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Shackleton’s Journey re-enacted

7 Feb

An Anglo-Austrian team is attempting to recreate  Shackleton’s epic journey from Elephant Island to the whaling base in South Georgia. 800 miles by sea through the tempestuous Drake’s Passage and then the terrifying crossing over South Georgia.

The team led by Tim Jarvis have already completed the first part of the journey. They are at Peggotty Bay in South Georgia and will start the attempt to cross the island to-night. They made the stupendous journey from Elephant Island in 12 days, a little shorter than Shackleton. However Shackleton by this time, had already been battling against the elements for 16 months since he left South Georgia in December 1914 on the first leg of his attempt to cross Antarctica.

Shackleton’s journey from Elephant Island was terrifying. Six man in a  25 foot boat, the ‘James Caird’. She lifted over 50 feet waves–plunging from the crests of the waves into deep ‘holes’ where waves and ice blocks towered over them.   Frank Worsley, who navigated, was a hero.  In their 4 hour shifts the  six bailed, navigated, ate. In their rest periods they lay on the shingle ballast , soaked and probably sleepless. They landed at the wrong side of South Georgia, hence the horrifying climb across uncharted mountains that Tim Jarvis’ team will start to-day.

Shackleton crossed the island with two companions, but he wrote later that he felt there was a fourth invisible presence with them and guiding them; a concept later taken up by T.S.Eliot in The Waste Land

Shackleton did not achieve  the goal he had set himself, to cross Antarctica, but some failures are more glorious than success. His expedition was an inspiring example of endurance under suffering,

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‘A kind of suicide’? Comments on Roland Huntford’s account of the last days of Scott’s polar party

31 Jan

Karen May and George Lewis have produced a forensic analysis of Huntford’s conclusion that, at the end of his life Scott  ‘probably’ had no reason to wish to survive and that he ‘persuaded’ Edward Wilson and ‘Birdie’ Bowers to remain with him in the doomed tent when they could have gone on. (Polar Record, p.1-9 @Cambridge University Press 2013. doi:10.1017/S0032247413000041).

The paper is a ‘must’ for anyone who felt the injustice of Huntford’s negative, subjective assessment of Scott’s expeditions in his work ‘Scott and Amundsen’

The authors challenge Huntford’s statement that Scott’s writings read ‘like a long suicide note’. Scott did not write at the Pole (as is regularly quoted); ‘Now for the run home and a desperate struggle. I wonder if we can do it’. This quotation was posthumously edited. Scott actually wrote ‘Now for the run home and a desperate struggle to get the news through first. I wonder if we can do it’, hardly a suicidal intent. They state that although the party had opium there is no evidence the tablets were taken, Wilson and Bowers were committed Christians, Scott wrote that he would face death naturally.

Huntford remarkably appeared to believe that the possibility of social stigmatisation would have made Wilson and Bowers decide not to live. The authors argue that the two friends, modest and with few social aspiration, could and would have faced the social stigma of surviving Scott who had a severely frostbitten right foot; the reason the two men did not attempt the final journey to One Ton Camp and onwards was not because they were held back by Scott, but that they were simply too weak to make it.

They also question Huntford’s assertion that at the end Scott was ‘almost certainly in the early stages of scurvy. Here I agree with Huntford. By this stage the team had been without significant vitamin C for four months. It is inevitable that they had sub-clinical scurvy as well as other vitamin deficiencies. What the team did not have was overt scurvy (both Wilson and Scott had had the disease before and were not shy about recording its effects). But the vitamin deficiency probably caused a breakdown of Oates’ Boer War injury; his shattered femur and this slowed the return.

May and Lewis dismiss the suggestion that if Scott had lived he would have had to answer for the men he has lost.  Why would he have had to? They list numerous examples of men dying on Antarctic sorties without the expedition leader being called to account– most notably Mawson who last his two companions on his ‘Far Eastern Party’ of 1912/13.  They write compellingly that Scott, having reached the Pole and played the game’ (in contra distinction to Amundsen), would have returned to honour and acclaim.

This is  compulsive

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A NEW EMPEROR PENGUIN COLONY IN ANTARCTICA

28 Jan

EMPE

 

A new colony of 9,000 Emperor Penguins has been visited in Antarctica.

Fascinatingly they were located via satellite images that showed faecal staining on the ice.

The early explorers of 1902 were the first to realise that Emperors could breed in Antarctica. Until then it was thought that no animal would evolve to breed in the

the caterwauling gloom of Antarctica; it was assumed the birds migrated north to breed.

But on Scott’s first expedition Emperor chicks ware found.

Do birds descend from dinosaurs?  In the early 1900s a biologist, Haekel, postulated that the embryos of each animal went through each stage of its early evolution, so it was thought that if early embryos of the Emperor Penguins could be found, there might be vestiges of teeth or scales that would support the theory. This was no small matter. Evidence of this nature might secure the expedition the Darwinian Prize.

Dr Wilson was primarily a scientist.  To investigate this theory was one of his reasons for going on the ‘Terra Nova’ Expedition. He realised, from knowing which month chicks has been found in 1902, that to obtain embryos, he would have to get to the colony in the middle of the Antarctic winter—this was the last unsupported journey to be made in winter months until Sir Ranulph Fiennes present expedition to cross Antarctica –. Wilson went with two companions, one of whom, Cherry- Garrard was to write the sortie up in his famous book, ‘The Worst Journey in the World’, (Cherry-Garrard hoped to die, the conditions were so awful).  The three travelled in darkness, over surfaces that sometimes allowed progress of one mile per day and in temperatures, always well below freezing and on one occasion, minus 76°F. They captured five eggs, but Cherry-Garrard fell and smashed his two.

After the expedition Cherry-Garrard took his precious specimens to the Natural History Museum where, if his account is accurate, they were received with less that enthusiasm. Years later, when they were examined, the theory of descent from dinosaurs was not substantiated.

Wilson thought penguins were very primitive birds because they are flightless. We now know this is not the case. Bur he would not have regretted his expedition. It was made in the true spirit of scientific enquiry. But he would have been very impressed by the ease with which satellite images can locate the elusive creatures and pleased to know that indeed birds ARE descended from dinosaurs.

 

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Plymouth conyinues to celebrate Antarctic Heroes

17 Jan

Plymouth continuses to celebrate theose explorers with connections to the city.  The Devon and Cornwall Polar Society will celebrate Scott’s birthday on 6/6/2013 in the Royal Corinthian Yacht Club. I think they are keen to hear from people who would like to help them celebrate. In the city The Corinthian Pub stands on the site of the Scott Family Brewery and nearby is Oaklands, the Scott family home where Scott was born–a suprisingly large site, then countrified, now in the centre of the city.

Sshckletons farewell dinner will be celebrated on 7/8/2013, one hundred years after Shackleton left |Millbay Docks on 8/8/1913. The celebrations will be in the Duke of Cornwall Hote.l Should be good!

Transport in the Antarctic

31 Dec

Felicity Aston the explorer, writes in the Geographical about motorised transport to the South Pole. There are now tracked vehicles that can work even in the extreme temperatures and awful surfaces of Antarctica. The South Pole Operations Traverse transports fuel from the Ross Sea to the South Pole station each year. The journey takes 40 days for the round trip and is made by a convoy of tracked vehicles.It saves many transport flights to The Pole. Felicity describes also the use of four -wheel-drive vehicles with big tyres of very low pressure, that can tackle even the softest surface.

Felicity described Ernest Shackleton’s car. He took this to Antarctica as part of a publicity campaign for his sponsor Beardmore, who ran the Arrol-Johnston engineering company in Scotland. The car was four cylinder, 15 horse power. Newspapers at the time, (which I have read), quoted Shackleton as saying that the car could go at over 50 mph and he thought it might get to The Pole.

The car did not do well, but the suggestion that it might get to The Pole is not as far fetched  as it may appear at first. Shackleton thought that the Ice Barrier (that leads to the glaciers that rise to the high Antarctic plateau), would actually stretch on to the South Pole. He only discovered that the mountains stood in the way of his advance when he was on his expedition. It was said afterwards, that he showed enormous courage in launching himself up the glacier.

 

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Queen Elizabeth Land

21 Dec

The decision by the Foreign Office to rename a 169,000 square mile chunk of the British Antarctic Territory, ‘Queen Elizabeth Land’ is a lovely ‘retro’ step.

Before the Antarctic Treaty entered into force in 1961, explorers named discoveries after their monarch/country routinely: Victoria Land, Queen Maud Land etc. When Mawson reached the area that contained the South Magnetic Pole in 1909 he took possession of it in the name of the British Empire and, in the Imperial Conference of 1926, he proposed that the Empire should control the Antarctic section between 45 and 160 degrees East (nearest to Australasia).

The Foreign Office decision, that rounds off the Diamond Jubilee Celebrations, is bound to cause  diplomatic problems with Argentina. Argentina disputes British claims to the area and has its own claim to land some of which overlaps the newly renamed land.

Undoubtedly more to follow!

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Von Herkomer

17 Dec

I plan to present a talk on the artist von Herkomer. He was famous in the late1800s and the early 1900s. One of his paintings was hung in the Royal Academy when he was 20!! Later in his life he was honoured to be asked to paint Queen Victoria on her deathbed–a rare accolade for a commoner.

So, an immensely talented and versatile man, but after his death in 1914 his star fell dramatically. Why is it that some reputations ride the wave of fame long term, whilst others quickly sink into oblivion? Talent and changing appreciation of styles are obviously important, but I think von Herkomer’s fall from grace was greatly influenced by his German connections (the von is a clue)! He was born in Bavaria and often travelled there in the summer months. At the time preceding the First World War this would have been considered provocative (although many of the British upper class had German connections). Von Herkomer died in 1914, and after the carnage of W.W.1 the taint of a German affiliation would have precluded continued fame.

Recently his star is beginning to ascend again. His paintings are held in important galleries throughout England and in the States. He lived in Bushey, Hertfordshire, which houses a comprehensive collection of his paintings.

Any comments will be appreciated!!

 

 

 

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The British Antarctic Survey (BAS)

28 Nov

David Wilson, the great nephew of Dr Edward Wilson, Scott’s friend, writes in the Telegraph Weekend, November 24th, of worries over the future funding for The British Antarctic Survey (BAS), the scientific research institute, which for years has been at the forefront of research in Antarctica. There has been a British presence in Antarctica since 1944 and one of the greatest discoveries relating to climate change, the hole in the ozone layer, was made in an inland BAS station in 1988. A huge amount of influential scientific papers have been produced.

Financial concerns have surfaced recently however. There was a proposed merger between BAS and the National Oceanographic Centre based in Southampton, which has apparently now been ditched. The Minister of State for Science David Willetts, has stated that £42 million per year has been committed for the current review period. Budget guarantees are being considered for the next spending round. But budget cuts in BAS continue.

Antarctic science is key to the understanding of climate change. Decisions about costal defences in Britain are being based on Antarctic science projections.

This is a big issue. It is important to avoid far reaching mistakes

 

 

 

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Lois Evans, Edgar Evans’ widow

28 Nov

Plans for the Edgar Evans sculpture are going apace. The South Wales Evening Post of 23rd November shows Edgar’s grandson, John holding a scale model. The sculptor, Roger Andrews, says he aims to combine accuracy with a vivid impression of Edgar’s character.

The campaign now has the backing of Swansea Council and the British Antarctic Heritage Trust.An Edgar Evans education programme is planned -this would have pleased him, he was intelligent and a keen reader.

What would Lois have made of this? I think she would have been proud and delighted- vindication at last! She suffered greatly after Edgar’s death. Not only had she lost her husband and father of her three children, but also, she had to endure the published implications in some papers, that Edgar critically held the British party up and was the indirect cause of the deaths of Scott (who he much admired) plus the rest of the Polar party. Her mother in law, Sarah, admitted this to a local reporter. The suggestion that Edgar failed because he had not had the education to equip him for the tedium of the homeward journey must have been a humiliating body blow.

In 1913 Lois, robustly loyal to her man, had a beautiful memorial erected for Edgar in the little church in Rhossili, a testament of her courage and determination, but there was no national memorial erected in Wales; it may have been feared that the rumours had substance- It is remarkable that, 100 years after Edgar’s death, there is this move to celebrate this ‘son of Gower’.

Ironically, Lois benefited financially in her widowhood. The Admiralty treated Edgar’s demise as if he had been killed in action and she received government and Admiralty pensions of £91 each year, a lump sum of £96, plus income from a fund raised by voluntary subscription and his Expedition salary of £44. She professed herself satisfied, Interestingly, Kathleen Scott received a lump sum nearly thirty times as much, plus comparably large pensions, trust funds etc

 

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Statute for Edgar Evans in Swansea

20 Nov

Throughout the centenary year of the deaths of Scott’s Polar Party members, there has been a move in Swansea to erect a memorial near Swansea Museum.

Although this was suggested at the time of Edgar’s death there was little enthusiasm for the project.  This was for two reasons. It was a time when money was tight, also, in some circles, Edgar had been uncompromisingly criticized for holding up the whole party and thus indirectly causing the deaths of his companions. Since impressive newspapers in London published this, it was thought that there could be some truth in the comments and therefore, it would not be wise to draw too much attention to the dead Welshman. It took years for Edgar’s reputation to be reconsidered.

Now however, plans are moving!   A 9 ft. high bronze resin statute is proposed. The official launch for the appeal is in Swansea Museum tomorrow with an Appeal Committee of four members. The National Heritage Trust is giving £10,000 apparently. Appeals are being made to local businesses and universities.

There is a bust of Edgar in Swansea Museum but it is thought that a more visible record of the Gower Hero is now appropriate.

I am speaking in Swansea this weekend. I will hear all about it.I wonder what will happen.

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