleus magazine, "L'épopée du Français et du Pourquoi Pas? Jean-Baptiste Charcot, le Polar Gentleman"

Vent du nord dans la matinée, entraînant avec lui brume et pluie fine, toujours la fameuse boucaille.

“North wind in the morning, bringing with it mist and fine rain — always the notorious boucaille.”

A logbook entry from Charcot's first French Antarctic expedition, capturing the harsh, unpredictable weather ("boucaille" — a sailors' term for thick fog and drizzle) that defines the southern seas around territories such as Kerguelen and Crozet.

Jean-Baptiste Charcot

Source: Jean-Baptiste Charcot, Le Français au pôle Sud: journal de l'expédition antarctique française 1903-1905 (Paris, 1906)

Le bruit d'échappement de vapeur ou de formidable scie circulaire que fait quelque baleinoptère ou quelque mégaptère en venant respirer à la surface de l'eau.

“The sound of escaping steam, or of some great circular saw, made by a whale or a humpback as it comes up to breathe at the surface of the water.”

Charcot's field description of whales surfacing near his ship, part of the scientific observations gathered during France's early Antarctic and sub-Antarctic expeditions.

Jean-Baptiste Charcot

Source: Jean-Baptiste Charcot, Expédition antarctique française (1903-1905): sciences naturelles — documents scientifiques (Paris, Masson, 1906)