Scott Polar by John Murrell
T
he Scott Polar Research Institute is a monument to one of the great British seconds. It is well known that the Norwegian explorer, Roald Amundsen (above left) was the first man to reach the South Pole, or, more correctly, the small group of men he led were. Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s expedition party were second. Having suffered the immense disappointment of arriving at the Pole only to find the Norwegian flag flying and a letter from Amundsen to Scott asking him to return the flag to the King of Norway, Scott’s demoralised party then faced the task of a journey back in the most awful weather conditions. That journey was never completed and the weather took its terrible toll. Scott and two remaining companions died together only 11 miles from the food store, which might have saved their lives. The date is not known but Scott's last diary entry is 29th March 1912. The British seem to have a special ability to turn disaster into something inspiringly glorious. As with the retreat from Dunkirk nearly three decades later, Scott’s ‘failure’ became a valid reason to celebrate that courage and resilience, which exemplifies that “grace under pressure”, which was Ernest Hemingway’s answer to Dorothy Parker’s question “What do you mean by Guts?” When in 1985 ITV, a commercial competitor of the BBC made a mini-TV series
about Scott’s expedition, called ‘The Last Place on Earth’, they chose to portray him as an authoritarian, aloof from his team, who made a number of disastrous errors of leadership. It is possible this may have been so. It is more likely that since the protests from Scott’s family could be easily dismissed and it was an age of iconoclasm and revisionist history, the decision was based on the need to make the series ‘sexy’ (advertising jargon for controversial) and more popular. The script is based on a book by Roland Huntford, the Scandinavian Correspondent for an English newspaper, who has made a reputation as a debunker of the Scott ‘myth’. One example of this is the portrayal in the TV programme of one of the most memorable quotes to emerge from Scott’s failed mission. Captain Oats, suffering from the most severe frostbite and exhaustion, chose to leave the shelter of the tent and go into in a fierce blizzard, with probably the most famous English understatement of all time: “I am just stepping outside and I may be some time” An act which was the epitome of self sacrifice, leading Scott to record it in his diary, and to add “…. though we tried to dissuade him, we knew it was the act of a brave man and an English gentleman.” In the ITV series the actor’s words were changed to “Call of nature”. This was insulting, not only to Oates, by suggesting he may not have intended to sacrifice himself,
rsm newsletter, june 2014, page 4
but also to his comrades, who fully appreciated the meaning of his last words. So, what is the American link? In this case a tenuous one perhaps, but worth noting for its significance in the effect it had on history. When Scott and his party set off in1910, Amundsen had no intention of going for the South Pole. His initial plans had focussed on the Arctic and his ambition was the conquest of the North Pole by means of an extended drift in an icebound ship. Even when his expedition set sail for the Antarctic the members of his expedition party were under the impression that that the North Pole was their goal. Amundsen, however, had heard the news that Frederick Cook, a medical doctor from New York had lodged the claim that he and two Innuits had accomplished this feat and so he secretly changed his plans. There is no small degree of irony in the fact that Cook’s claim and even the later claim by another American, Robert Pearson that he and an AfricanAmerican friend had done so, were not accepted. The first group to reach the North Pole on foot was a led by the English - born Sir Walter ‘Wally’ Herbert in 1969.
of two remarkable explorers, to accept that if that were true, both men achieved their aim. They may still have perished on the way back, but perhaps one reason Scott was behind Amundsen in reaching the Pole was that he didn’t see it as a race in the true sense of the word. He was aware of Amundsen’s intentions and he certainly wanted to have the glory of being the first to reach the South Pole, but the purpose of his expedition and its source of finance was based in scientific and geographical research. This central aim continued to the very tragic end. When the bodies were finally found they were with 401 animal specimens new to science and 16 kg of rock samples, including a fern, which paved the way to the ‘supercontinent’ theory that India, S Africa and Australasia were connected. This research led to the establishment, first of the small Scott Polar Research Institute in 1934. The inscription above the door is "Quaesivit arcana poli videt dei", which translates as "He sought the secret of the Arctic Pole but found the hidden face of God". This was followed by the larger British Antarctic Survey being based in Cambridge. The BAS has been responsible for the majority of British research Postscipt in Antarctica for the past 60 Huntford has said years. It identified the hole in “Amundsen wanted to get to the ozone layer in 1985. The the Pole, but Scott wanted to race to solve that problem is be a hero”. Perhaps it would definitely on and no one will be best, rather than create mind if a Norwegian is the first antipathy between the memory to do so.