#53 British Polar Explorers by Admiral Sir Edward Evans
I have become rather immersed in the adventure of polar exploration and its adventurers, so much so that British Polar Explorers has crowded out the other volumes that would have been its companion pieces in this episode of Britain in Pictures. Whether the result is unnecessarily windy is for the reader to decide.
Given that Edward Evans was second-in-command of Captain Scott’s fatal Antarctic expedition I wondered, in prospect, whether Evans’s book, published in 1943, might concern itself with South Pole explorers only. But not so. It is a comprehensive survey of British polar exploration in both hemispheres; and reads somewhat like tales from a Boys’ Book of Adventure, the standard Christmas stocking fare of my childhood. This is not to damn with faint praise. Evans knew a fair amount of the polar exploration story at first hand; and, as we shall see when we arrive in the south with him, he tells it with considerable feeling.
It’s a little hard to get a sense of the geography of the northern end of the planet, the vast area that surrounds the figurative North Pole in all directions. A couple of things to note. First: Greenland, although an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark, is physically much closer to Canada than to Denmark and Europe. Greenland is the world’s largest island (so long as you don’t regard Australia as a contender) – 2.166 million square kilometres, versus mainland Australia’s 7.687 million square kilometres – but with a population of 56000 only. But Greenland is not nearly so large as most map projections portray – one needs to consult a globe to see the land masses in proportion. Second: the Arctic Circle is currently 66 degrees 33 minutes north of the equator [those puzzled by my use of the word “currently” are free to go seek], and what geographers know as the Arctic is the area between the Arctic Circle and the North Pole at 90 degrees. That area is approximately 20 million square kilometres and, looking at the global map with one eye closed, I would guess that about half of the Arctic comprises the northern-most land bits of Russia, Canada, Scandinavia, and Alaska, plus about 90% of Greenland. The other half, the northern-most part, is icy sea, and the sheet of ice that covers the North Pole region.
In addition to providing some appreciation of the scale of the northern polar waters, a study of the globe reveals starkly the logic of airlines flying the polar route (the great circle) between Europe and the west coast of the U.S.A. – it’s a straight line over the top. That same logic, in search of the shortest route to the Pacific, drove the earliest polar explorers. It matters little whether driven by riches or romance, explorers and adventurers and their sponsors could smell the Orient, and could picture the fastest way of getting there from Europe as a route west across the top of Canada to Bering Strait (between Russia and Alaska), and out into the Pacific……..and all that impeded the way was the polar ice cap and the remorseless sea. The logic of the proposition, if not the good sense of it, emerges If you draw a line on the globe from the North Sea to Bering Strait – there’s no land in between. Obviously no Arctic seafarer ever planned to sail straight across the North Pole, but a course between the permanent ice-cap and the northern land mass – the North-west Passage – was still a much shorter route than around either of the Capes. But there remained the problem of the free-floating polar ice: a greater problem in a way than the obstruction of land - because the ice floe obstruction is capable of independent movement, and may require daily changes to navigational plans. [Incidentally, I wondered whether the word “floe” comes from “flow”, or perhaps “float”. The English language has once again confounded me: “floe” derives from the Old Norse word “flo” for “layer”.]
The earliest polar explorer profiled by Evans is Martin Frobisher (1535? – 1594), the seaman who gave credence to the idea of traversing the North-west Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Remember that it was only in consequence of Magellan’s circumnavigation in 1522 that Earth was finally “proved” to be a sphere, so Frobisher was an early tester of that proof. His first polar voyage was in 1576, and resulted in the discovery of what we now know as Hudson Strait. More importantly, Frobisher returned with a sample of black ore – which an Italian alchemist claimed contained gold. A specious claim, but it triggered the financing of a second Frobisher expedition charged with the instruction to return with a ship-load of the stuff. Frobisher took with him a band of miners and, although he was able to conduct further exploration – and to learn much of the Eskimo peoples – he was contract-bound to focus on the mining activities. However the lessons he learnt in the Arctic seas were a warning for those who followed. In writing of the pack-ice he wrote: “The force of the yce was so great, and likewise rased the side of the ships, that it was pitiful to behold, and caused the hearts of many to faint.”
The story of Henry Hudson (1565? – 1611) is one of thwarted opportunity, and tragedy. Hudson’s several journeys to the Arctic together amounted to a handbook of exploration. In 1607 he sailed for the North-west Passage, seeking the way through to the “far Cathay” of legend. Hampered by ice and “thick weather” Hudson – said to be a bit of a rebel - extensively explored the Arctic region instead. One of Hudson’s contemporaries describes Hudson’s virtues in an extended string of complimentary adjectives – seemingly more than were known to exist at the time! Nevertheless, the voyage was deemed a failure by Hudson’s English sponsors (although his reporting of the vast numbers of whales he encountered likely gave impetus to the whaling industry that was to follow).
Undaunted, the English merchants sponsored a second expedition the following year: same head-office objective - to find the shortest possible route to China. Again, the fierce cold and the impenetrable ice forced the abandonment of the voyage, although with the vast numbers of whales, walrus, Arctic fox, deer and wild fowl recorded by Hudson this second expedition was scientifically successful.
Not surprisingly the arms of the English merchants proved to be a little shorter than their pockets, and Hudson’s third voyage, in 1609, was undertaken for the Dutch East India Company. Once more there were mixed results: the planned route was abandoned, but Hudson was able to reach Newfoundland, Delaware Bay, and what came to be known as the Hudson River. Notably, this voyage facilitated the Dutch fur trade and later Dutch territorial claims, including the claiming of the area of New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island.
While Hudson’s life as a seaman and adventurer had not been all plain sailing (ugh!) it was hardly an inevitable prelude to what was to follow. Back in the English fold, with funding from the British East India Company and the Virginia Company, once again the North-west Passage beckoned. But, as Evans speculates, Hudson must have had some serious defects of character, and was a careless judge of men. Setting out in April 1610 Hudson spent much time exploring and mapping Hudson Bay, and then had to hole up for the winter. By June 1611 his crew had mutinied. Not short of graphic evocation, Evans says that Hudson’s fourth voyage was marred by “trouble, disloyalty, altercation, violence, mutiny, scurvy and death”. The mutineers abandoned Hudson, his youthful son, and seven of the crew suffering with scurvy, in an open lifeboat. They were never heard of again. Only eight of the mutineers survived the return to England; and although they were arrested and tried no punishment was exacted, the possibility being that their knowledge of the sailing conditions and of the New World was too valuable to lose. It tells us something of our author, Admiral Sir Edward Evans, that his closing words on the mutiny are: “What a story, what blackguard business, how unlike the seamen of our time!”
I offer an unrelated footnote to the Henry Hudson story, and a warning against making threadbare connections. I had assumed that Henry Hudson had given his name to the American automobile of late fame – without his consent, obviously. So I checked the net, and found 1930s Hudson radiator emblems featuring two ancient sailing ships. Case proven. But no. The Hudson Motor Car Company, and its headline model, was named after its founder, Joseph L. Hudson, Detroit department store proprietor, who branched out into the promising new auto field in 1909. I have been unable to find an explanation for the sailing ships pictured on the Hudson insignia, but assume they’re a nod to the namesake navigator. Anyway, for what it’s worth, the 45-year production life of the Hudson car (from 1909 through 1954) was almost the same as the time spent on this planet by Henry Hudson.
The Hudson story was eclipsed by the Franklin story. As with the final chapter in the life of Hudson so too there is the Franklin mystery. John Franklin (1786 – 1847) was a pretty distinguished dude, although that word didn’t exist until after Franklin had ceased to, and certainly not with the meaning I intend. He was a high-ranking officer in the British Navy and Arctic explorer, and along the way served from 1836 to 1843 as Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen’s Land, Tasmania as it was to become.
Franklin’s veins ran with seawater. He had a trial voyage on a merchantman at age 12, and in 1800 joined the Royal Navy seeing service at age 14 in Nelson’s fleet in the Battle of Copenhagen. Later, as a mid-shipman, he visited Australia in the HMS Investigator under Matthew Flinders. He served in the South China Sea, and in 1805 in the Battle of Trafalgar. He was wounded in the War of 1812 against the United States.
Like Hudson, Franklin participated in four Arctic expeditions. In 1818 he commanded one of the ships in a four-ship squadron deployed – guess what? – to find the North-west Passage. But, after continuing travails the ship partnering Franklin’s Trent was so crushed in the ice that Trent had to escort her back to safety. Franklin’s second expedition was also not glorious. The purpose of the so-called Coppermine expedition (from 1819 to 1822) was to map the northern areas from Hudson Bay to the Coppermine River in present-day Canada. By the end of his three-and-a-half years’ journey Franklin had covered some 5000 miles. And he had lost eleven of his twenty men – most to starvation, one possibly through murder; and there were rumours of cannibalism. The survivors were said to have tried to eat shoe leather, and Franklin gained the nickname of “the man who ate his boots”. Notwithstanding, Franklin remained in favour. The Royal Navy reared them tough, although possibly not so tough as to prefer Churchill’s epithet of “rum, buggery and the lash” over a meal of stewed leather.
Franklin led two subsequent expeditions. The 1823 to 1825 expedition was, by Franklin’s standards, uneventful, and preceded Franklin’s retirement from polar exploration for 20 years. In the interim he was knighted, married again (having been a widower for three years), and presided for seven years in Van Diemen’s Land. The 1845 Arctic expedition stemmed from the Admiralty’s desire to have the North-west Passage definitively charted. Franklin was not the first choice of leader, but he willingly accepted the role. He was too old, and too corpulent – there is a photograph of a podgy face under what looks like a cocked hat, in a uniform rather too snug to be comfortable. But this undertaking was well equipped: two 370-ton vessels, and 140 officers and men. The cruel winter weather was again the enemy, and the two ships were locked in the ice in September 1846, never to sail again. Franklin died on 11 June 1847 from unknown causes. By that time the expedition had lost nine officers and fifteen men. The long wait continued, but with no sign of the ice breaking up. On 22 April 1848 Crozier, the second-in-command of the remaining 105 souls, led the trek out. They all perished. Their ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, were thought to have been consumed in the ice, and indeed they were – except that in 2014 and 2016 respectively Canadian divers found their wrecks “in almost pristine condition”.
If the underlying motivation for northern polar exploration was trade, the drive for southern polar exploration most certainly was not. In the south there were twin drivers, colonial expansion, and Errol Flynn-like adventurism. The word derring-do is not misplaced. I want to conclude with a profile of Captain Scott, but first need to pay tribute to two other heroes of the south, Shackleton and Mawson.
The ultimate test is to be weighed on the scales of posterity, and on that balance Ernest Shackleton (1874 – 1922) weighs heavy indeed. He was an Antarctic obsessive, and gained fame for his bravery and endurance. He should also have been famous for his ability (having no funds of his own) to charm financial support from wealthy benefactors. Despite his robust appearance, heart trouble caused him to be invalided home from his first trip south in 1901, the Discovery expedition (although he had reached 82 degrees 17 minutes south in company with Captain Scott). He remained determined to reach the South Pole, and in his 1907 to1909 attempt (the Nimrod expedition) got within 97 miles of his goal (at latitude 88 degrees 23 minutes south) before being forced back by the brutal conditions. Otherwise the Nimrod expedition was very fruitful.
The success of the Norwegian Amundsen in being, on 14 December 1911, the first to reach the South Pole did not daunt Shackleton’s ardour, and he organised and led two further Antarctic expeditions. The first of these demonstrated the triumph of perseverance over adversity, the second demonstrated the inability to escape the reality of fate.
The expedition that set out in Endurance in August 1914, the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, was formed for the purpose of transiting Antarctica, passing the South Pole on the way. In short, the plan was to dog-sled across the continent. But in January 1915 the ship was trapped in ice. Endurance had called at South Georgia island on its way to Antarctica, and South Georgia is a key player in the rest of the Shackleton story. South Georgia is a British Territory almost 1000 miles (1600 kilometres) to the east of the Argentinian tip of South America, and some 800 miles (1300 kilometres) further east than the Falkland Islands. It was discovered by James Cook in 1775 and, what else, claimed for Britain. It was unpopulated at the time, and in later times was largely ignored, except by whalers. It once had the dubious distinction of being the world’s largest whaling centre. Its political history since Cook has been largely determined by apathy, but since 1985 it has been firmly back as a British Territory post the Falklands War.
It proved impossible to free Endurance from the ice, and the ship foundered; but not before the complement had long-since relocated to the floating ice surface. In April 1916 (yes, 21 months after departing London) Shackleton and his 27 men set out in three open boats for uninhabited Elephant Island 152 miles (245 kilometres) off the tip of Antarctica. They made it in seven days, but because of their remaining distance from the Cape Horn shipping lane, a passing rescue seemed unlikely. So Shackleton and five of his men set out in their 22-foot whale boat for the whaling station of South Georgia, some 800 miles (1300 kilometres) away. They succeeded, in 16 days, after a journey which Evans describes as “the finest boat journey on record”. Whereupon Shackleton trekked to a whaling station to initiate the rescue. Shackleton, courtesy of a Chilean ship, effected that rescue from Elephant Island on 25 August 1916. Not a soul of Shackleton’s expedition had lost his life.
The same was not the case with the 1921 expedition to circumnavigate the Antarctic. Shackleton, short of funds, had burdened himself with a ship unsuitable for the task: too small at 125 tons for heavy seas, and too slow. With a troublesome engine and leaking badly, she reached South Georgia where, on 5 January 1922, Shackleton died of a heart attack. Fittingly, he was buried on the island. On his final night, having expressed relief on arriving at South Georgia, his diary entry reads: “A wonderful evening. In the darkening twilight I saw a lone star hover gem-like above the bay.”
Douglas Mawson (1882 - 1958) was born in England and came to Australia as an infant. Evans describes Mawson as “a scientist, strong in character, in body and in mind.” Moreover, “he typifies all that is best in the Australian” [clearly meant as a compliment, and not with tongue in cheek]. He was on Shackleton’s Nimrod expedition (1907 to 1909), having been recruited from his position as lecturer in mineralogy at The University of Adelaide. He made important scientific observations; and by sled he reached and marked the south magnetic pole………which was then at 72 degrees 25 minutes south and within the Antarctic Circle; today it is at approximately 64 degrees 7 minutes south, off the Antarctic coast, and outside the Circle (which is 66 degrees 30 minutes south). The 1260 miles return journey took over three months.
Evans writes rhapsodically of “the lure of little voices” that called Mawson after his return to “normal” duties and everyday life. Like the pungent odours of the China Seas, like the Eucalyptus-laden breezes wafting off Australia, the call of the Antarctic is not to be ignored. And hence the Australian Antarctic Expedition, led by Mawson in Aurora, from 1911 to 1914, overlapping with Scott’s Terra Nova expedition that had set out in 1910. Evans lauds Mawson’s skills as a map-maker, and his achievements generally. And notes, with admiration, that Mawson and his 17 men “faced generally worse weather conditions than any previous expeditions to the South Polar region” - blizzards where the wind speed frequently exceeded 100 miles per hour. And the expedition had the pungent odour of tragedy too. Mawson and two companions, Mertz and Ninnis, plus seventeen dogs and considerable equipment, took two sleds some 600 miles on a scientific journey. Six dogs were lost, one falling into a crevasse, then Ninnis and his laden sled crashed through a snow bridge into a chasm and were lost too. The tent and most of the food was gone, and Mawson, Mertz and the six surviving dogs began to race for their lives. The Ninnis tragedy occurred on 14 December 1912, and by 7 January 1913 Mertz, badly frost-bitten and rapidly weakening, became delirious and started fitting. He died that night. Two days later Mawson was writing in his diary: “There is little chance of my reaching human aid alive.” He was 100 miles from base. He was held up by a blizzard, then another, and his feet “were in a shocking condition”; but he came upon one of the food-drops, and sustenance. He arrived back at base only to learn from the seven-man base team that Aurora had returned home, and that he would be spending another winter in Antarctica.
Mawson led a further scientific expedition to Antarctica, in 1929, this time on Discovery. Evans says of Mawson’s work “that it is credited most justly with having added more geographical and scientific discoveries than any previous Antarctic expedition.”
And now to introduce Scott, Robert Falcon Scott (1868 – 1912), the most famous polar explorer of all. But before doing so I must comment at some length on the author of this book. I have noted previously that the editors of the Britain in Pictures series chose well-credentialled authors, and none more so than Edward Evans (1880 – 1957) – full name: Admiral Edward Ratcliffe Garth Russell Evans. Not only was Evans a significant figure in Antarctic exploration but he was also a significant naval figure. After training he had his first ship-board posting in 1897. He first encountered Scott when they served together on HMS Majestic (launched January 1895, sunk by German torpedo off Gallipoli May 1915). In 1902 Evans was seconded from the Navy as second officer of Morning, the back-up vessel for Scott’s Discovery expedition – Scott and Discovery were already in the Antarctic. The two ships separately became trapped in the ice, but they met up in a sense because crew members were able to sled across the fifteen miles that separated them. Morning broke free and was ordered back to New Zealand; and Evans was part of the relief convoy that returned in January 1904 to extricate Discovery. This was accomplished by a team, led by Evans, who laid eight miles of explosives across the ice. Evans returned to his naval career, but in 1909 his eyes again turned south. Shackleton had gotten close to the Pole in 1908, and Evans reckoned on circumnavigating the Antarctic continent – with a journey to the Pole as a secondary objective! But Scott’s plans to return to Antarctica were gathering momentum, and when Evans heard of this he transferred support to the Scott effort. In return, Evans was made captain of Terra Nova. Evans’ subsequent involvement in the Scott Terra Nova expedition is a saga in itself. He was in one of the three overland expedition groups, and was in the second group to return to base, turning back on 4 January 1912. Evans recorded that he was accepting of Scott’s decision to exclude him from the final assault group, although one of his colleagues reported that he was “frightfully cut up”. In the event, the return to base was itself a serious ordeal for Evans – snow blindness, exhaustion from having pulled a sled for more than 600 miles, and the onset of scurvy. By 13 February 1912 Evans had to be dragged on a sled, and he ordered his two companions to abandon him. They refused. In later life Evans reflected that this was “the first and last time my orders as a naval officer were disobeyed”. After rescue and return to base camp Evans, near to death, was bedridden for two months. Back to England and then, months later, Evans commanding Terra Nova, was back in the Antarctic to rescue Scott, but alas too late. Evans’ task was then to pack up the expedition, and to organise its departure for home. Malevolent fate then decreed that Evans’ wife (a New Zealander) should become ill with peritonitis during the return trip to England. After on-board surgery, she died on 18 April 1913 off Naples. By the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 Evans was back in naval service. His distinguished service as captain of a destroyer earned for him a DSO. In 1928 he was promoted to Rear Admiral commanding what was then the Australian navy. KCB in 1935, promoted to Admiral in 1936, KGStJ in 1937. Although retired he was recalled for service in 1939 – from which he transited to become the London Regional Commissioner for Civil Defence. In 1945 (subsequent to the publication of British Polar Explorers) Evans was elevated to the Peerage, as Baron Mountevans of Chelsea in the County of London.
CVs don’t come much better; and it is interesting to note Scott’s 1912 diary entry that Evans is prone to “boyish enthusiasms”, and is “well-meaning, but terribly slow to learn”. At the time Scott was 42, Evans 30. Evans had a further 47 years to curb his boyish enthusiasms and smarten up his acumen. Scott did not. And writing in 1943, having had 20 years to reflect on Scott, Evans remained uncompromising in his loyalty and regard for his erstwhile leader.
Scott was a naval man, who by 1901 had reached the rank of Commander, commander of HMS Majestic, flag-ship of the Channel Fleet. Hear Evans: “Apart from being a brilliant naval officer, he had the keen brain of a first-class scientist, and the literary ability which has so often been denied to the British polar explorer. Moreover, he had an exceptional way of appreciating any situation quickly and properly. Looking back over a period of forty years I would class him as one of the three cleverest men I have ever met.” Scott led the 1901 National Antarctic expedition in Discovery. Ernest Shackleton was part of that expedition as was Edgar Evans who more than a decade later accompanied Scott to the South Pole. The 1901 expedition extended over two years, and included exploration, scientific work, and the Scott/Shackleton/Wilson abortive attempt to reach the Pole; and putrid weather. Discovery became ice-locked and the expedition concluded with rescue attempts by Morning (unsuccessful) and Terra Nova (successful). The expedition lasted a little over three years. Edward Evans, our author, was on the Terra Nova rescue mission.
And he was also part of Scott’s second, and final, expedition south – he was appointed second-in-command, and captain of Terra Nova. The expedition had provisions for two years, and spent many months, including the winter of 1911 camped at (what was thereafter to be named) Cape Evans. They undertook depot-laying trips in anticipation of a Pole assault, and conducted extensive scientific work. The expedition was nominally under the purview of the Royal Geographic Society, and it is notable that the Society expressed the hope that the expedition would be “scientific primarily, with exploration and the Pole as secondary objects”. Scott demurred, and stated that “the main objective was to reach the South Pole, and to secure for the British Empire the honour of this achievement”. In the words of one observer, he was “bitten by the Pole mania”. The Terra Nova had embarked from Cardiff in June 1910, and passed through Melbourne in October 1910; and what with the trapping of the ship in the ice for twenty days, and the snotty Cape Evans weather, it was not until November 1911 that the 900-mile push to the Pole was ready to start. In addition to Scott’s group of five – in the order Evans uses: Scott, Wilson, Captain Oates, Lieutenant Bowers and Petty Officer Edgar Evans – there was a substantial support team with dogs, ponies and motor sledges. The support parties peeled off and returned to base in three stages, the last of them at 87 degrees 30 minutes, on 4 January 1912. Well, not quite. Edward Evans was one of the last three to turn back, and hence the last to see Scott and his colleagues alive. His own words are worth quoting in full, I think: “It was a disappointment to my party that we could not all go to the Pole – a great disappointment, but we had been brought up to treat misfortunes with a smile and successes with a cheer. We took enough food to get us back to Latitude 87 degrees where we had established a depot. We made a short march with Scott’s team to see that with their load increased by what we had brought along they could manage without unduly straining. They got along finely for three or four miles, then they halted and said, ‘Good-bye’. We shook hands all round, and we felt very moved, as we looked into their eyes, and at their smoke-begrimed, bearded faces. There were cakes of ice on their beards, weather scars, split lips, and frostbite marks, but their rugged faces had become very dear to us, and it seems a few weeks rather than thirty years, since that memorable ’Good-bye’.” Evans then spends several hundred words in painting the rigours of his own journey back to base, and describing (from Scott’s diary) Scott’s final triumph and travail, and concludes with words, unsurprising in sentiment: “Scott was the pioneer of real sledge travelling in the Antarctic, a great scientific sailor explorer, whose achievements have placed him on the pinnacle of fame amongst explorers of all nations.”
The words that immediately follow are a sort of supporting act to the main performance. It’s pretty clear that polar exploration is a dangerous business, and equally clear that everyone involved in it is a hero. But not everyone has a prominent role or achieves recognition on history’s page. One such, who is little mentioned in accounts of southern polar exploration – and mentioned but briefly by Evans - is Frank Hurley (1885 – 1962). Hurley was an Australian, so strictly not British, although when born in Sydney in 1885 he was. He was a photographer – and what an astonishing career and life is hidden behind those few words. He was official photographer on Mawson’s Aurora journey, from 1911 to 1914. Then likewise with Shackleton’s Endurance journey, 1914 to 1916. He was back in the Antarctic with Mawson and Discovery 1929/30, and again 1930/31. He served, and photographed, in the First World War (1917 through 1918), memorably in the Third Battle of Ypres. He made documentary films, but his thousands of photographs are more accessible – held in a number of institutions, notably the National Library, Canberra. Arguably Hurley’s most graphic photographs show the crushing of Shackleton’s Endurance and her sinking into the ice in 1915. Evans enthuses that Mawson “was extremely fortunate in his choice of Hurley as his camera artist”, and that Hurley was a man of genius.
Afterword:
Apsley Cherry-Garrard (1886 – 1959) is a name likely unfamiliar to modern-day readers, but he was a significant figure in southern polar exploration, and interesting both as an explorer and author. He was a member of the Terra Nova expedition, and accompanied Scott to Antarctica in 1910. He was 24 at the time, and had no particular qualification – except, perhaps, persistence. He heard of Scott’s proposed expedition, and volunteered his services. He was rejected, asked again, and (having not long since enjoyed a substantial inheritance) offered 1000 pounds as a sweetener. Again he was rejected, but proffered the 1000 pounds regardless (equivalent to more than 100000 pounds today). Scott was so impressed that a place was found for Cherry-Garrard, as assistant zoologist. Immediately prior to Scott’s assault on the South Pole there was a side-bar scientific expedition in which Cherry-Garrard participated. This was in July 1911, the southern winter. Cherry-Garrard and his two companions (Wilson – the study leader - and Bowers, both of whom later accompanied Scott to the Pole) journeyed some 60 miles from base, pulling two sleds, to obtain unhatched Emperor penguin eggs, the end objective being to facilitate a study of the evolution from reptiles to birds. It was mission accomplished, but at some cost. Conditions were appalling, so much so that Bernard Shaw, no less, later described it as “the worst journey in the world”. This was the title Cherry-Garrard used for his account of the Terra Nova expedition, published in 1922. In addition to his foray into penguin egg territory, Cherry-Garrard was then in the second of the three support teams for Scott’s dash to the Pole. The expedition set out on 1 November 1911, and the Cherry-Garrard group, having established a supply depot, returned to base on 26 January 1912. The rendezvous with the returning Scott was set for 1 March or thereabouts, and Cherry-Garrard and one colleague, and dog teams, were chosen for the meeting. They waited at the appointed One Ton Depot until 10 March 1912 before returning to base “empty-handed” on 16 March. Cherry-Garrard later asserted that the dogs were intended to expedite the quick return of the Scott party from One Ton Depot to base, and there was no thought that they were intended to be used for rescue. But there was criticism of Cherry-Garrard for not waiting longer, or for not venturing from the Depot in Scott’s direction. The sad fact is that Scott, and his two surviving teammates, died in their tent a mere 11 miles from the supplies stashed at One Ton Depot. The subsequent rescue attempt was abandoned because of the cold; but Cherry-Garrard was one of the party who on 12 November 1912 found the frozen bodies of Scott, Wilson and Bowers in their tent. Oates and Edgar Evans had perished earlier and were not with Scott at the end.
Cherry-Garrard was damaged. He was physically damaged from the Emperor penguin journey, where the cold was so intense that Cherry-Garrard’s unstoppable chattering shattered his teeth. He was damaged mentally from the denouement of the Scott debacle. The writing of his book, The Worst Journey in the World, was likely an exercise in catharsis. It was later chosen by Penguin Books, who had launched in 1935, to be their 100th publication, in 1937 – 99th and 100th actually, since it was published in two volumes in Penguin’s cerise covers, signifying travel and adventure. Some travel! Some adventure!
More than 100 years on, history seems undecided about the Terra Nova blip on its screen. The Cherry-Garrard account was well received in 1922, with Bernard Shaw (never one for understatement) acclaiming it as the greatest true adventure story ever written. But Roland Huntford, a present-day writer who has a lifetime of writing about polar matters, describes The Worst Journey in the World as “an immature but persuasive, highly charged apologia”. Of more moment is Huntford’s criticism of Scott. Huntford lauds Amundsen’s success in Antarctica, but he damns Scott as an amateur whose inadequacies led to the deaths of him and his companions. The access that Huntford had to Scott’s unedited diaries (and to Amundsen’s) resulted in the 2010 publication of The Race for the South Pole: Expedition Diaries of Scott and Amundsen. Huntford had earlier portrayed Amundsen as experienced in arctic conditions, and careful, while Scott ignored the lessons of previous polar expeditions: he failed to take enough dogs, and his people had insufficient experience in handling the dogs; his men were not competent skiers; he was unprepared for extreme conditions; he took five men on the push for the Pole when he’d arranged provisions for four only; and he was indecisive. And his choice of man-hauling sleds rather than dog-hauling ones was…….fatal! Huntford’s book was a bombshell with its analysis of the diaries and its step-by-step comparisons between Amundsen and Scott. The overall conclusion was that Scott was an amateur and [here I am quoting from The Guardian review of the book] “a man given to blaming his colleagues for his own failings; a man who describes one of his dying colleagues as stupid; a man who, on realising he had missed out on being the first to the Pole, writes that he can still salvage his reputation if he can get the news to the outside world before Amundsen.” And much more.
But the myth of Robert Falcon Scott is impossible to dispel. The world knew of Amundsen’s success more than a year before Scott’s fate was known. That success was well received, albeit a little grudgingly, during Amundsen’s 1912 lecture tour of the UK; but once Scott’s death was known Scott became the national hero and pseudo martyr. Had Scott returned alive history would soon have slotted him into a minor role, but dead heroes are special in the British imagination. The myth was reinforced in later years by the hagiographic 1948 film, Scott of the Antarctic, with its score by Vaughan-Williams, later adapted into his eighth symphony. And others have come since Huntford to restore Scott’s image; but any debunking by Huntford will not substantially change the public’s perception of Scott. As the newspaperman declaims at the conclusion of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence, “when the legend becomes fact, print the legend”.
Huntford would claim the final word: “It’s strange. Shackleton, who didn’t lose a man when the Endurance was crushed in the Antarctic ice, remains a footnote in the national psyche, where Scott still has an iconic status. Only in Britain do we revere the man who died in failure above the survivor. Elsewhere in the world, Scott is seen as rather second-rate – an incompetent loser who battled nature rather than tried to understand it.” The jury of history will remain forever hung.
There’s a simple line in a little volume I picked up years ago – The Encyclopaedic Year Book 1912/1913. “January 1912: Captain Scott within 150 miles of the Pole”. Poignant to think that while the book was being printed Scott was arriving at the Pole, and as it was hitting the bookshops Scott, on his return journey, was dying of starvation, of the cold, and of disappointment. And, perhaps, of incompetence?
Gary Andrews
