"Scott Reaches Base Camp" Newspaper Article
Andrew Atkin
Sydney Morning Herald (a large circulation paper in New South Wales) on
November 12th. It appears to have been lifted from the Daily Telegraph in
London. Written by Aisling Irwin.
It caught my attention due to a some inaccuracies.
The article was accompanied by a post-war photograph of Philip Law
(previous head of ANARE) whom the journalist must have presumed was Scott.
The second was the implication that a rescue party was waiting at One Ton
Depot for the returning polar party.
Here it is:
SCOTT REACHES BASE CAMP........86 YEARS AFTER HIS DEATH
Captain Scott of the Antarctic has arrived in death at the destination that
eluded him in life. Encased in his icy tomb, he has drifted North beyond
the camp he failed to reach 86 years ago.
Captain Robert Scott died among blizzards on his return journey from the
South Pole in 1912 and has been carried 56 kilometres from the spot where
he wrote his last words.
When a rescue (sic) party found Scott and his two companions dead, it
collapsed their tent over the bodies and built a snow cairn over them. Over
the years, this sank beneath the snow into the ice.
Now buried 27 metres under the Ross Ice Shelf, Scott, his expedition chief
scientist, Dr Edward Wilson, and Lieutenant Henry Bowers have been moving
at just under a kilometre a year.
Scott's journey has been plotted by Dr Ian Whillans, an expert in glacial
dynamics at the Byrd Polar Institute, Ohio. He bases his work on the
knowledge of the ice sheet's drift.
"He is buried in an ice shelf that is moving, so we can work out where the
bodies must be today," Dr Whillans said.
He says Scott has now passed the site of One Ton Depot, where a dog team
waited in vain for six days for the explorers.
They died 17 kilometres from rescue while returning from a race to be first
to the Pole-lost by five weeks to the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen.
On March 29, 1912, Scott wrote: "Every day we have been ready to start for
our depot 11 miles away but outside the door of the tent it remains a scene
of whirling drift. I do not think we can hope for any better things now. We
shall stick it out to the end, but we are getting weaker, of course, and
the end cannot be far."
In about 250 years, Scott's frozen grave will reach the Ross Sea and break
up, his body sinking to its final resting place on the seabed.
Andrew Atkin
Faculty of Education
University of Technology, Sydney
Ph. 61 2 9514 5273
Fax. 61 2 9514 5265
Faculty Home Page:
http://www.education.uts.edu.au
Janni Lee Simner
>The second was the implication that a rescue party was waiting at One Ton
>Depot for the returning polar party.
I thought a party _was_ at One Ton Depot--Cherry Garrard with the dogs, all
of whom waited there as long as they could manage (until they had just
enough supplies to still get back to camp).
Though I didn't get the impression it was a rescue party so much as a
if-you-make-it-back-in-time-we'll-help-you-out-over-the-last-of-the-journey
party. (Since they didn't know just what bad shape the party was in at
this point.)
____________________________________________________________________
Janni Lee Simner -- jsi...@pobox.com -- http://www.dm.net/~janni/
Kent Christman
<< At 06:29 PM 11/30/98 +1100, Andrew Atkin wrote:
>The second was the implication that a rescue party was waiting at One Ton
>Depot for the returning polar party.
I thought a party _was_ at One Ton Depot--Cherry Garrard with the dogs, all
of whom waited there as long as they could manage (until they had just
enough supplies to still get back to camp).
Though I didn't get the impression it was a rescue party so much as a
if-you-make-it-back-in-time-we'll-help-you-out-over-the-last-of-the-journey
party. (Since they didn't know just what bad shape the party was in at
this point.)
>>
From what I have read, Scott's last journal entry was 29 March 1912, having
reached their last camp on 19 March 1912.
Cherry-Garrard did indeed wait for the Polar party at One-Ton Depot, Arriving
there on 4 of March 1912, and departing on 10 March 1912.
It seems that it was indeed a help-you-out-over-the-last-part-of-the-journey
party.
Kent Christman
Lotta Lotass
The original article (with a nice map of the ice flows) from The Daily
Telegraph can be found at
http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/et?ac=001240686900275&rtmo=3uuYAxnM&atmo=3uuYAxnM&
pg=/index.html
Go to "Search", look for Scott and log in. It's a free service, but you
have to register.
As I am new to the list and this is my first posting perhaps I should
introduce myself.
My name is Lotta Lotass and I am a post-graduate student in comparative
literature at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. At present I am working
on a study of the diaries of polar explorers, especially the diaries of the
Terra Nova-expedition. And today has been a very happy day for me as I have
just come home from the post office where I collected _The Diaries of
Captain Robert Scott_ , the six volume facsimile, that I finally found at
Explorer Books, W. Sussex, England!
Lotta Lotass
Antarctic Connection
I'm interested in the Scott diaries you obtained. Are these in book format
and available to the public? Can you tell me more about 'Explorer Books'?
I manage the e-commerce site: The Antarctic Connection and am always
looking for information sources and new products.
Thanks,
Tom Hutchings
man...@antarcticconnection.com
The Antarctic Connection
http://www.antarcticconnection.com
Polar
I hope you will read them with a grain of salt! They were endlessly
self-pitying, melodramatic, and highly inaccurate.
Good luck on your project.
--
Polar
Janni Lee Simner
>I hope you will read them with a grain of salt! They were endlessly
>self-pitying, melodramatic, and highly inaccurate.
But somehow moving in spite of that, and in spite of all Scott's mistakes.
I'm beginning to conclude that the diaries' primary value is as literature,
rather than as an account of actual exploration.
I'm curious about the journals too, Lotta. Are they complete (as opposed
to the more readily available account of Scott's final voyage). And were
they subject to the same doctoring/rewriting as the other versions of the
journals in print, or are they closer to the originals?
Pete Sommerville
and that of the 1998 Iridium Icetrek expedition found on the Icetrek web
site http://www.icetrek.org - look under 'Learning'.
Any comments regarding this work would be gratefully received
A front page article in the Christchurch Press reported that the IceTrek
expedition had passed the point of Scott's last camp on their way toward the
Shackleton Glacier and the South Pole. (See
http://www.press.co.nz/48/98113004.htm)
Regards,
Pete
Pete Sommerville, Director
Heurisko Ltd
- Learning Technology Specialists -
257 Lincoln Rd, PO Box 8577
Christchurch
NEW ZEALAND
Ph +64 3 338-6022
Fx +64 3 338-6030
Mob 025-229-4690
p.somm...@heurisko.co.nz
http://www.heurisko.co.nz
-----Original Message-----
From: Lotta Lotass <lotta....@LIT.GU.SE>
To: nsp...@tc.umn.edu <nsp...@tc.umn.edu>
Date: Tuesday, 1 December 1998 6:58 am
Subject: Re: "Scott Reaches Base Camp" Newspaper Article
Hi!
The original article (with a nice map of the ice flows) from The Daily
Telegraph can be found at
Go to "Search", look for Scott and log in. It's a free service, but you
have to register.
As I am new to the list and this is my first posting perhaps I should
introduce myself.
My name is Lotta Lotass and I am a post-graduate student in comparative
literature at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. At present I am working
on a study of the diaries of polar explorers, especially the diaries of the
Terra Nova-expedition. And today has been a very happy day for me as I have
just come home from the post office where I collected _The Diaries of
Captain Robert Scott_ , the six volume facsimile, that I finally found at
Explorer Books, W. Sussex, England!
Lotta Lotass