There was a time, over a century ago, when there were still amazing feats yet to be achieved on Earth. Being first to reach the South Pole in Antarctica was one of those coveted prizes. Those who were first would claim international fame and have their names etched into history books. Those who failed, often lost their lives in the attempt. Despite the danger, the South Pole was still a tempting prize to achieve. In 1911, the two biggest names in polar exploration, Robert Scott and Roald Amundsen, launched competing expeditions in a race to reach the South Pole first.
One would end in triumph, the other in tragedy.
British Royal Navy Officer Robert Scott had attempted to reach the South Pole in 1902 in the Discovery expedition. But his party was forced to turn back due to sub-zero conditions and diminishing health. Britain still viewed his expedition as a success because of the discovery of the vast Polar Plateau. Robert Scott returned to England a hero for his attempt. But for Scott, it was a personal failure. It was always his intention to return and try again.
Then Ernest Shackleton, one of his former crew, tragically failed to reach the South Pole with own expedition. Scott launched a renewed effort to reach and secure the Pole for the glory of the British Empire. With the support of the British Admiralty, he secured a research grant of £20,000. Now 41, Scott recruited men from his original Antarctic expedition and from Ernest Shackleton’s ship. His ship, the Terra Nova, sailed from Cardiff in June 1910. He had married just the year before and left behind his wife Kathleen and 9-month son Peter.
After his ship got stuck in the poplar pack ice for 20 days, they arrived late on Ross Island in Antarctica’s McMurdo Sound in February 1911. While his 34-man shore party conducted scientific research and collected rock and wildlife samples, Scott was laser focused on riding out the winter and launching his second run at the South Pole. His men began laying supply depots along his planned route, but due to unlucky blizzards, they dropped their final depot 30 miles short.
Norwegian Roald Amundsen was also a respected explorer determined to beat the British to the South Pole. Polar expeditions captivated Amundsen and he had signed up for the 1897 Belgian Antarctic Expedition as first mate. Although it ended in failure, Amundsen learned valuable lessons about polar exploration. In 1903, he successfully traversed Canada’s Northwest Passage. During the expedition, he learned from indigenous Inuits about the best techniques to survive in the Artic. This including wearing animal skins rather than wool sweaters and using sled dog teams.
He’d originally planned to be first to the North Pole. But that honor was taken by American Robert Perry in 1909. So the South Pole became the next obvious choice. Now 38, he also left in June of 1910. He was a lifelong bachelor by choice and left no family behind. Amundsen’s ship, the Fram, reached the Ross Ice Shelf before Scott on 14 January 1911. He chose to land at the Bay of Whales. This gained his expedition a 60-mile advantage over Scott. And unlike Scott, Amundsen was focused only on reaching the Pole. “The Science,” he admitted, “would have to look after itself.”
The two groups were well aware of each other’s competing expeditions and behaved civilly. The captains of the Terra Nova and Fram even traded dinners with each other aboard their ships. Scott and Amundsen did not. The sun set over the Ross Ice Shelf in mid April, not to reappear for four, long winter months. The men hunkered down in their ships with only each other for company.
The Race to the Pole is On!
On 8 September 1911, Amundsen could wait no longer and his party set off. The very next day, after traveling only 4 miles, the temperatures plunged to −56 °C/−69 °F. Amundsen realized he had started too soon and turned back. On 18 October, after the Antarctic winter truly ended, the race began again. Roald Amundsen’s team of five men set out on its drive toward the Pole. Three weeks later, Captain Scott left his base camp for the Pole with his own team on 1 November 1911.
Amundsen brought 52 sled dogs, along with ample seal meat. His team also wore water repellent animal skins, much better at keeping his men warm and dry than the wool that was favored by the British. Soon after landing, Amundsen had organized depot-laying journeys across the Barrier. Hit team laid out supply depots using dog sleds at regular intervals along his route. This limited the amount of food and fuel his party had to carry.
Scott, on the other hand, set out with far fewer dogs, 17 Siberian ponies, and 2 remaining motorized sledges. The gasoline motors proved useless in the harsh Antarctic conditions and stopped working after only 50 miles. The supplies they pulled then had to be man-hauled the rest of the way. His Siberian ponies proved not as resistant to the polar cold as the Canadian sled dogs.
For Amundsen’s team, it was a harsh 800 mile trek, marred by extreme temperatures, glaciers, crevices, and the Transantarctic Mountains. Nevertheless, Roald Amundsen’s group arrived FIRST at the South Pole at 3PM on 14 December 1911. They raised the flag of Norway, smoked cigars, and took celebratory photos. They also left a note there in a tent, declaring their achievement – just in case they failed to return home. Thanks to his dog teams, Amundsen’s party had raced to the Pole at over 20 miles per day.
Captain Scott’s trek was fraught with difficulties and misery.
Their tortuous, 862 mile return journey was faced with even more endurance challenges and ultimately tragedy. The British team had left for the pole later in the Antarctic summer, and temperatures were dropping rapidly as winter approached. Two of the men already suffered from severe frostbite. His ponies grew too weak to walk and regrettably had to be shot. They would now have to pull their sleds completely by hand. The men laid out the ponies as meat for the return trip. Scott choose 4 men to continue on to the pole. The rest were to return to the ship, then meet them at a supply depot.
Captain Robert Scott reached the South Pole 33 days after Amundsen, on 17 January 1912. His team’s spirit was shattered upon seeing the Norwegian flag flying and realizing Amundsen had beaten them. “Great God!” Scott wrote in his diary. “This is an awful place, and terrible enough for us to have labored to it without reward.”
Amundsen and his team returned to their Ross base camp on 25 January 1912, just 99 days after their departure, more than a week early. They had no loss of life – except for over half of the sled dogs, which they were forced to eat along the way and feed the remaining dogs. 14 of the 52 sled dogs made it back to the ship.
Captain Scott’s team would not be so lucky.
Due to a combination of brutal weather, hunger, and exhaustion, Scott and his men began to slump less than halfway back. The five men were meant to be met by a support team, but due to injuries on that team’s return to the ship, the British support party never reached them.
On February 17, Edgar Evans became the first of the British party to collapse and die of exposure. A severely frostbitten Lawrence Oates followed him a month later. By now, the three remaining men, including Scott, were suffering from severe frostbite on their hands, feet and face. They were averaging less than 5 miles a day.
Scott, his close friend Dr. Edward Wilson and Henry Bowers bravely continued for another few days, but temperatures continued to plunge. Then came a severe temperature drop and blizzard. Trapped in their tent and only 12 miles from the next supply depot, Scott and his men wrote farewell letters. Running low on heating fuel, weak from starvation and exhaustion, Scott’s last diary entry was dated 29 March 1912.
“We shall stick it out to the end, but we are getting weaker, of course, and the end cannot be far. It seems a pity, but I do not think I can write more.” He died in his tent alongside his men a short time later. Scott was just 43 years old, leaving behind his new wife and child in England.
Roald Amundsen’s celebrated his success worldwide. He received personal telegrams of congratulations from U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt and British King George V of England. By the time the frozen bodies of Scott, Wilson and Bowers were found, 8 months later, Roald Amundsen had already embarked on a lecture tour. The Terra Nova crew erected a rock cairn over the remains of the three men.
Amundsen continued his expeditions. He explored the Arctic in a dirigible, reaching the North Pole in 1926. He died two years later, at 55, in a plane crash while searching for a missing explorer in Norway’s Svalbard. His body was never found. Captain Robert Scott was recognized for his achievements and posthumously made a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath. Despite Scott’s poor preparation and ultimate tragedy, he and his men have been immortalized in legend for pursuing a noble cause with bravery and courage.
It was not until 1956 that an expedition of humans once again stood on our planet’s South Pole. Antarctica has been continuously inhabited ever since by international explorers. Today, numerous adventure cruise ships visit the Ross Ice Shelf in summer, so tourists can walk where the famous explorers once did. Its two earliest pioneers are now honored by Antarctica’s permanent research facility – the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station.