Updated Last: Tuesday, January 26, 2010 11:30 AM
Up until as late as 1820, with the exception of whalers and sealers, no one had set foot on Antartica. However, during the 1890's explorers from around the world began to take interest in the unexplored land and there was great competition to see who would be the first to reach the North and South Poles.
In 1901-1904 Captain Robert Falcon Scott (!868-1912) was the first person to explore the antartic. Captain Cook had tried during his second Pacific voyage in 1772-74 to sail all round Antartica, but fog and ice prevented hin from getting near to it.
On January 17, 1912, Captain Scott reached the South pole for the second time. On reaching the destination he was disheartened to see evidence that he and his team had been beaten by Roald Amundsen and his Norweigian expedition who had made it to the South Pole four weeks earlier on December 14, 1911.
Disheartened, Sott and his team tried to make their way home. The extreme conditions of freezing temperatures, lack of food and exhaustion led to all the team perishing during the return journey.
When his diary was found the entry for January 17,1911 read :
We started at 7.30, none of us having slept much after the shock of our discovery. We followed the Norwegian sledge tracks for some way; as far as we make out there are only two men. In about three miles we passed two small cairns. Then the weather overcast, and the tracks being increasingly drifted up and obviously going too far to the West, we decided to make straight for the Pole according to our calculations. At 12.30 Evans had such cold hands we camped for lunch - an excellent 'week-end one.' ...To-night little Bowers is laying himself out to get sights in terrible difficult circumstances; the wind is blowing hard, T. - 21 degrees, and there is that curious damp, cold feeling in the air which chills one to the bone in no time. We have been descending again, I think, but there looks to be a rise ahead; otherwise there is very little that is different from the awful monotony of past days. Great God! this is an awful place and terrible enough for us to have laboured to it without the reward of priority. Well, it is something to have got here, and the wind may be our friend to-morrow. ...Now for the run home and a desperate struggle. I wonder if we can do it. |
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Updated Last: Tuesday, January 26, 2010 11:30 AM
Up until as late as 1820, with the exception of whalers and sealers, no one had set foot on Antartica. However, during the 1890's explorers from around the world began to take interest in the unexplored land and there was great competition to see who would be the first to reach the North and South Poles.
In 1901-1904 Captain Robert Falcon Scott (!868-1912) was the first person to explore the antartic. Captain Cook had tried during his second Pacific voyage in 1772-74 to sail all round Antartica, but fog and ice prevented hin from getting near to it.
On January 17, 1912, Captain Scott reached the South pole for the second time. On reaching the destination he was disheartened to see evidence that he and his team had been beaten by Roald Amundsen and his Norweigian expedition who had made it to the South Pole four weeks earlier on December 14, 1911.
Disheartened, Sott and his team tried to make their way home. The extreme conditions of freezing temperatures, lack of food and exhaustion led to all the team perishing during the return journey.
When his diary was found the entry for January 17,1911 read :
We started at 7.30, none of us having slept much after the shock of our discovery. We followed the Norwegian sledge tracks for some way; as far as we make out there are only two men. In about three miles we passed two small cairns. Then the weather overcast, and the tracks being increasingly drifted up and obviously going too far to the West, we decided to make straight for the Pole according to our calculations. At 12.30 Evans had such cold hands we camped for lunch - an excellent 'week-end one.' ...To-night little Bowers is laying himself out to get sights in terrible difficult circumstances; the wind is blowing hard, T. - 21 degrees, and there is that curious damp, cold feeling in the air which chills one to the bone in no time. We have been descending again, I think, but there looks to be a rise ahead; otherwise there is very little that is different from the awful monotony of past days. Great God! this is an awful place and terrible enough for us to have laboured to it without the reward of priority. Well, it is something to have got here, and the wind may be our friend to-morrow. ...Now for the run home and a desperate struggle. I wonder if we can do it. |
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