Week 3: F 10 November 2017, 23:54. Cape Shirreff, Livingston Island, Antarctica
This past summer on Buldir I was entertained by factoids shared by Kevin and McKenzie from the book “The Last Place on Earth: Amundsen and Scott’s Race for the South Pole.” At the time, my working in Antarctica was still in the hopeful phase. However, I’ve been interested in the Antarctic for ages, and the information I was given told me the book was well-written and rather entertaining.
At an impressionable age, Fridtjof Nansen’s crossing of Greenland and other polar expeditions inspired the Norwegian Roald Amundsen to pursue exploration. He grew up skiing, took the time to learn the necessary skills for polar travel, formed a small crew with useful traits and meshable personalities, adapted to circumstances, and constantly worked on ways to improve gear. When frozen in for winter in the Northwest Passage, he studied the Netsiliks’ (Canadian Eskimos) cold weather clothing and dogsledding skills. By traveling through the Northwest Passage he gained skills as an expedition leader.
In stark contrast, the Brit Robert Scott seems to have only pursued polar travels in the interest of promotion in the English Royal Navy. His personality and work ethic weren’t getting him anywhere, so he tried the expedition route – despite the fact he himself once said he had no predilection for polar exploration. It sounds like he had a poor personality for leadership, felt no need to learn skills ahead of time, ignored the lessons learned by those who travelled before him, and chose crew members based on whether he liked them or not – regardless of skills or experience. He practically shunned skiing and dogsledding in exchange for manhauling and a custom motor sledge designed for snow travel… because he had no idea how to ski or work dogs! He had no idea how to treat the dogs he took to Antarctica on his first trip, so his mushing endeavors were failures from the get-go.
I’ve lived in the Antarctic for about 2.5 weeks and can now verify what I knew before arriving. Why on earth – specifically the ice and snow-covered earth – would manhauling be the best way of traveling to the snowy South Pole??? Oh yeah, because clearly skis aren’t helpful in snow, nor are dogs.
Oh wait, that’s only when you’re Scott and have spent no time learning how to ski and even less than no time learning about dog mushing. Reading his opinions on dogs is positively painful.
Reading about the way Amundsen’s team cared for ~100 dogs during their sea voyage from the North Atlantic all the way down to the Bay of Whales in Antarctica makes my limited-experience dog handler’s heart happy. His top notch dogs chosen from Greenland were well fed, understood to bicker with each other and yet managed in a way to give them freedom on board, and cuddled with by the ship’s crew.
Now that I think about it, it seems that Amundsen’s ship would have been the perfect place for me: his ship, Fram, was quite the rocker and was full of puppies headed for adventure. That’s the dream!
I digress, though. Manhauling, while admittedly slightly satisfying and good for exercise, is exhausting. Nai, the 2nd year seabird tech with whom I’m working, and I have made trips lugging a couple small fish boxes (large containers used for storage) and a large, heavy tripod on a sled. Snowshoes are a lot better than just wearing boots, but fresh snow sure creates friction against a sled. When we got back to camp with one load, we more or less staggered inside and, when offered a drink, merely wanted water. We were beat.
That was from hauling one load for ~45 minutes. Robert Scott thought manhauling was a good idea for an entire expedition of hundreds of miles?
Let me help fix the public’s thoughts on Scott and show how utterly ridiculous the man was as a polar explorer. Where maybe I once would have respected him, I have lost almost all respect for his limited accomplishments. Help spread the word: He was a fool.
**I haven’t finished the book yet, but I don’t think I’ll read anything that will change my mind. It is a very entertaining read that clearly lays out the history of the race for the South Pole. Amundsen, on the other hand, was quite the man.**