The man who wrote the Australian Antarctic manual for husky team training has welcomed the commemoration of the dogs' critical roles on maps.

The Antarctic Place Names Committee is naming 26 islands, rocks and reefs after the beloved dogs, that were depended on during Australia's heroic era of ice exploration a century ago, and had a role into the 1990s.

The dogs were all on Douglas Mawson's Australasian Antarctic Expedition (AAE) of 1911-14, but the naming is a tribute to all the huskies that underpinned Australian exploration in the icy continent.

Rod Ledingham, former husky trainer, warns it was unwise, but unavoidable, to have a favourite dog. ( ABC News: David Robertson )

Rod Ledingham detailed "the fine art of dog driving" in a manual and in lectures, to countless Australian Antarctic expeditioners and scientists from the 1970s, after training and running teams for the UK.

Mr Ledingham said dogs had been critical to exploring the Antarctica, up until they were removed in 1994.

"They were the mainstay of exploration. From 1898 they were brought in ... and there were a lot of dogs between 1930s and '50s," he said.

"They were the main form of transport for us [back in the 1960s) — light aircraft and dogs — and that was a good way of working in mountainous country.

Many features of Cape Denison will now have the names of huskies. ( Supplied: Dean Lewins AAD )

"We could always find somewhere to land, and we would fly the dogs in, the sledges and food ... and the aircraft would go ahead and put depots in.

"So you could travel from one depot to another and pick up your food as you went."

Mr Ledingham recalled one of his lead dogs, Sugar.

"Most of the leaders were female," he said.

"They were easier to train, more sensible, and didn't spend their time growling at the one another like the males did.

"There was even a team of all ladies, it was called 'The Ladies', 11 females that were a very good team."

Husky dogs hitched up on Mawson's expedition 1911-14. ( Supplied: Frank Hurley )

He said companionship could be as important as their working roles.

"On the base, you feed them every second day, [you] brought out the seal [meat], and gave them a pat.

"A lot of them were pretty well pets. You couldn't pet them too much, or the other ones would attack them.

"Better to make sure you didn't have an obvious favourite, but of course you did.

"Some were delightful, and some were cranky, and sneak up and bite you on the arse when you weren't looking."

Mr Ledingham said on Mawson's expedition one of the expeditioners used a dog called Shackleton to fetch the expeditioners' meat, stored under the hut in a narrow space.

"Hurley used to put Shackleton down the hole, and Shackleton would come running out with a leg of lamb or a piece of seal ... and then Hurley would try to catch it, and quite often he didn't."

Unloading huskies at Commonwealth Bay during the 1911-14 expedition. ( Supplied: Percy Gray )

Mr Ledingham estimated nearly 1,000 dogs were used by expeditions or scientists associated with Australia.

Sometimes the dogs were on the menu, and some expeditions planned to eat the dogs they took.

"Mawson didn't intend to eat his dogs, but they had to of course, after the main team went down a crevasse.

"On the way back they ate the four dogs they had."

Mr Ledingham believes if it wasn't for the dogs, Mawson probably would have died, as the survivors of the tragedy did not have enough food to make it back.

Sites near Mawson's Huts named after huskies

Australian Antarctic Placenames committee chair Gillian Slocum said the huskies honoured in the naming served alongside Mawson and his men.

A number of features near Cape Denison where Mawson's expedition was based have been named after the huskies.

"Its a really good reflection of the important role huskies have played, both back in the heroic era with Mawson and in more recent times as well," she said.

Gillian Slocum and Rod Ledingham with Tom, who during his life served in the Antarctic. ( ABC News: David Robertson )

"We looked at where there were some unnamed features around Mawson's Hut where we could name them after the huskies.

"Some are named after prominent people who the expeditioners had an affiliation with.

"We have Pavlova, after the Russian dancer Anna Pavlova; Mary after Queen Mary who was the queen at the time; Switzerland, after the home country of one of the expeditioners; and we've got Devil Rock after a particularly ferocious husky.

"Lots of great names and we have a real reflection of the types of personalities and interests of the expeditioners of the time."

Mackellar Islands will also get some new names. ( Supplied: Frank Stillwell )

Other huskies were named after royalty, explorers, sporting champions, singers, comedians and Greek mythology lend their names to features such as Mary Island, Caruso Rock, Jeffries Rock and Franklin Reef.

Ms Slocum said the latitude and longitude of each feature was confirmed when they were named.

"The approved name, coordinates and a narrative describing the feature are recorded in the Australian Antarctic Gazetteer and Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) Composite Gazetteer of Antarctica."

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Naming will create 'permanent fixture'

Mr Ledingham said the renaming would keep their contribution alive.

"Its an excellent idea. They have been honoured in other ways, with statues and so on, and its a great idea to put their names on the maps," he said.

"It's a permanent fixture and everyone will look up and ask 'why is it called that?'"

He said it was inevitable the dogs were gone, and Australia signed a treaty to remove them and shipped out the used its last huskies in 1994.

"People [now] rush down there, [by] aircraft, jump off, run about for three weeks, and do a program, and back home," he said.

"[They're using] modern machinery as well, skidoos, quads and so on, but they [the dogs] did last until 1994, but they did tend to become more recreational at the end."