An Antarctic adventure in London - courtesy of the Natural History Museum

The Natural History Museum

The Museum

The NHM - true temple of nature

Tony stands patiently outside

Tony and I realised early on in our London life that if we weren't careful, we'd leave here to go home to Australia in a few years having seen lots of things outside of London - and nothing in it. Weekends were quickly being swallowed by domestic stuff and lazy breakfasts on our rooftop. So, after yet another Saturday morning cleaning and shopping, we dragged ourselves out of the house on a sunny Saturday morning and set out to start ticking off some London tourist destinations. We had already achieved the Tower of London when Kate and Cam were here, and St Paul's when our dear friend Liz came to visit recently (I feel we will accomplish quite a few courtesy of having guests) - but none on our own. 

We had heard that the Natural History Museum was showing an exhibition on Scott's expedition to the South Pole which we were keen to see - and the museum's permanent collection is free - so we thought it was worthwhile heading over for even just a few hours. 

Dog flanked by fish

Dog flanked by lizards

Pelican/pterodactyl - flanked by leaves

The NHM - built in the height of the Victorian era's fascination with science, is a 'true temple of nature' - designed from the ground up with flora and fauna in mind. Like gargoyles on a church, the pillars and drains of the NHM are decorated with beautifully carved animals - both as the prominent features, and as the flanking decoration. My favourites from the outside are below - Tony stood very patiently while I took lots of photos. In particular I love the dogs flanked by lizards and fish - and the one below where I can't work out if it is a modern day pelican or a relic of the dinosaur age.

Inside the tribute to the natural world continues with vaulted ceilings and panels - each bearing a different type of plant lovingly represented on the ceiling.  The gilt pears and apples were really too high up to really appreciate - or reach.

The Scott Exhibition

The Natural History Museum currently has an exhibition on the Scott Exhibition to the South Pole - the one where he made it to the Pole - but was not the first, and died on the return journey. Not the most uplifting subject for an exhibition - but certainly fascinating. 

Tony has just finished reading Kim Stanley Robinson's Antarctica aloud to me - which has been such a treat. Its not a small novel and it has taken us the best part of 6 months - picking away at it with sometimes weeks between chapters. KSR wrote the book for the most part as an excuse to write about the history of antarctic expeditions - and one of the main characters in the book leads tour expeditions that recreate the journeys of the explorers - some of them in their amazingly inadequate gear. The concept of doing this is probably more crazy than that of the explorers setting out the first time.

The Cape Evans Hut

So armed with our knowledge of Antarctica courtesy of KSR, we were excited to go and see the exhibit of the famous and fateful trip. The curator had decided to focus much of the exhibition not on the trekking across to the Pole - but on the lives the men lead whilst at the Pole. The artifacts - which included original provisions, gear, diaries, scientific specimens - was set up in a replica of the Cape Evans Hut that the team built on their arrival. In this hut, lined with boxes of provisions, the men slept in bunks side by side for years whilst planning and preparing for the trek to the Pole itself. 

Inside the Cape Evans Hut 

The hut itself still stands in Antarctica - with many of the original provisions and pieces of gear as the team left them. It has been preserved as a national heritage site - and it takes a long time for anything to rot in the Antarctic.

Walking around the exhibition - with lines on the floor marking out where the men's bunks were, where they ate, where Scott wrote his diaries, the most striking thing was the space dedicated in this tiny hut to science. There was a desk for biology another for geology etc. The team collected thousands of specimens that had to be examined on the spot or preserved for the long journey home to England. The also risked their lives on little side expeditions to collect specimens - in one journey called 'the worst journey in the world', the men nearly died in a storm on an expedition to collect penguin eggs. In another case, a group had been sent for the 'summer' to a separate camp to collect specimens and readings and were to return to the Cape Evans Hut for winter. They didn't make it back in time - and so wintered in a snow cave, warmed only by burning seal blubber - I'm assuming they ate the seals too. When they were finally rescued they were coated in black sludge from the burned seal blubber... I can't imagine how they didn't go mad.

The lost team covered in blubber

There was of course a large part of the exhibition dedicated to the trek to the Pole itself. The trek was a bit of a race - with the Norwegian explorer Amundsen setting off at the same time, using dogs to pull sleds, and Scott's team - who were pulling the sleds themselves. Amundsen planned to use the dogs not only to pull them along - but also to eat on the way. Scott's team - pulling their own supplies, had to be careful with weight, gear and food. They had done some preparation trips - setting up food depots along the proposed route to feed them on the way back.

The second team to the Pole. 

Amundsen's team were the first to the Pole - and made it back alive. They didn't have an easy time of it - and in fact Amundsen wrote a letter to Scott that he left at the Pole saying that he wasn't sure they would make it back alive. Scott's team - when they finally made it to the Pole around a month after Amundsen's team - found that they were second. They were crushed - and looks on their faces in the photo at the pole say it all. None of them made it back alive. Scott wrote a number of letters - and kept his diary to the last day. They were found by the team that came searching for them several months later. Many of them were on display in the exhibition - this final letter to the public being one of the most moving - mostly because even in the days before their death - they remained so forthrightly English.


Message to the Public

The causes of the disaster are not due to faulty organisation, but to misfortune in all risks which had to be undertaken.

1. The loss of pony transport in March 1911 obliged me to start later than I had intended, and obliged the limits of stuff transported to be narrowed.

2. The weather throughout the outward journey, and especially the long gale in 83° S., stopped us.

3. The soft snow in lower reaches of glacier again reduced pace.

We fought these untoward events with a will and conquered, but it cut into our provision reserve.

Every detail of our food supplies, clothing and depots made on the interior ice-sheet and over that long stretch of 700 miles to the Pole and back, worked out to perfection. The advance party would have returned to the glacier in fine form and with surplus of food, but for the astonishing failure of the man whom we had least expected to fail. Edgar Evans was thought the strongest man of the party.

The Beardmore Glacier is not difficult in fine weather, but on our return we did not get a single completely fine day; this with a sick companion enormously increased our anxieties.

As I have said elsewhere we got into frightfully rough ice and Edgar Evans received a concussion of the brain--he died a natural death, but left us a shaken party with the season unduly advanced.

But all the facts above enumerated were as nothing to the surprise which awaited us on the Barrier. I maintain that our arrangements for returning were quite adequate, and that no one in the world would have expected the temperatures and surfaces which we encountered at this time of the year. On the summit in lat. 85° 86° we had -20°, -30°. On the Barrier in lat. 82°, 10,000 feet lower, we had -30° in the day, -47° at night pretty regularly, with continuous head wind during our day marches. It is clear that these circumstances come on very suddenly, and our wreck is certainly due to this sudden advent of severe weather, which does not seem to have any satisfactory cause. I do not think human beings ever came through such a month as we have come through, and we should have got through in spite of the weather but for the sickening of a second companion, Captain Oates, and a shortage of fuel in our depots for which I cannot account, and finally, but for the storm which has fallen on us within 11 miles of the depot at which we hoped to secure our final supplies. Surely misfortune could scarcely have exceeded this last blow. We arrived within 11 miles of our old One Ton Camp with fuel for one last meal and food for two days. For four days we have been unable to leave the tent--the gale howling about us. We are weak, writing is difficult, but for my own sake I do not regret this journey, which has shown that Englishmen can endure hardships, help one another, and meet death with as great a fortitude as ever in the past. We took risks, we knew we took them; things have come out against us, and therefore we have no cause for complaint, but bow to the will of Providence, determined still to do our best to the last. But if we have been willing to give our lives to this enterprise, which is for the honour of our country, I appeal to our countrymen to see that those who depend on us are properly cared for.

Had we lived, I should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance, and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman. These rough notes and our dead bodies must tell the tale, but surely, surely, a great rich country like ours will see that those who are dependent on us are properly provided for.

R. SCOTT.

All in all we left not exactly uplifted - but filled with a sense of wonder at what these men achieved - and a sense that they must have been more than a little crazy to attempt it in the first place.