National Geographic: September

Here's the link to the National Geographic story about the race to the South Pole.

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/09/amundsen/alexander-text

Paying His Way

Through lectures, sponsorships, private donations and other fundraising efforts Scott and his team were able to raise the funds needed for the Terra Nova Expedition. There were some creative advertising tie-ins as well.

Wolsey Underwear used this image in their ads with the headline "Wolsey Chosen By Scott & Amundsen"

Advertisement for Shell Motor Spirit. Scott experimented with motor sledges. The image implies that Shell is in the forefront of modern technology.


OXO the kitchen utensil supplier also came on board with their advertising.








Cigarette Trading Cards became quite popular as well.

Stores on Board

To give you an idea of the enormous amount of supplies that were put into store on the Terra Nova here is a detailed and partial list of food brought on board. This does not include the cooking equipment, medical supplies, surveying equipment, scientific supplies, clothing, tents, blankets etc.

Meats-

Brawn ... .., .., ... 100 2-lb. tins.
Bacon rations ... ... 200Ibs.
Potted Meals........1200 4 oz tins
Ham Loaf.. . ... ... 200 1-lb. tins.
Beef Loaf ... ... . . 200 1-lb. tins.
Assorted Potted Mcats ... ...200 4-oz. tins.

Fish
Sardines ... a . e . , . 15 cases 18-oz. tins.
Cod Roe... 200 tins.
Salmon ... ... 230 tins.
Pilcherds in Oil ... ... 500 lbs. (Is.).
Anchovics ... ... ... 129 doz. 1-lb. bottlcs.
Anchovy Paste ... ... ... 12& doz. qts.
Bloater Paste ... 20 doz. qts

Soups............200 2 lb tins
Scotch Broth
Cock-a-leekie
Ox Tail
Mock Turtle
Giblet
Hare

In addition-
2 Tons of Vegetables and dried vegetables
397 tons of Cereals
2 tons of Jams
2 tons of Boiled Fruit and Dried Fruit
2 tons Milk, butter, Cheese,
Pickles and Sauces
2 1/2 tons of Sugar
Cocoa and Chocolate
Tea, Coffee,
Spices
Wines, Spirits, Lime Juices
Tobacco

CAPE EVANS, Antarctica — A neat stack of seal meat sits in an enclosed porch, tins of cocoa and cabbage are piled on shelves inside, and all seems ready for Antarctic explorers Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton to take shelter.

Prefabricated in New Zealand in 1910, transported by ship and reassembled on a spit of land on McMurdo Sound in January 1911, the hut was built for the final expedition led by Britain's Scott, whose ill-fated race to reach the South Pole has become the stuff of legend.

It was the biggest structure in Antarctica when it was first built, some 50 feet (15 metres) by 25 feet (7.5 metres), with doors insulated with seaweed and lined with felt. The 52 officers and crew depended on the hut for shelter and for a semblance of civilization: there were clotheslines, clocks and a gramophone.

Early 1911

1911

Terra Nova arrives off Ross Island and scouts for possible landing sites - eventually proceeding to the "Skuary" about 15 miles north of Scott’s 1902
Discovery Expedition base. He renames it Cape Evans The shore parties disembark with the ponies, dogs, motorised sledges and the bulk of the party's supplies

18 January 1911

A prefabricated accommodation hut is made

26 January 1911

Griffith Taylor, Debenham, Wright and P.O. Evans land from Terra Nova at
Butter Point for a geological exploration of the west coast of McMurdo Sound

Depot laying on the Barrier for use on the polar journey begins

30 January 1911

The ‘Western Geological’ party establishes its main depot in the Ferrar Glacier
Region and conducts explorations and survey work in the Dry Valley, Taylor
Glacier and Koettlitz Glacier areas

26 January 1911

A party under Campbell heads east but fails to land on King Edward VII Land. Campbell sails north-west to Victoria Land instead. On its return, Terra Nova encounters Amundsen’s expedition camped in the Bay of Whales

Terra Nova Timeline 1910

1910

15 June 1910

• Terra Nova sets sail from Cardiff, Wales.
• Scott joins the ship later in South Africa and stays on it until it reaches Melbourne, Australia
• He leaves the ship again to continue fundraising, but not after he receives a telegram from Roald Amundsen to tell him that he too is “proceeding south”
• Terra Nova proceeds to New Zealand

29 November 1910

• Terra Nova leaves Port Chalmers, New Zealand. Scott is once again on board – Along with 34 dogs, 19 Siberian ponies and three motorized sledges. However, 2 ponies,1 dog, 1 sledge, coal and petrol are lost a few days later in a heavy storm

10 December 1910

• Terra Nova meets the southern pack ice and is halted for 20 days before being able to continue south

(Painting above based on Edmund Wilson's sketches)

The Discovery Expedition

Robert Scott had already made an earlier expedition to the South Pole before heading up the Terra Nova Expedition. It launched the Antarctic careers of many who would become leading figures in the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, including Robert Falcon Scott who led the expedition, Ernest Shackleton, Edward Wilson, Frank Wild, Tom Crean and William Lashly.

The British National Antarctic Expedition, 1901–04, generally known as the Discovery Expedition, was the first official British exploration of the Antarctic regions since James Clark Ross's voyage sixty years earlier.

Organized on a large scale under a joint committee of the Royal Society and the Royal Geographical Society (RGS), the new expedition aimed to carry out scientific research and geographical exploration in what was then largely an untouched continent.

Its scientific results covered extensive ground in biology, zoology, geology, meteorology and magnetism. There were important geological and zoological discoveries, including those of the snow-free McMurdo Dry Valleys and the Cape Crozier Emperor Penguin colony. In the field of geographical exploration, achievements included the discoveries of King Edward VII Land, and the Polar Plateau via the western mountains route. The expedition did not make a serious attempt on the South Pole, its principal southern journey, only traveling to the Farthest South mark at a reported 82°17'S.

As a trailbreaker for later ventures, the Discovery Expedition was a landmark in British Antarctic exploration history. After its return home it was celebrated as a success, despite having needed an expensive relief mission to free Discovery and its crew from the ice, and later disputes about the quality of some of its scientific records. It has been asserted that the expedition's main failure was its inability to master the techniques of efficient polar travel using skis and dogs a legacy that persisted in British Antarctic expeditions throughout the Heroic Age.

Map showing the Discovery Expedition's general field of work, 1902–04. Main journeys: RED line; Southern journey to Farthest South, November 1902 to February 1903. BLACK line; Western journey through Western Mountains to Polar Plateau, October–December 1903. BLUE line; Journeys to message point and Emperor Penguin colony at Cape Crozier, October 1902, September and October 1903.

( from Wikipedia)

To What End?

Amundsen's Singular Focus on Being First

For Amundsen, significance came from being the first to do something. His drive for success was not entirely a matter of ego. To continue to explore he needed to raise money–lots of it–and challenges that were easy or already accomplished by someone else sold no books and garnered little financial support.

His Antarctic team consisted only of men with the skills and training that could help him to achieve his dream to be the first to stand at 90°S. He took no scientists, journalists, or others who might have had their own plans.

For Scott, the significance of this journey was a more complex issue. Being first at the South Pole mattered, but so did science. Because he wanted his expedition to be both a triumph of exploration and an expansion of knowledge, he invited scientists to join him, at significant expense to his program. The observations and collections they made during the course of the Terra Nova expedition formed the basis for an extensive body of scientific literature that is still consulted today.