Many, many events have celebrated or are to celebrate, this centenary:
On June 15 2010, The Captain Scott Society celebrated the centenary of the ‘Terra Nova’ sailing from Cardiff and in June 2011 Plymouth celebrated some of the scientific findings of Scott’s last expedition. Many other places with connections with the expedition plan to honour the memory of the ‘Terra Nova’ expedition of 1910-1913.
The diary of these events can be found at: wwwScott100centenary:celebrating 100 years since Terra Nova.
I will be attending the Swansea celebrations of the local Welsh hero, Edgar Evans on 17.18th February. There is to be a service at St Mary’s Church on the 17th and on the 18th there will be a book launch for my book ‘Captain Scott’s Invaluable Assistant, Edgar Evans’ in the Swansea Museum.
I look forward to this, also to a celebration in Gloucester Cathedral and a service in Cheltenham College to be held in memory of Dr E.A.Wilson. This is to be followed by a re-dedication of the Wilson statute in central Cheltenham which was sculpted by Scott’s wife, Kathleen Bruce. I am to give a talk to the College about their famous Old Boy.
Wherever you are, I hope you will be able to enjoy some of the planned events.
Isobel Williams – Author, Cruise Speaker and Lecturer 
We went to the Queens Gallery for a very interesting exhibition, which had particular reference to the photography. I would highly recommend it
Photography in Antarctica is obviously extremely evocative. Ponting (on the ‘Terra Nova’) was a wonderful ‘Camera Artist’ who had photographed all over the world before joining Scott’s expedition. He enthralled the crew with his Magic Lantern shows of images of Japan and China. His standards were high. Any negative not thought good enough was destroyed and his pictures and films were well ahead of anything done previously.
Frank Hurley (on ‘Endurance’), had not trained as a photographer, but he was an extremely practical man. When ‘Endurance’ was caught in the pack ice, his construction of a series of powerful lights allowed him to catch the death throes of the ship in unforgettable images.
The centenary has produced a flurry (although not of the snow variety) of interesting and thought-provoking articles in various media. Two I read are worthy of mention…
The Toronto Globe & Mail (Dec. 12, 2011) had a very good piece on Roald Amundsen titled “Canada’s North Won Him the South”, by Michael Posner. It described Amundsen’s time in the Canadian arctic in 1903-6, living with the Inuit and learning how to live in a hostile environment. While there he fathered a son (Luke Iquallaq), and his descendents still live in the region. Amundsen had enormous respect for wisdom and ingenuity of his Inuit hosts.
Montreal film-maker George Tombs has made a film of Amundsen’s arctic period called, “The Blinding Sea”, to be released in March 2012.
The Dec. 29, 2011 issue of New Scientist had an excellent article describing the third of the three expeditions that were in Antarctica in Jan. 1912 – Amundsen, Scott, and Nobu Shirase of Japan.
In addition, Roland Huntford’s book “Race to the South Pole” (the expedition diaries of Scott and Amundsen) is a fascinating look at the two expeditions through the pages of their leader’s journals.
I’m looking forward to reading the Edgar Evans book.
The ‘Edgar’ book is now officially ‘out’ and there is quite a lot of interest particularly of course, in Wales.
Thank you for e drawing attention to the articles, there will be a few more this year I think. Karen May has written an excellent article in The Polar Record about Teddy Evans’ scurvy, intimating that this was due to his distaste of seal meat and pointing out that his failure was the indirect reason for Cherry-Garrard being sent with the relief team to One Ton, She also questions whether Scott sent a verbal message with Evans when he returned. A compulsive read!.