Monday, 20 January 1913

Scott

The cross on Observation Hill, photographed in December 1990 by Michael Van Woert, NOAA NESDIS, ORA. [1]

"After 28 hours' loading," wrote Cherry on board the Terra Nova, "we left the old hut for good and all at 4 p.m. this afternoon. It has been a bit of a rush and little sleep last night. It is quite wonderful now to be travelling a day's journey in an hour: we went to Cape Royds in about that time and took off geological and zoological specimens. I should like to sit up and sketch all these views, which would have meant long travelling without the ship, but I feel very tired. The mail is almost too good for words. Now, with the latest waltz on the gramophone, beer for dinner and apples and fresh vegetables to eat, life is more bearable than it has been for many a long weary week and month. I leave Cape Evans with no regret: I never want to see the place again. The pleasant memories are all swallowed up in the bad ones.

"Before the ship arrived it was decided among us to urge the erection of a cross on Observation Hill to the memory of the Polar Party. On the arrival of the ship the carpenter immediately set to work to make a great cross of jarrah wood. There was some discussion as to the inscription, it being urged that there should be some quotation from the Bible because 'the women think a lot of these things.' But I was glad to see the concluding line of Tennyson's 'Ulysses' adopted: 'To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.'

"The open water stretched about a mile and a half south of Tent Island, and here we left the ship to sledge the cross to Hut Point at 8 a.m. on January 20. The party consisted of Atkinson, Wright, Lashly, Crean, Debenham, Keohane and Davies, the ship's carpenter and myself." [2]


Notes:

[1] Wikimedia Commons.
[2] Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World, ch.19.

Sunday, 19 January 1913

Scott

A panorama of the interior of the hut at Cape Evans, January 2000. It remains much as it was when abandoned in January 1913. Photo by Kuno Lechner. [1]

"January 19," Cherry wrote in his diary. "On board the Terra Nova. After 28 hours' loading we left the old hut for good and all at 4 p.m. this afternoon. It has been a bit of a rush and little sleep last night. It is quite wonderful now to be travelling a day's journey in an hour: we went to Cape Royds in about that time and took off geological and zoological specimens. I should like to sit up and sketch all these views, which would have meant long travelling without the ship, but I feel very tired. The mail is almost too good for words. Now, with the latest waltz on the gramophone, beer for dinner and apples and fresh vegetables to eat, life is more bearable than it has been for many a long weary week and month. I leave Cape Evans with no regret: I never want to see the place again. The pleasant memories are all swallowed up in the bad ones." [2]


Notes:

[1] Wikipedia.
[2] Apsley Cherry-Garrard, diary, 19 January, 1913, quoted in The Worst Journey in the World, ch.19.

Saturday, 18 January 1913

Scott

"Terra Nova in sight," Gran wrote in his diary. "Hurrah! Hurrah! Great jubilation. Hurrah!" [1]

The ship, scrubbed and squared in preparation for celebration, and under now-Commander Evans, approached Cape Evans. "'Are you all well,' through a megaphone from the bridge. 'The Polar Party died on their return from the Pole: we have their records.' A pause and then a boat." [2]


Notes:

[1] Tryggve Gran, diary, 18 January, 1913, quoted in The Norwegian With Scott : Tryggve Gran's Antarctic Diary 1910-1913 (National Maritime Museum, 1984), p.232.
[2] Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World, ch.19.

Saturday, 4 January 1913

Amundsen

Johansen, his alcoholism exacerbated by the disappointments of the Antarctic journey, committed suicide in a Christiania park. He left a wife, from whom he had been estranged for some years, and four children.

Wednesday, 27 November 1912

Scott

The search party arrived at Hut Point to find Campbell already there. "At long last there's something cheerful to record," wrote Gran in his diary. [1]


Notes:

[1] Tryggve Gran, diary, 27 November, 1912, quoted in The Norwegian With Scott : Tryggve Gran's Antarctic Diary 1910-1913 (National Maritime Museum, 1984), p.221.

Monday, 26 November 1912

Scott

Hooper and Abdullah at Cape Evans, 1912. [1]

The search party arrived at Safety Camp. "Since 'lunch' at midnight," Gran wrote in his diary, "Wright, Nelson, and I have hauled 'Abdullah's' sledge. The animal was exhausted and simply couldn't get on at all." [2]


Notes:

[1] Scott Polar Research Institute.
[2] Tryggve Gran, diary, 26 November, 1912, quoted in The Norwegian With Scott : Tryggve Gran's Antarctic Diary 1910-1913 (National Maritime Museum, 1984), p.221.

Sunday, 17 November 1912

Scott

For the return to Hut Point, Gran put on Scott's skis: "they at any rate will complete the 3,000-km trail," he wrote in his diary. [2] They hurried back, for (to their knowledge) there was still no news of Campbell and his men.


Notes:

[1] Tryggve Gran, diary, 17 November, 1912, quoted in The Norwegian With Scott : Tryggve Gran's Antarctic Diary 1910-1913 (National Maritime Museum, 1984), p.218. A film clip of Gran in 1962 recalling the finding of Scott is posted at NRK.no/skole.

Friday, 15 November 1912

Scott

A commemorative card with an illustration of Oates's memorial, 1913. [1]

The search party went on to look for Oates, but found only his sleeping bag a few miles away. They put up another cairn and cross, which was marked "Hereabouts died a very gallant gentleman, Capt. L.E.G. Oates, of the Inniskilling Dragoons."

Amundsen's letter to King Haakon, left at Polheim 17th December 1911, and collected by Scott a month later. [2]

Back at what Williamson called "Sorrowful Camp", he and Gran found by chance a bag containing Amundsen's letter to King Haakon, among the debris on Scott's sledge.

Cherry, knowing now that Scott and his party had been only sixty miles away when he and Dimitri had waited for them at One Ton, was haunted by self-recrimination. "If only we had travelled for a day and a half," he wrote in his diary, "we might have left some food and oil on one of the cairns, hoping that they would see it.... It will always to the end of my life be a great sorrow to me that we did not do this." [3]


Amundsen

One of Amundsen's receptions, at an unidentified location. [4]

Amundsen lectured on his attainment of the South Pole at the Queen's Hall, London. Kathleen Scott was present; his photographs, she thought, "were very poor, & many of them faked -- painted etc." [5] (In the days before colour photography, prints and lantern slides were frequently touched up by hand.)

A Bristol schoolgirl who also attended one of Amundsen's lectures wrote in her diary, "Amundsen had a simply killing Norwegian accent. And we had to consentrate [sic] for all we were worth to be able to understand what he said. [The slides were] mostly coloured and simply lovely.... Amundsen told us that many people asked what was the use of trying to get to the S. Pole etc. The man said with the utmost scorn, 'Little minds have only room for thoughts of bread & butter.'" [6]


Notes:

[1] Dundee Heritage Trust.
[2] Source unknown.
[3] Apsley Cherry-Garrard, diary, 15 November, 1912, quoted by Roland Huntford in Scott and Amundsen (New York : Putnam, 1980, c1979), p.556.
[4] Roald Amundsen Bildearkiv, Nasjonalbiblioteket.
[5] Kathleen Scott, [source not given] quoted by Roland Huntford in The Amundsen Photographs (London : Hodder & Stoughton, c1987), p.8. In Mrs Scott's defence, it is difficult at times not to compare Ponting's brilliant photographs with the rather indifferent ones from Amundsen's expedition.
[6] Quoted by Roland Huntford in The Amundsen Photographs (London : Hodder & Stoughton, c1987), p.7.