Thursday, 18 January 1912

Scott

Having decided now that they had come too far, they set off back in a southeasterly direction for a little over three miles.

The sharp-eyed Bowers soon saw the Norwegian tent about two miles off, with a list inside of the five men who had made up the Polar party: "Roald Amundsen, Olav Olavson Bjaaland, Hilmer Hanssen [sic], Sverre H. Hassel, Oscar Wisting, 16 Dec. 1911. The tent is fine," Scott admitted, "a small compact affair supported by a single bamboo. A note from Amundsen, which I keep, asks me to forward a letter to King Haakon!" [1]

Scott, Oates, Wilson, and Evans at the Norwegians' tent. [2]

"Dear Captain Scott," Amundsen's note ran, "As you are probably the first to reach this area after us, I will ask you kindly to forward this letter to King Haakon VII. If you can use any of the articles left in the tent please do not hesitate to do so. With kind regards I wish you a safe return. Yours truly, Roald Amundsen." [3] "I am puzzled at the object," Scott wrote, in a remark edited out of his journals before publication. [4]

Wilson listed the "considerable amount of gear" the Norwegians had left in the tent: "half reindeer sleeping-bags, sleeping-socks, reinskin trousers [sic] 2 pair, a sextant, and artif[icial] horizon, a hypsometer with all the thermoms broken, etc. I took away the spirit-lamp of it, which I have wanted for sterilizing and making disinfectant lotions of snow." [5] Bowers was in fact glad to get a pair of reindeer mitts to replace the dogskin ones he had lost a few days earlier.

While Bowers photographed and Wilson sketched, Scott wrote a note to leave in the tent saying that they had been there, and went on another six miles. "We built a cairn, put up our poor slighted Union Jack, and photographed ourselves -- mighty cold work all of it." [6]

Scott and his men: from left, Wilson, Bowers and Evans (sitting), Scott, Oates. Bowers took most of the photographs at the Pole, here with a string (in his right hand) to the shutter release. [7]

A less well-known photograph, this time with Wilson pulling the shutter-release. From left, Wilson, Scott, Evans, Oates, and Bowers. [8]

Finding another of Amundsen's black flags about half a mile away, with the note in English, "The Norwegian Polheim is situated in 89 deg. 58' SE by E. (comp.) 8 Miles. 15 Decbr, 1911, Roald Amundsen" [9], they took it for the Norwegian Pole. (It was in fact the left-hand flag used to box the Pole.)

Wilson's sketch of one of Amundsen's pole markers, 18th January, 1912. [10]

"There is no doubt that our predecessors have made thoroughly sure of their mark and fully carried out their programme," wrote Scott. "I think the Pole is about 9500 feet in height; this is remarkable, considering that in Lat. 88° we were about 10,500. We carried the Union Jack about 3/4 of a mile north with us and left it on a piece of stick as near as we could fix it. I fancy the Norwegians arrived at the Pole on the 15th Dec. and left on the 17th, ahead of a date quoted by me in London as ideal, viz. Dec. 22. It looks as though the Norwegian party expected colder weather on the summit than they got; it could scarcely be otherwise from Shackleton's account. Well, we have turned our back now on the goal of our ambition and must face our 800 miles of solid dragging -- and good-bye to most of the daydreams!" [11]


Amundsen

On the first clear day they had had for a while, and having had poor visibility on the three previous visits to the area, the Norwegians were able to see, Bjaaland noted, "several rock and snowclad mountains which seemed to run in a N.E. direction ... 30 miles off." [12] Amundsen, however, conscious of the need to get home first with the news, refused to investigate. "I have contented myself," he wrote calmly later, "with giving the name of Carmen Land to the land between 86° and 84°, and have called the rest 'Appearance of Land.' It will be a profitable task for an explorer to investigate this district more closely." [13]

At the time, however, his anxiety made him short-tempered. "Hanssen has fallen into disgrace," Hassel noted in his diary. "He allowed himself to disagree with His Majesty Amundsen regarding Else [one of the dogs] which Hanssen insisted smelled, but Amundsen could not smell anything. For the time being they are not talking." [14]


Notes:

[1] R.F. Scott, diary, 18 January, 1912, quoted in Scott's Last Expedition, v.1.
[2] Source unknown.
[3] Roald Amundsen, letter to R.F. Scott, quoted by Roland Huntford in Scott and Amundsen (New York : Putnam, 1980, c1979), p.516.
[4] R.F. Scott, diary, [18 January, 1912], quoted by Roland Huntford in Scott and Amundsen (New York : Putnam, 1980, c1979), p.516. Scott's irritation is completely understandable.
[5] E.A. Wilson, diary, 18 January, 1912, quoted by Apsley Cherry-Garrard in The Worst Journey in the World, ch.13.
[6] R.F. Scott, diary, 18 January, 1912, quoted in Scott's Last Expedition, v.1.
[7] Wikipedia.
[8] Encyclopedia Britannica Kids.
[9] Quoted by Roland Huntford in Scott and Amundsen (New York : Putnam, 1980, c1979), p.518.
[10] "Amundsen's Original South Pole Station".
[11] R.F. Scott, diary, 18 January, 1912, quoted in Scott's Last Expedition, v.1.
[12] Olav Bjaaland, diary, 19 January 1912, quoted by Roland Huntford in Scott and Amundsen (New York : Putnam, 1980, c1979), p.507.
[13] Roald Amundsen, The South Pole, ch.13. This area near the Queen Maud Range was later found to be nonexistent, probably disturbances due to the Steers Head crevasse system.
[14] Sverre Hassel, diary, [date not given], quoted by Tor Bomann-Larsen in Roald Amundsen (Stroud, Gloucestershire : Sutton, c2006, c1995), p.109.