This Day in Antarctic Exploration and Discovery

Discovery and exploration

Cameron, Ian 1974

Antarctica: The Last Continent Cassell and Company Ltd., London. 256 pp.
This is an interesting and well-written account. Summarizes the events of some of the major voyages of exploration, concentrating on the late 18th and 19th centuries and early 20th centuries (Cook, Bellinghausen, Davis, De Gerlache, Nordenskjöld, Amundsen, Scott, Shackleton) and then into the Byrd and Fuchs and Hillary in the mid-20th century. The late 19th to early 20th centuries are sometimes called the 'Heroic Age' of Antarctic exploration. The accounts start with voyages to the southern oceans, then the discovery of the coastline, and then exploration of the interior, especially the race for the South Pole. Unlike other continental explorations, this one was not marred by eradication of indigenous people, since there were none, but was accompanied by decimation of wildlife. Cameron makes it clear that pillage was part of the history with extirpation of first fur seals and then the great whales. The tale has plentiful illustrations, many paintings and photographs. It sets the well-known journeys (Scott, Shackleton) into perspective by showing how they were the outgrowth of what had happened before. Interesting and informative. (23/Apr/2006)

Fiennes, Ranulph 2003

Captain Scott. Hodder and Stoughton. ix + 509 pp.
A retelling of Scott's life, concentrating on the two expeditions, especially the second. Fiennes interlards the story with comments based on his own experience of a trans-Antarctic man-hauling trek. These comments are interesting, if sometimes intrusive. However, since he has experience of extreme journeys, his comments are valuable. The book comes up with no really new revelations or insights, other than that Fiennes clearly admires Scott as a polar traveller and finds that most of his leadership decisions were well-founded and justifiable in the context of their time. Fiennes also concludes that Scott's decision to take five, not four, men to the pole had been made well before he implemented it, taking as evidence a sketch by Wilson done some time before showing five men man-hauling a sled. He spends a chapter at the end fulminating at various debunkers and recent biographers of Scott, especially Roland Huntford. He finds RH's books to be sneering, slanted and not accurate. Fiennes also digs up some unsavoury details about RH's own background. Fiennes sees Scott as very much a hero for his times and credits him with inspiration for many servicemen in the next two wars. Fiennes also speaks approvingly of Solomon's climate research, though he, rather tellingly, does not comment on her assertion that the last blizzard could not have happened as the Scott papers describe. We shall never know, of course. This book has plenty of photos and some good maps which help to make the journeys clearer. A good read about a fascinating episode. (04/Apr/2006)

Fleming, Fergus 1998

Barrow's Boys: The Original Extreme Adventurers. Atlantic Monthly Press. 489 pp.
John Barrow (1764 - 1848) was Secretary to the Admiralty for most of the 19th century and was responsible for promoting many of the exploring expeditions, including the ill-fated one of Franklin's, that have become so much a part of exploration history. Among the expeditions that Barrow promoted were Ross, Parry, and Franklin to the Arctic, Ross to the Antarctic, and several by other minor figures to West Africa in search of the source of the Niger River. A flamboyant group of people, often ill-prepared for the tasks they were sent to do. Barrow was often penny-pinching, trying to send them out insufficiently equipped and with not enough money. In spite of this, many did do well. Parry and the Rosses (uncle and nephew) are the central characters here and perhaps the greatest achievers/ The book ends with the search for Franklin and the discovery of the bodies and the realization that the expedition had failed. Written with a good deal of verve and humour, this was an enjoyable read. (14/Sep/2003)

Jones, Max 2003

The Last Great Quest: Captain Scott's Antarctic Sacrifice. Oxford University Press. 352 pp.
Written by an academic historian, this is an examination of, mainly, the 'Terra Nova' expedition and its aftermath. It concentrates less on the minutiae of the expedition itself and more on events in the world beyond Antarctica. MJ sets the expedition into its social and historical context, noting how it satisfied several needs in late Victorian England, both to assert continuing domination and to assert the primacy of character (of men), which became even more important soon after in WWI. He highlights the role of the Royal Geographical Society and Clements Markham in late 19th century expeditions and makes it clear that Scott's work has to be seen against the background of this institutional support and the objectives of these broader Establishment organizations. He shows how the myth-making started and continued and became mixed with jingoism, which perhaps explains why the reaction against Scott was so extreme in the 1970s and 1980s , a more cynical age in which patriotism seemed a sham. This is most interesting. MJ also shows how much of the myth-making was driven by media attention, especially newspapers and news magazines, using the emotional impact of Scott's death to drive up sales. And how the Establishment jumped on board, claiming the more upper-class expedition members (Scott and Oates) as theirs, while Bowers was portrayed as the faithful retainer and Edgar Evans either ignored altogether or spoken of reprovingly as having let the side down, as much as could be expected from a working class man from the Valleys. MJ also recounts something of the later career of some of the 'Terra Nova' expedition members, several of them (Frank Debenham, Griffith Taylor) went on to distinguished and long careers. Others perished in WWI, while other (Ponting, Cherry-Garrard) were never really able to move on from these events. Teddy Evans went on to have a long and distinguished military career, despite being a relentless self-promoter and not well-liked by other expedition members. What MJ does show is that the expedition has to be judged against the standards of the time, rather than today's which are so different. MJ's admiration for Scott and his team is clear. However told. the tale of the polar journey is extraordinary and endlessly fascinating and tragic. (11/Apr/2006)

Scott, Robert Falcon

Scott of the Antarctic: The Journals of Captain R. F. Scott's Last Polar Expedition. Prospero Books, Toronto. 521 pp.
I have never read these through before, though I have read excepts in many other books. Reading them through as a continuous narrative has a powerful and emotional effect. No doubt that he was driven, and that some of the decisions do not seem well-founded. Nevertheless, the journey was courageous if harrowing in the extreme and the fact that they almost made it therefore comes across as even more tragic. Very compelling reading. (01/Sep/2003)

Solomon, Susan 2001

The Coldest March: Scott's Fated Antarctic Expedition. Yale University Press, New Haven, U.S.A. xxii + 383 pp.
Solomon is a climatologist who has studied the Antarctic ozone hole for many years. She has turned this same trained eye on an analysis of the meteorological records kept by Scott's expedition and shows that the conditions encountered by the Polar party were anomalous in comparison with the records kept by automated stations in Antarctica over the last few decades. The temperatures on the way back, particularly across the Barrier, were 20° - 30° colder than average for that time of year, over a much longer sustained interval than is usual. These conditions were not only debilitating for the men, they also made pulling the sled extremely difficult. However, Solomon concludes that the 10 day blizzard that Scott reported in his diary at the end could not have happened because conditions on the Barrier are coupled with conditions further towards the Barrier edge. At the same time as Scott was reporting blizzard, the rest of the crew were reporting clear and fair conditions at the Barrier edge. She thinks that Scott froze his feet so badly that he couldn't continue and, rather than leave him, Wilson and Bowers chose to stay with him and perished too. I'm not sure about this - it makes a good story but I guess we will just never know for sure (unless their bodies were found and autopsied). At any rate, this makes a good read and the analysis of the met records is very interesting. (14/Aug/2004)

Natural history and travel

Anonymous 2004

With Scott to the Pole: The Terra Nova Expedition 1910-1913: The Photographs of Herbert Ponting. BCL Press, New York. 240 pp.
A photo catalogue of Ponting's images from the archives of the Royal Geographical Society and the Scott Polar Research Institute, printed in large format so that they are crisp and clear. These are beautifully produced and look truly stunning especially compared to the small reproductions seen in other books. The photos are preceded by three chapters outlining the main events of the 'Terra Nova' expedition, and followed by an evaluation chapter on Ponting as a photographer and artist, with some discussion of his life. The photos are almost all in black-and-white - Ponting did experiment a bit with colour which was just starting to become available. But all the icon images ('Terra Nova' viewed from the ice grotto, or Wilson, Bowers and Cherry-Garrard on their return from Cape Crozier) are in black-and-white. Ponting has been compared to Ansel Adams, another photographer who worked in black-and-white. This is a terrific book and a record of a tragic yet transcendent expedition. The photos taken by Ponting remain one of the enduring artistic and human achievements of the expedition. (30/Apr/2006)

Campbell, David G. 1992

The Crystal Desert: Summers in Antarctica. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston and New York. 308 pp.
This is one of my all-time favourite books. It is focussed on biological fieldwork on King George Island, one of the South Shetland Islands off the Antarctic Peninsular. Campbell describes this as the 'banana belt' of Antarctica, yet it is still a place where life hangs on a knife-edge. Campbell sets his studies into the broader context of the human and natural history of one of the most remote and yet wildest places on earth. (28/Apr/2006)

Lamb, Hubert 1997

Through All the Changing Scenes of Life: A Meteorologist's Tale. Taverner Publications. xiii + 274 pp.
Born in 1913, and brought up in the Midlands. As a young man trained as a meteorologist and gained his skills by trying to perfect forecasts for civil aviation and RAF training in Scotland and Ireland. Worked for most of his life as a civil servant. Only became an academic in later life with founding of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at UEA. He made a trip to the southern oceans near Antarctica to help forecasting for a whaling expedition. (09/Oct/1999)

Matthiessen, Peter 2003

End of the Earth: Voyages to Antarctica. National Geographic. 242 pp.
This is a slight offering from a major nature writer. It is the account of two eco-tourism voyages to the Antarctic. One in 1998 to the Antarctic Peninsula, setting out from Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego. And the second to the Ross Sea-Mount Erebus area, setting off from Hobart, Tasmania, in 2001. Mostly these are accounts of bird and marine mammal encounters, mostly from shipboard but also from occasional landfalls. The Batemans were also along to do some photography and sketching but one doesn't get much impression of the other passengers. PM was along as a team leader for the other eco-tourists. This really seems like two magazine articles stretched to fill a book, with no really insightful comments or different perspectives. This has all been said before. (12/Mar/2006)

Mear, Roger, and Robert Swan 1987

In the Footsteps of Scott. Jonathan Cape, London, UK. 306 pp.
Three men set out to walk to the South Pole, manhauling sleds and trying to recreate Scott's epic journey. They reached the Pole on January 11th 1986. Disaster struck when the vessel carrying the plane that was to pick them up was sunk, and the Americans at the polar base were not pleased about the presence of "private adventurers". This seems strange in view of US tradition of individual freedom but was perhaps related to the control exercised by the NSF funded research stations. Interesting, with a graphic description of the conflicts within the group of three as they travelled. (17/May/1988)

Fiction based in Antarctica

Andrews, Sarah 2007

In Cold Pursuit. St Martin's Paperbacks. 368 pp.
Reviewed in Geolog 38(4):14-15, 2009.

Arthur, Elizabeth 1994

Antarctic Navigation. Ballantine Books, New York. 796 pp.
It was tough sledding to get through this book, even though the subject matter certainly interests me. The narrator is Morgan Lamont, an American, heiress to a paint fortune, whose ambition it is to recreate Scott's expedition to the South Pole, following her obsession with his writings and everything to do with the earlier ill-fated expedition. She sees this as a way to achieve personal understanding of the world and her place in it. Much of the book consists of her self-absorbed musings on the world around her, her own interior monologue dealing with events and her experiences. Utterly self-absorbed, she is not a very sympathetic character and her musings get rather tedious. (07/Sep/1998, 14/Feb/2004)

Batchelor, John Calvin 1983

The Birth of the People's Republic of Antarctica. The Dial Press, New York. 401 pp.
Another totally weird book. An apocalyptic vision of the future. 1973 in Stockholm and Grim Fiddle is born, son of an American draft dodger and a Swedish witch. Abandoned by his mother, he is brought up by his father and his father's friends, an assortment of mainly American outcasts. For some reasons, mainly economic, the social order starts to break down in the 1990s and Sweden is afflicted with xenophobia and religious mania. Foreigners are blamed for disasters and the persecutions become so bad that Grim is forced to flee together with his father, grandfather and "family". After drifting in the Atlantic, refused entry to ports because of the fear of plague that apparently is also devastating the world, fleeing pirates, and warships, they end up in the Falklands, also torn by war, flee to South Georgia and live there for some years (only part of the group - grandfather and rest of gang continue south). Eventually dissent and breakdown of social order again force Grim and his new "family" to flee from South Georgia. They end up in the South Shetland Islands, under control of the "Ice Cross", a perverted Red Cross organization set up by the remaining nations to minister to the thousands of feeling refugees, the so-called "Fleet of the Dammed". This organization wages war with the pirates. Also funded internationally by nations who see this civil war in the southern ocean as a useful way of getting rid of nuisance people. Eventually Grim takes over as king of the camps and defeats all opposition. Betrayed by his lieutenant, Lazarus, who founds the "People's Republic of Antarctica" and signs an international peace treaty. Grim is tried and condemned to perpetual imprisonment for his murder. Now it is 2037 and he is finishing writing his account of his youth and arrival in Antarctica and word comes that he is finally pardoned and is to be set free. All this is mixed up with Grim's vision of himself as the hero of a Norse legend, a hero from old rescuing the wretches from a world gone mad, and a continuing debate with Lazarus about the correct form of political and social organization to ensure peace and prevent anarchy. The general conclusion seems to be that all political systems are out worn as are the religious creeds, which have turned out to be the despairing people's last resort. Very strange book and vision of the future, the world order breaks down, not through nuclear war, but intensification of economic ills and social unrest, and enhanced intolerance and bigotry. (20/Nov/1983)

Dickinson, Matt 2003

Black Ice. Arrow Books, London. 538 pp.
This is a good read, a "rattling good yarn". It concerns a monomaniacal explorer who wants to walk across Antarctica and his conflict with a research group in a very remote winter camp. The geological team is drilling a deep hole to access an under-ice lake, and collect a sample of the water for analysis. When the explorer is rescued by them after his trip goes wrong, he sees them as just a way to finish his project. He is an abrasive and arrogant character to boot. The station burns down as he steals a snowmobile and so begins a desperate race across Antarctica to get to some supplies at a crashed aircraft. The tale captures the stress and hardship of the travel in such a harsh and unforgiving landscape. The story moves along at a fast pace. (13/Dec/2006) Reviewed in Geolog 36(2):22, (2007).

Kilian, Crawford 1979

Icequake. Seal Books, Toronto. 243 pp.
Catastrophic environmental change as seen through the eyes of a group of twenty-seven earth scientists, including geologists, geophysicists and glaciologists, and support staff at New Shackleton Station or "Shacktown", an Antarctic research station, run by CARP, the Commonwealth Antarctic Research Program. The rapid deterioration in conditions leaves them marooned in Antarctica, facing a bleak winter and hoping that rescue will occur in the spring. The reactions of this group of people, thrown on their own resources by environmental disaster, forms the central focus of the tale. The story emphasises the fragility of social structures, such as transport and medical services for example, in the face of a catastrophe. The concatenation and speed of impact of the environmental changes seems rather over-exaggerated, but the tale certainly makes the point that environmental components are linked. This is an interesting and unusual tale and it is a refreshing change to see an attempt to make research and researchers seem real. (22/01/1989) Reviewed in Geolog 18(2):44-45 (1989).

Preston, Douglas, and Lincoln Child 2000

The Ice Limit. Warner Books, New York. 491 pp.
On a distant island off the southwestern coast of Chile, an exceptionally large and apparently intact meteorite has been found. When he hears about it, Palmer Lloyd, the richest man in the world, wants it for his collection. He is prepared to do anything and spend any amount of money to obtain it, arrogantly confident that his wealth gives him the right of possession. The technological challenges of getting such a large object from its resting place to Lloyd's "Museum" in upstate New York are formidable. So Lloyd hires the best engineering company he can find to carry out this task. Besides the sheer mass of the meteorite, the environment of the island presents its own challenges. The location is bleak and remote, far from any town, with little possibility of help if things go wrong. The landscape is windswept and unsheltered. The climate is harsh and unrelenting. The oceans are stormy and cold. For Eli Glinn, the head of the firm Lloyd has hired to move the meteorite, these factors merely add relish to an already intriguing engineering problem. With a converted oil tanker, the Rolvaag, and highly-paid crewmen who know they are working on the fringes of legality, he sails for Tierra del Fuego. The Ice Limit is a tale that rockets along at a meteoric pace, highly readable and entertaining. (21/Apr/2005) Reviewed in Geolog 34(2):31, (2005).

Reeves-Stevens, Judith, and Garfield Reeves-Stevens 1998

Icefire. Pocket Books, New York. 703 pp.
Icefire is a long series of spectacular special effects on a cinematic scale - vast ocean waves sweeping along shorelines, thousands of people being killed in macabre ways, explosions galore, nuclear detonations, hi-tech gizmos, and destructive volcanic eruptions. The mayhem involves a stock cast of characters that includes rogue military officers, militant environmentalists, and bewildered technocrats, linked by a plot device predicated on conspiracy and technological contrivance. The pivotal event of the story is the rapid collapse of the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica. The collapse is triggered, not by climatic change, but by a series of deliberately placed nuclear explosions that detach the Shelf from its moorings. Naturally, our heroes, Mitch and Cory, eventually save the world. Geologic structures in the Pacific play a crucial role in the resolution of the story. We see Mount Erebus in eruption, and the Pacific Ring of Fire igniting. We travel in many sophisticated vehicles on land, at sea, and in the air. We learn a lot about military hardware, command structure, and communications technology. The tale certainly races along at a supersonic clip. It contains too much "techno-babble" and too few believable characters for my taste. But if you like fast-paced techno-thrillers, then you'll probably enjoy this book. (21/Jan/2002) Reviewed in Geolog 31(1):32, (2002).

Robinson, Kim Stanley 1998

Antarctica. Bantam Books, New York. 653 pp.
The novel is set in the near-future, a time when commercial interests in Washington have blocked the renewal of the Antarctic Treaty. The future of the continent is at risk: should it be left in solitude, the last largely untouched place on earth, or drawn into the commercial extractive development network? Many sides of the debate have a voice in this story and the various viewpoints are articulated and represented by different groups of characters. Scientists and staffers at McMurdo, representatives of industrial interests, and eco-tourists all have different and often competing agendas. Stuck in the middle, trying to balance competing interests while obeying their fiscal and administrative masters back in Washington, are NSF staff members. They manage the logistic support at McMurdo Station. Sylvia Johnson, the NSF representative in charge, has a difficult job to do. She has to facilitate the scientific research, cope with the erratic behaviour of pompous and demanding Distinguished Visitors and the often eccentric participants in the Artists and Writers' Program, make sure that everyone stays safe, deal with emergencies, and bring the whole operation in under a constantly shrinking budget. This task is made even more difficult when some ecoteurs, self-appointed self-righteous guardians of the environment, decide to precipitate a crisis by disrupting communications and destroying several field camps. Now, in the window of opportunity before the military arrive, diverse groups come together to work out a new charter for Antarctica and present it to the remote decision-makers who will determine the land's fate. So, what should we do with Antarctica? You may not agree with Robinson's solution, but his excellent novel will give you plenty to think about. (12/Mar/2000, 22/Feb/2003) Reviewed in Geolog 34(1):24-25 (2005).

The remarks in black are my comments. Latest changes/additions to the list: August 9 2009. Number of citations: 19