Recreating Shackleton's journey

A group of Australian and British explorers is about to recreate Sir Ernest Shackleton's 1916 trans-Antarctic voyage, one of the greatest journeys of human survival ever made. I wrote about the expedition as part of a piece about following in the footsteps of the famous for the Guardian's Comment is free pages.

The 2013 voyage, led by British-born Tim Jarvis, aims to row the same route as Shackleton in a replica seven-metre lifeboat, navigating with a sextant and  even eating the same food as the original team. However, lack of space prevented me from mentioning that this isn't the first time someone has tried to retrace the route. Crossings were made in 1955 and 1994,  while in 1997 a crew of Irishmen had to give up their attempt after capsizing three times in 24 hours. A few years later, mountaineers Conrad Anker, Reinhold Messner and Stephen Venables trekked across the mountains and glaciers of South Georgia for the Imax film, Shackleton's Antarctic Adventure. No doubt there have been other attempts.

Jarvis' venture though appears to be to a genuine attempt to recreate the entire 1916 'double' voyage from Elephant Island all the way to Stromness, on South George. It is fraught with danger and the only concessions to the use of period items will be emergency equipment on board the boat, and the presence of a support vessel, Australis in the Southern Ocean. You can of course follow the progress of the trip via twitter: @ShackletonEpic.

1912: The year the World Discovered Antarctica

While the past year has seen a whole series of events to mark the centenary of Captain Scott's death in Antarctica, few are aware that his expedition was just one of five exploring the continent in 1912. Of course there was Roald Amundsen's Norwegian South Pole expedition but there was also a Japanese team led by Nobu Shirase, a German one led by Wilhelm Filchner and Douglas Mawson's Australasian Antarctic enterpise.

The story of the five teams can be found in a new book, 1912: The Year the World Discovered Antarctica, by Chris Turney. Not all were there to ‘race to the pole’, but rather their aims were to map the continent and record what they found. It is these scientific achievements that Turney champions in the book.

The first chapters are devoted to the early history of Antarctic exploration and the scene is set for 1912 with Ernest Shackleton’s expedition of 1907-09 that came close to reaching the South Pole. Naturally there is the familiar tale of the Scott and Amundsen rivalry, but Turney provides good summaries of the events, covering all perspectives.
 
It is the lesser know expeditions that are most fascinating though. The Japanese ‘Dash Patrol’ encountered indifference at home, hostility (at least at first) in Australia and the team had little polar experience. Their first attempt at getting to the continent had to abandoned, as the news report below (not from the book) explains.

Manchester Guardian, May 7 1911

However, they tried again the following year and this time were more successful. They found volcanic rock samples on King Edward VII Land that supported the idea of rifting in the Earth's crust, as well as charting new territory. Much important oceanographic work was carried out by Wilhelm Filcher’s German party although the expedition was marked by mutiny and discontent while the ship was trapped in sea ice for eight months.

As for the Australasian expedition, Turney writes: 'Mawson's venture gave the world its first complete scientific snapshot of the new continent’.  Their meteorological work showed how weather systems in Antarctica could have an impact on conditions in the rest of the world, while geologist Edgeworth David disproved the theory that Antarctica and New Zealand had once been connected by a land bridge, laying the groundwork for the theory of plate tectonics. But that’s not to forget  Mawson’s unbelievable feat of endurance that included having to strap the frozen soles of his feet back on each day with Lanolin, during the desperate trek back to Cape Denison after surveying King V Land.

Manchester Guardian,  February 27 1914

In the final chapter, Turney, a professor of climate change, goes into greater detail about the scientific findings of the expeditions. He also reveals that Scott’s death may partly have been the result of a food shortage - caused by the final returning party, led by Teddy Evans, his second-in-command, eating more than their fair share of food.  This may well have been the case although other polar historians have written about the desperate state of Evans’ party which could explain the need to break into the supplies.  

Chris Turney strikes the right balance between telling the stories of these unique characters and writing about the science in an accessible way - while maintaining a sense of adventure throughout the book. On top of this, he enlivens the text by peppering the chapters with newspaper reports from the time, and anecdotes from his own visits to Antarctica. A fine addition to the polar exploration library.

Scott's last expedition (Part II)

Fashion designer Nigel Cabourn's latest creation is the Scott's Last Expedition Collection. It includes garments named after explorers on the British Antarctic Expedition 1910. For example, there is the Henry Robertson 'Birdie' Bowers Deck Jacket, the Oates Roll Neck Sweater, or the impressive looking Apsley Cherry-Garrard Expedition boot.

Cabourn explains the concept in an accompanying book:

The persistence and courage of the 5 explorers who perished due to extreme weather conditions has inspired me to created the Nigel Cabourn Authentic Limited Edition 2 Winter 2012 Collection. The 12 garments in this collection are inspired entirely by this fantastic expedition   and produced in the United Kingdom with British fabrics where possible.

Modelling some of the clothes is Ben Fogle who recently presented a BBC documentary on The Secrets of Scott's Hut. 

If you're into heritage clothing then these rather attractive garments are for you -  just remember that it's a limited edition with just 100 pieces of the outerwear.

Scott's last expedition

I finally made it to Scott's last expedition, the Antarctica exhibition at London's Natural History Museum. It closes on 2 September but I'll recommend it anyway. The exhibition features a wide range of personal items, photographs and some of the 40,000 scientific specimens brought back by Scott's team, as well as videos and a life-sized representation of the Cape Evans hut.

It's an impressive collection and certainly sheds light on the often overlooked scientific aspect of the Terra Nova expedition. Perhaps a little more effort could have gone into making the hut feel like the real thing but at least it showed just how cramped the base was.

Plenty of polar exploration books were on sale but Roland Huntford's titles appeared to be missing. All a bit odd, particularly as the introduction to the exhibition acknowledges the various revisions of Scott's character - and the aim to look at the expedition from all angles. Good to see though that by far the best seller (at least in terms of books left  on the shelves) was Apsley Cherry-Garrard's, The Worst Journey in the World.

The journey in question was of course the quest to secure an unhatched Emperor penguin, something that had to made in the middle of the winter. Cherry-Garrard recounts in the book reaction of the Natural History Museum when he turned up in 1913 to deliver the three eggs he had brought back from the Antarctic:

However,  as reported in the Manchester Guardian, the  museum didn't entirely agree with this version of events:

Manchester Guardian, 12 December 1922

December 14 1911: Roald Amundsen reaches the south pole

On 14 December 1911, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and his team became the first people to reach the South Pole. The Guardian and Observer reported it - but not until three months later. Read the articles on the From the archive blog.

Douglas Mawson on Twitter

The diary entries of polar exlorer Sir Douglas Mawson can now be read on Twitter, one hundred years afer the Australian set out to explore Antarctica's King George V Land. The Tasmanian Department of Economic Development and Tourism, as part of Antarctic Centennial Year, is doing the tweeting. Given though that Mawson was a prolific diary writer it must a challenge to distill his words down to 140 characters. At this stage the expedition is still loading supplies in London.

The publishing of old diaries on Twitter is hardly a new idea as Captain Scott's appeared back in 2009. However, there is a Mawson link with communication technology as he was involved in establishing the first Antarctic wireless radio connection, linking Hobart via a radio relay station established at Wireless Hill on Macquarie Island.

On this day - January 17 1912: Scott reaches the south pole

The obvious event to mark on January 17 is the arrival of Captain Scott at the South Pole. He may have written in his diary "Great God! This is an awful place," but that hasn't stopped scores of people, particularly over the past few decades, wanting to repeat the famous journey.

However, with next year seeing the 100th anniversary of the race to the pole (Roald Amundsen's Norwegian team got there first on December 14 1911), an unprecedented number of adventurers are heading to Antarctica. According to a report in the New York Times, some people plan to ski the exact routes taken by Scott and Amundsen, while others will travel to the pole by truck. Then there are novices making the trip as well as those making a race of it. Of course you can avoid all the discomfort by being flown there.

I'm undecided as to what to make of this. After all, the number of people actually stepping onto the ice (as opposed to visiting by cruise) is relatively small. A forceful case against all the hullaballoo can be read on Russell Potter's Visions of the North blog in which he states in no uncertain terms that these expeditions "confer only the most artificial sense of achievement".

On this day - January 5 1922: Ernest Shackleton died

On January 5 1922, Ernest Shackleton, Antarctic explorer and legendary survivor, died on the island of South Georgia. He was leading the Shackleton-Rowett expedition, his fourth, which aimed to circumnavigate the Antarctic continent. Setting sail from London in Quest on September 21 1921, the ship arrived in South Georgia on January 4 1922. However, Shackleton suffered a heart attack, possibly due to the immense physical strain of previous expeditions and the stress of raising finance for them. He died the next day at Grytviken, where he was eventually buried in the whalers' graveyard overlooking the bay.

George Marston, the official artist on Shackleton's Nimrod and Endurance expeditions, wrote the following piece for the Manchester Guardian.

(click to enlarge)

More expedition pictures can be seen here. Thanks to DeadExplorers.

Leningradskaya Station

The excellent UrbanGhosts site features Leningradskaya Station, a disused Soviet research facility in the Antarctic. Opened in 1971 and closed 20 years, the ramshackle collection of rusting buildings might lack the charm of the Edwardian huts of the Scott era, but they still have a certain presence.

Intrigued by pictures the outpost, I had a quick look in the archive and came up with the following piece from January 28 1989. There is talk that the station could be reopened but if it is someone will have to work out how to get rid of it's waste. It is fair to say that the visitors from Greenpeace were not too happy with the rubbish-dumping practices of the Russians.

As can be seen from these pictures, the station is perched atop a great looking cliff.

(click to enlarge)

On this day: Douglas Mawson dies, October 14 1958

Douglas Mawson, the Antarctic explorer died 52 years ago at age of 76 in Adelaide. Although born in Yorkshire, he grew up in Sydney. In 1907, the Australian joined Ernest Shackleton's 'Farthest South' Nimrod expedition as a scientist and was part of the team that climbed Mount Erebus as well as reaching the Magnetic South Pole.

It was an expedition that set out in November 1912 to map part of the Antarctic coastline though, for which Mawson will probably be best remembered. After Lieutenant Ninnis, one of the three-man team, disappeared into a massive crevasse, along with six dogs and most of the supplies, the remaining two turned back. All they had to eat was stewed sledge dog but Dr Xavier Mertz then fell ill and died, probably due to poisonous levels of vitamin A from consuming dog liver. Mawson, while also in a dreadful state, eventually managed to make it back to base - only to see the ship that should have carried him to safety already out to sea. He finally managed to leave Antarctica and Those Who Dared includes an interview with the explorer when he visited London in May 1914.

In 1911-14 and 1929-31 Mawson led explorations which enabled Australia to claim much of the continent, something discussed in the following Manchester Guardian leading article from October 15 1958.

James Caird

For the past couple of years my early Sunday morning ritual has been something like this: wake up, drag daughters off to swimming lessons and then grab 30 minutes or so in the gym while they're perfecting their strokes. The swimming pool is part of Dulwich College, south London, so there is one final part of the ritual - a glance at James Caird, one of the three lifeboats from the Endurance, Sir Ernest Shackleton's ship.

Yes, the final berth for the boat that Shackleton and five companions sailed 800 nautical miles across the South Atlantic to seek rescue for his ill-fated Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914-16, is small gallery in a boys school. Dulwich College is the explorer's alma mater and after Norwegian whalers had rescued the boat from South Georgia, it made it back to Britain in 1919, was displayed for a while before being delivered to the college in 1922. It was moved during the middle part of the 20th Century but was finally returned to Dulwich in 1986. This led to the formation of the James Caird Society.

The display, consisting of the boat, plus a couple of sledges, a stuffed Emperor penquin and an old sail is well worth a visit, if only to marvel at how this tiny vessel survived such an audacious voyage.

Race for the South Pole

This year marks the centenary of the beginning of the race for the South Pole. On June 1 1910, the Terra Nova, Captain Robert Falcon Scott's ship, sailed out of Cardiff for the Antarctic, while a few weeks later Roald Amundsen's team left the Norwegian port of Flekkero aboard the Fram, also bound for the south.

The British expedition was supposed to be a scientific mission with getting to the pole as just one of its objectives. Things changed though when, on arriving in Melbourne on October 12, Scott received a curt telegram stating: "Beg to inform you Fram proceeding Antarctic – Amundsen." The ensuing polar marathon has been written about many times and expect yet more books to appear over the following months.

The latest to join groaning Antarctic Exploration bookshelves is Roland Huntford's The Race for the South Pole which tells the story through the expedition diaries of Scott and Amundsen. The entries are laid out so that the two men “finally confront each other across the printed page.” This is a first as the Norwegian's diaries have never appeared in English before (translated by Huntford), while all the cuts made by Scott's family and literary executors to Scott's published words have been restored. Also appearing for the first time is the diary of Olav Bjaaland, the cross-country champion who played a significant part in Amundsen's successful team.

As a polar historian and ski-expert, Huntford adds valuable commentary to the entries. The introduction sets out clearly the build up to the race, comparing the preparation that each team made during the winter months before setting out for the pole. There may be a little too much detail for some but reading about cooking stoves, skis, or the peculiarities of fur in a polar environment, brings the story alive.

The Race to the Pole is very much a companion volume to Huntford's 1979 book, Scott and Amundsen, an account which still divides polar historians. Was Scott, compared to Amundsen's ultra professional skiing team, an unprepared amateur whose achievement was to “perpetuate the romantic myth of the explorer as martyr" Or was Huntford's revisionist history just a prejudiced rant against a great, and brave, British explorer who simply got unlucky with the weather? This is discussed, along with the the rehabilitation of Scott's reputation by way of books such as Ranulph Fiennes's Captain Scott, in a recent Guardian article.

And so the story continues. The latest news is that descendants of Scott are planning to embark on a journey of commemoration and are offering the chance for one lucky person to go along with them. See here for details (but don't bother applying if you're over 30).

The Longest Winter

The events surrounding the 1910-12 expeditions to the South Pole have been written about so many times that it is hard to believe that there is anything new to say about the travails of Scott and Amundsen. It was a surprise then to come across The Longest Winter: Scott's other Heroes by Meredith Hooper, a a tale that has never been fully told.

While most of Captain Robert Falcon Scott's 59-strong team was dedicated to getting their leader and four others to the Pole, six members set out in February 1911 on a separate expedition several hundred miles north of the main Ross Island base camp. Under the leadership of Lieutenant Victor Campbell, the purpose was zoological and magnetic research. The Longest Winter tells the tale of how this Eastern, or Northern Party as it became known, after a partially successful year at Cape Adare, was picked up by Terra Nova, the expedition ship, and deposited further down the coast for further exploration. However, five weeks later, severe ice conditions meant that the ship couldn't collect them and so they were forced to spend the winter in an ice cave measuring 9ft by 12ft. Rations were low and seal and penguin became the main source of food. Come the Spring, and with no sign of a rescue party, the team then had to make a 230-mile walk back to the main base.

The first section of the book covers the team's year in a prefabricated hut. It's interesting to hear about life, (and often boredom), in a remote research outpost but the story really comes to life with the telling of the men's unexpected stay in the ice cave. Drawing on the diaries of the team - three officers and three 'men' - some still smelling of the seal blubber fires on which they depended for survival, Hooper reveals the daily grind and feeling of desperation they felt in what was dubbed Inexpressible Island (above).

Life revolved around trying to have enough to eat. The seal was served in the form of a 'hoosh', a stew which they found tastier when stirred in the blood-soaked ice. This was cooked over fires of burning seal blubber, which also served as fuel for improvised lamps made out of Oxo tins. The walls of the cave were soon blackened by the smoke and the acrid fumes choked the men. 'That igloo with its black and blubber beastliness' was how Apsley Cherry-Garrard later described it, after hearing accounts of the place.

While the diet of mainly seal and penguin kept the mean alive, the salt-water ice, combined with a lack of carbohydrate led to all of the team suffering from chronic diahorrea (often after long periods of constipation.) The radical change in their appearance can be seen in these photographs. In the first, taken at the Cape Adare hut, the men look like they're posing for a Boden winter catalogue.

A year later, and making the most of a lull in the wind to get out of the cave, the team, in their blubber soiled clothes resemble a particularly disgruntled Scandinavian heavy metal band.

Why this group of six very hungry men cooped up in a tiny ice cave for six months didn't end up fighting each other can be explained in part by the fact that Campbell maintained the strict naval discipline that had carried them through their year in the hut. All abided (if sometimes reluctantly) to this. That said, living in such close proximity to each other did lead to some of the strict class and social barriers breaking down. Certain matters though remained sacrosanct. It would take an expert in Edwardian etiquette to explain why exactly, even during a period when all the team were suffering extreme stomach problems, they needed one latrine for officers and one for the men - each side by side. At times the account feels almost Monty Pythonesque.

However, The Longest Winter recounts a story that should certainly be up there in the pantheon of tales of endurance. A good piece about the expedition appeared in the New York Times on February 15 1913 (a version of which was reproduced in the Manchester Guardian on the same day).

Antarctic Research Bases

The May edition of Wired features some fantastic pictures or Antarctic research bases. As the article points out, these used to be "blubber-heated shacks", but now they come in all shapes and sizes. Would they look so good though if it wasn't for the dramatic scenery surrounding them?

The World Before You

Exploration is the theme of the 13th British Silent Cinema Festival. Beginning on April 15 at Leicester's Phoenix Square, The World Before You will include films about the discovery of polar regions, mountains, jungles and oceans, plus, early ethnography and natural phenomena.

As well as a screening of The Great White Silence, Herbert Ponting's record of Captain Scott's doomed expedition to the South Pole, footage of Roald Amundsen's successful team is to be shown for the first time since 1912. Other highlights include Edith Maude Hull's steamy Arabian adventure, The Sheik, the first film, shot in 1908, of the Hebridean island of St Kilda, and Ernest Shackleton's epic South.

Phillip Law

The Australian press has been reporting the death of renowned Antarctic explorer Phillip Law, at the age of 97. Often known as Mr Antarctica, in a four-decade career he helped map more than 5,000 km of the continent's coastline as well as setting up three Australian bases during his 28 trips to the region.

The Mawson station, the first of these, was establihed in 1954 and the following piece by Law appeared in the Guardian appeared on February 4 of that year.

See the Australian Antarctic Division for a history of the country's exploration of the white continent.

From Pole to pixel

Captain Scott's last three diaries have been launched online by the British Library. Using Turning the Pages software, the three-dimensional animation allows the viewer to mimic the action of turning each page on the screen. Passages can be magnified and there is also commentary about Scott's attempt to be the first to get tothe South Pole. A sample page from the BL's Virtual books collection (click to enlarge):

Meanwhile, images from the expedition can seen at the Getty Images Gallery, in London. Ponting - The Journey South, is an exhibition of pictures taken by Herbert Ponting who spent 14 months at Cape Evans from 1911-1912 and produced over 1000 images.

Douglas Mawson and the Antarctic's first plane

One of Britain's earliest aircraft has been discovered buried in the frozen wastes of Antarctica. The plane - the first off the Vickers production line in Britain - was built in 1911, only eight years after the Wright brothers executed the first powered flight. It was taken to Antarctica by Douglas Mawson, the Australian explorer, but abandoned in 1914.

Mawson had hoped to stage the first flight over the Antarctic ice cap, but the plane crashed on the Australian mainland before he set sail. It was badly damaged but he decided to take the now wingless plane anyway and use it as an "air tractor" - keeping the propeller and guiding it by using a specially made tail rudder and skis - to pull his sledges while he was exploring.

A carpenter from the Mawson's Huts Foundation, a charity devoted to maintaining the buildings constructed in the Antarctic by Mawson's expeditions, spotted the remains of the plane among the rocks on at Cape Denison, on January 1. Low tides, prompted by a blue moon, the second full moon in a calendar month, and unprecedented melting ice led to its discovery.

Considered one of the great polar explorers, Mawson joined Ernest Shackleton's 'Farthest South' Nimrod expedition of 1907-09 as a scientist, being part of the team that climbed Mount Erebus and reached the Magnetic South Pole.

It was an expedition that set out in November 1912 to map part of the Antarctic coastline though, for which Mawson will probably be best remembered. After Lieutenant Ninnis, one of the three-man team, disappeared into a massive crevasse, along with six dogs and most of the supplies, the remaining two turned back. Resorting to eating the remaining huskies to survive, Dr Xavier Mertz then fell ill and died, probably due to poisonous levels of vitamin A from the dogs's livers. Mawson, while also in a dreadful state, eventually managed to make it back to base - only to see the ship that should have carried him to safety already out to sea. He finally managed to leave Antarctica and Those Who Dared includes an interview with the Australian when he visited London in May 1914.

More on Douglas Mawson can be found here.