Tuesday, 2 January 1912

Scott

It was, Scott noted in his diary, "a plod for the foot people and pretty easy going for us." [1]


Amundsen

The Norwegians were forced by fog to camp soon after starting in the evening. "[But] just as we had got our pemmican down, the sun broke through, and shortly after it was the finest weather. In a quarter of an hour, we had packed up and were under way ... directly West in the hope of finding the depot ... but no depot was there to see." [2] Deep wave formations obscured their view, and they quickly agreed not to waste time floundering about but to head straight for the Butcher's Shop.

A familiar ridge of ice made them realise that they were indeed too far to the west, and, turning eastwards soon found their bearings at last and could see the point at the foot of the Devil's Glacier where the depot lay, behind them. "Under these circumstances," Amundsen wrote, "we all thought it would be wrong to leave the depot without trying to find it." [3] He sent Bjaaland and Helmer Hanssen back with Hanssen's unloaded sledge. With Bjaaland as forerunner, Hanssen wrote later, "the dogs had as much as they could to follow him. He wasn't from Telemark and an old Holmenkollen skier for nothing." [4]

The terrain, though, was harder than the two men expected, and they worried that they would be caught by the weather without sleeping bags. "[The] Captain said he thought it was 8 miles," Bjaaland wrote, "but rubbish I said. We went 11 miles, partly in fog and drift, without seeing anything. Luckily it cleared a little ahead, and soon we saw the [depot flags] across our course [about two] miles away, and our pleasure was vast, you can be sure." [5]

Reaching the depot, the two first gave their dogs a double ration of pemmican, with a little chocolate for themselves, and then loaded the supplies onto the empty sledge and started back. The return journey "went like a bomb," Bjaaland said. "After 10 hours on the march we were back at the camp [and] now we are rich in provisions." [6]

Amundsen, having stayed up the whole time that Bjaaland and Hanssen were gone, saw them reappear over the top of an ice ridge and rushed into the tent to wake the others, and to start up the primus to melt water. He wrote proudly in his diary that the two men had done forty-two miles with no rest and little food, "at an average speed of 3 miles an hour! Come and say that dogs are useless in this terrain." [7]

He also realised why he had been lost, that some error in navigation had gotten them a point and a half (17 degrees) off-course.

It was five days to the next depot, and they had ten days' rations for men and dogs, as well as emergency reserves.


Notes:

[1] R.F. Scott, diary, 2 January, 1912, quoted in Scott's Last Expedition, v.1.
[2] Roald Amundsen, diary, 3 January, 1912, quoted by Roland Huntford in Scott and Amundsen (New York : Putnam, 1980, c1979), p.501.
[3] Roald Amundsen, diary, 3 January, 1912, quoted by Roland Huntford in Scott and Amundsen (New York : Putnam, 1980, c1979), p.501.
[4] Helmer Hanssen, Gjennem Isbaksen, p. 98, quoted by Roland Huntford in Scott and Amundsen (New York : Putnam, 1980, c1979), p.501.
[5] Olav Bjaaland, diary, 3 January, 1912, quoted by Roland Huntford in Scott and Amundsen (New York : Putnam, 1980, c1979), p.500-501.
[6] Olav Bjaaland, diary, 3 January, 1912, quoted by Roland Huntford in Scott and Amundsen (New York : Putnam, 1980, c1979), p.500-501.
[7] Roald Amundsen, diary, 3 January, 1912, quoted by Roland Huntford in Scott and Amundsen (New York : Putnam, 1980, c1979), p.502.