On the evening of October 12, 1910, Captain Robert F. Scott of the British Royal Navy arrived in Melbourne, Australia. It was one of his last stops before heading south to Antarctica, where he would lead an expedition trying to become the first to reach the South Pole. Awaiting Scott was a telegram from the Norwegian explorer, Roald Amundsen, simply stating: "Beg leave inform you proceeding Antarctic. Amundsen."
Roald Amundsen was already famous for having been the first to travel the Northwest Passage. In 1899, he had been to Antarctica with Adrien de Gerlache. In September of 1910, Amundsen was on his way to launch an expedition across the North Pole when he learned that the North Pole had already been reached. He secretly changed his destination to Antarctica. "If at that juncture I had made my intention public," he said, "it would only have given occasion for a lot of newspaper discussion, and possibly have ended in the project being stifled at its birth. Everything had to be got ready quietly and calmly." Thus he waited until October to notify Scott.
The opinion, among the British at least, was that Amundsen's secrecy was sneaky, if not outright dishonest. Nevertheless, Scott determined to proceed with his plans as if Amundsen's crew did not exist. After all, Scott's voyage had been in the works since 1907. In fact, Scott had been building to this trip since 1900, when he was appointed leader of the British National Antarctic Expedition. That expedition arrived at Hut Point, Ross Island in February of 1902 and included the discovery of King Edward VII Land, the Transantarctic Mountains, the Polar ice cap, the Dry Valleys, and the first emperor penguin rookeries off King Edward VII Land and at Cape Crozier. Furthermore, on this voyage, Scott, along with Ernest Shackleton and Dr. Edward Wilson, traveled farther south than anyone ever had. Several years later, Shackleton returned to beat this record, reaching as far south as 88°23'S -- about 97 miles from the Pole -- early in 1909.
On November 29, 1910, Scott set sail from New Zealand. Now it was his turn to finish what he had started -- a trek all the way to the bottom of the earth, the South Pole. Scott's ship, the Terra Nova, landed in Antarctica on January 4 and he established camp at Cape Evans on Ross Island. Amundsen's vessel, Fram, arrived ten days later. Amundsen set up camp on the Bay of Whales, in a location that allowed him to begin his trek 60 miles closer to the Pole than Scott, who had deemed the Bay of Whales too risky a location for a permanent camp. The bay was essentially an ice field and large chunks of it were known to break off and drift out to sea. Both teams began laying a series of depots that would allow them to restock their supplies as they made their way to the Pole. In April, winter set in. The sun would not rise again until August.
During his expedition in 1902, Scott had problems with his sledge dogs. For the trip to the Pole in 1911, he decided to supplement sled dogs with a team of Siberian-bred ponies. Fearing that the ponies would freeze to death, Scott could not launch his mission for the Pole until November -- late in the Antarctic spring. Scott's party of fourteen men departed on November 1. As they made their way south, the men slaughtered the ponies and cached their meat at depots for the return trip. On December 9, the last of the ponies was slaughtered. Two days later, two men led the dog team back to the camp at Cape Evans; the rest of the trip would require man-hauling. Prior to the journey, Scott had decided that when they reached 85°S, only eight men would continue on while the rest would return to the coast -- so on December 22nd, four more men headed back to Cape Evans. In early January of 1912, when they reached 87°35'S, Scott chose the men who would continue with him on the final leg of the expedition: Edward Wilson, Henry Bowers, Lawrence Oates, and Edgar Evans.
As these five men approached the Pole, they grew excited, as they had not seen any sign of Amundsen's team. They had no way of knowing that Amundsen had already reached the Pole on December 14. The Norwegian, who began his trip almost two weeks earlier than Scott on October 20, had traveled light, with the support of only four men and 52 dogs. By the time Scott and his companions reached the South Pole, on January 17, Amundsen's team was nearly back at their camp on the Bay of Whales.
Meanwhile, Scott and his cohorts were greeted by a tent flying the Norwegian flag -- they realized they'd been beaten. Inside the tent was a note for Scott from Amundsen:
Dear Captain Scott -- As you probably are the first to reach this area after us, I will ask you to kindly forward this letter to [Norwegian] King Haakon VII. If you can use any of the articles left in the tent please do not hesitate to do so. The sledge left outside may be of use to you. With kind regards I wish you a safe return. Yours truly, Roald Amundsen.
Scott and his team remained there for several days, taking measurements and determining the exact location of the Pole.
The South Pole lies at the end of a plateau nearly 10,000 feet in elevation. As they returned to the coast, Scott and his crew had to climb down through the Transantarctic Mountains and also descend the large Beardmore Glacier. On the way down Beardmore Glacier, Evans fell into an ice crevasse and sustained a serious head injury. Already suffering from frostbite, Evans collapsed fifteen days later, on February 17. He died later that night in their tent.
Scott, Wilson, Bowers, and Oates continued down the glacier to sea level on the Barrier, the 400-mile stretch of sea ice that lay between them and their hut on Cape Evans. There, they expected a reprieve from the frigid temperatures they had experienced at higher altitudes. Instead, a long stretch of extraordinarily cold weather set in. By March 14, while Scott and his team braved temperatures as low as 43 degrees below zero, Amundsen was already safe in Tasmania. Oates, who had been struggling with frostbitten feet for weeks, took a turn for the worse. During a blizzard that kept the team holed up in their tent, Oates explained to his companions, "I am just going outside and may be some time." His companions tried to dissuade him, but Oates ignored them and never returned. Scott characterized it as a brave act of sacrifice; that Oates had given his life so that the expedition would not be held up on account of his injuries. Fifteen days later, Scott, Wilson, and Bowers died in their tent, 11 miles from a depot of food and fuel. Today, the questions remain: was the expedition's demise the fault of poor planning; should Scott have expected the weather that did them in?
The South Pole lies at the end of a plateau nearly 10,000 feet in elevation. As they returned to the coast, Scott and his crew had to climb down through the Transantarctic Mountains and also descend the large Beardmore Glacier. On the way down Beardmore Glacier, Evans fell into an ice crevasse and sustained a serious head injury. Already suffering from frostbite, Evans collapsed fifteen days later, on February 17. He died later that night in their tent.
Scott, Wilson, Bowers, and Oates continued down the glacier to sea level on the Barrier, the 400-mile stretch of sea ice that lay between them and their hut on Cape Evans. There, they expected a reprieve from the frigid temperatures they had experienced at higher altitudes. Instead, a long stretch of extraordinarily cold weather set in. By March 14, while Scott and his team braved temperatures as low as 43 degrees below zero, Amundsen was already safe in Tasmania. Oates, who had been struggling with frostbitten feet for weeks, took a turn for the worse. During a blizzard that kept the team holed up in their tent, Oates explained to his companions, "I am just going outside and may be some time." His companions tried to dissuade him, but Oates ignored them and never returned. Scott characterized it as a brave act of sacrifice; that Oates had given his life so that the expedition would not be held up on account of his injuries. Fifteen days later, Scott, Wilson, and Bowers died in their tent, 11 miles from a depot of food and fuel. Today, the questions remain: was the expedition's demise the fault of poor planning; should Scott have expected the weather that did them in?
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