The first scientist to explore the interior of New Guinea was the young Russian Nicolai Mikluho Maclay, who in 1871-2 spent 15 months around Astrolabe Bay in what is now Papua New Guinea. Maclay later spent four months at Triton Bay in western New Guinea.]
In 1876, the colorful, and indomitable, D'Albertis led an expedition in the Neva, a small riverboat, eventually traveling 930 kilometers up the Fly River, which begins on the southern coast of eastern New Guinea and loops north to barely touch the edge of present-day West Papua. His crew nearly mutinied, he beat a Chinese assistant to death, and he continually terrorized the people whose land he passed through by launching fireworks over their river. He was a singular individual, and perhaps thankfully so.
The Dutch explore West Papua's interior
At the beginning of the 20th century, after a late start, Holland unleashed a veritable flood of exploration: 140 expeditions to the interior between 1900 and 1930. The most important of these were military-sponsored missions that began in 1907. At times the parties included over 800 men and had budgets totaling millions of guilders. Blanks on the map were quickly filled in and the newly discovered peaks took the names of Dutch royalty.
In 1905, the Dutch steamer Valk chugged 560 kilometers up the Digul River's winding course from the south coast, a distance of only 227 kilometers as the crow flies. A new snow-crested peak was sighted and dubbed Wilhelmina Top (now Trikora) in honor of the Dutch queen. Other expeditions steamed up the Mappi River to a lake of the same name, then onto the Eilanden (Islands) River—now Pulau Pulau—and its tributaries, the Vriendschaps (Friendship) and Wildeman.
While the upriver jaunts were relatively comfortable, overland treks to the central highlands tested the mettle of the toughest explorers, and the logistics of keeping such teams supplied were mind-boggling. The high glacier fields, and snow-capped peaks were the most challenging sites to explore, not so much because of the mountaineering skills required (the Himalayas, Andes and even the Alps require greater technical proficiency), but because of the effort required simply to arrive at the base of the mountains. As was the case earlier, it was the British who spurred the Dutch into action. Competition with the British Ornithologists' Union led to a race to the untrodden equatorial snows of the Lorentz Range in south-central West Papua.
A race to the peaks
Both the British and Dutch teams found that the best porters were muscular Dayaks from the island of Borneo. Quite a few were sent to West Papua, most of them having been jailed by the colonial government for head-hunting. The Dayaks were accustomed to the cool climate of the highlands. But if Dayak porters were equally available to all comers, fair play stopped there. Taking advantage of their bureaucracy, the Dutch held up the British teams with stacks of paperwork.
The Sea Gull was the first airplane to fly in New Guinea, leaving Port Moresby in 1922. It was flown by Andrew Lang, and rigger Alex Hill and photographer Frank Hurley (below) came along on the expedition. Photographs courtesy of the American Museum of Natural History.
The Dutch left the competition filling out forms and set out from West Papua's south coast in 1909. Led by Dr. H. A. Lorentz—who proclaimed "I shall be first on the snow"—they eventually reached the snowline of Wilhelmina Top (now Trikora). Each of the 82 Dayak porters was rewarded by a tattoo showing a snow-capped mountain and a dragon, to symbolize the hardships. The British finally obtained their permits and gave chase, reaching an elevation of 4,532 meters before turning back. Neither team made the summit.
In 1913, a group led by Dutch Captain Franssen Herderschee finally scaled Wilhelmina Top's 4,743 meters. The Dayak porters celebrated with a snowball fight.
Carstensz Top (now Puncak Jaya), West Papua's highest peak, remained for some time the most obvious challenge. In 1913, Wollaston had reached the snows of the Sudirman Range, but no one had yet climbed the higher peaks. Prodded by rumors of yet another British expedition in 1937, national Dutch pride was aroused and an expedition was quickly launched.
By the time an attempt was finally made on the Carstensz, logistics had improved considerably. The first airplane had flown out of Port Moresby in 1922, and in 1926, a Dutch-American team became the first expedition to rely on air transport, using the seaplane Ern. In 1936, the Dutch pilot Lieutenant F. J. Wissel discovered, from his plane, the Paniai Lakes which for a while bore his name.
The Dutch were now ready for Carstensz Toppen, named after the first white man to sight it and report snows in the tropics in 1623. The toppen is a series of peaks, some ten of which are higher than 4,700 meters high. The explorers misidentified a peak called Ngga Pulu (4,860m.) as the highest of the lot, and this was their goal.
After Wissel's aerial reconnaissance in an amphibian Sikorski, the expedition, led by Dr. A. H. Colijn, plotted a course from the south coast. Once the party was underway, Wissel made two supply drops by parachute then paddled upriver himself to catch up with the group. On December 5th, 1936, after a four-hour climb from the base camp, they reached the peak. The mountaineers celebrated by devouring a tin of marzipan.
Unfortunately, Ngga Pulu was not Carstensz' highest peak, and Puncak Jaya, at 4,884 meters, was not scaled until 1962 by the Austrian Heinrich Harrer.
Explorers of the Paniai Lakes region, posing with Ekagi men. The explorers, left to right: F.J. Wissel, Jean-Jacques Dozy, and Dr. De Hartog.
The Meervlakte
While the explorations of the highlands proceeded apace, other teams made their way inland from West Papua's north coast. The only logical route was up the Mamberamo River, navigable for over 150 kilometers.
In 1909, Captain Franssen Herderschee (who later climbed Wilhelmina) ascended the short stretch of rapids through the Van Rees Mountains and reached a large crescent-shaped basin that he dubbed the Meervlakte, or "Lake Plains."
The basin is formed by the Taritatu River (formerly Idenburg), which flows from the Jayawijaya Range (Oranje) in the east, and the Tariku River (Rouffaer), coming from the Sudirman Range (Nassau) in the west. The two rivers unite to form the Mamberamo.
Although several expeditions subsequently also reached the Mamberamo, the upper reaches of the Taritatu remained uncharted until the 1950s.
By the 1920s, monstrously large teams of up to 800 men (mostly porters) headed inland, supplied by flying boats. They did not always meet with a warm welcome from their hosts, and aviators tell of arrows bouncing off their fuselage.
The ice fields at Ngga Pulu, once thought to be the highest of Carstenz Toppen's many craggy tops.
The Baliem Valley discovered
The discovery of the Baliem Valley in 1938 by American explorer Richard Archbold was the grand prize of New Guinea's exploration. Peering from a giant seaplane dubbed the Guba, Archbold was the first white man to lay eyes on the jewel of the highlands, a fabulous 60 by 15 kilometer valley.
The 50,000 Dani living in the valley had at this time had no previous contact with the outside world. A couple of Dutch expeditions had passed close, but missed this rare pocket of flat, arable land—the highlands' largest and most fertile. Surveying the scene from his plane, Archbold described the valley's neat geometric gardens and irrigation ditches as being "like the farming country
