Captain Scott
Oates, unable to continue and unwilling to hold back his companions, left the tent in a blizzard on 17 March with the legendary words, recorded by Scott in his diary, “I am just going outside and may be some time”
who was beaten to the North Pole by American Robert Peary (in the 1898-1902 expedition), had now switched his attention to the South Pole. Scott pressed on. The story of what happened next usually focuses on the
race to the Pole. In fact, Scott and his men spent 1911 carrying out detailed research projects as well as laying supply depots for the fateful journey. Scott, in a party of 25, was based at Cape Evans, Ross Island, where they erected their extensive ‘hut’, jam-packed with scientific apparatus, telephones, stores, bunks in the ‘Tenements’, even a pianola and gramophone. All the while they gathered information from
landscape and fascination was intense. From the 1890s, the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, teams from numerous countries mounted expeditions to undertake research, with the ultimate prize, in the imaginations of the public at least, of being first to reach the South Pole. You can still clamber around RRS Discovery at Dundee where she was built and share the story of Scott’s groundbreaking first expedition. “Over 500 new kinds of marine animals were
discovered,” says Kim Adamson of Dundee Heritage Trust. “The 1901–4 expedition was the first to sight an Emperor Penguin rookery and obtain an egg of the species. Many hundreds of miles of unknown coast, towering mountain ranges and glaciers were mapped. Invaluable magnetic measurements, auroral observations and seismic recordings were made.” The team had pushed further south – 82º11’ – than any
human being before them and Scott returned a national hero. He was promoted to Captain and wrote of his adventures in The Voyage of the Discovery. In 1909, a group led by Ernest Shackleton, who had
travelled with Scott’s 1904 expedition, reached the magnetic South Pole, getting to within 100 miles of the South Pole. Competition was hotting up and Scott announced the British Antarctic Expedition 1910 to claim the South Pole for Britain. Aside from the ultimate trophy, a comprehensive scientific programme was planned. The explorers, funded by Government and public
contributions, sailed on the Terra Nova, a whaler that had acted as a relief ship during the 1901–4 adventure. On their journey south Scott received distressing news that the veteran Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen,
www.britain-magazine.com BRITAIN 41
meteorological stations. Expedition photographer Herbert Ponting captured his dazzling icy images and Dr Edward Wilson worked on his magnificent watercolours. Wilson also led the winter trek to Cape Crozier to gather Emperor Penguin eggs, immortalised as The Worst Journey in the World by his colleague Apsley Cherry-Garrard. In November 1911, Captain Scott set out for the South
Pole, tackling the final 150-mile stretch from 4 January 1912 with just four companions: Dr Wilson, Captain Laurence Oates, Lieutenant ‘Birdie’ Bowers and Petty Officer Edgar Evans. It was to be an arduous, soul-sapping endeavour through terrible blizzards. Scott had decided against taking dogs, intending to use
ponies and motorised sledges, then to heroically man-haul the sledges for the ultimate leg of the journey. “Surely in this case the conquest is more nobly and splendidly won,” he wrote. But the motorised sledges failed, the ponies
Clockwise from main: Dr Edward Wilson sketching at Beardmore Glacier, 13 December 1911; Captain Laurence Oates; Captain Scott in the Ross Island hut; Scott Expedition Royal Mail stamps
PHOTO: LITTLE, BROWN
PHOTO: © H PONTING PHOTOGRAPH, PENNELL COLLECTION, CANTERBURY MUSEUM NZ 1975.289.35 (1)
PHOTO: THE OATES COLLECTION
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