Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
of Mount Erebus and claimed to have reached the South Magnetic Pole, though later
evaluation showed the three-man party's calculations were probably in error. King Edward
VII knighted Shackleton for that extraordinary achievement, appropriately termed by fellow
expedition member Frank Wild as 'the great southern journey'. Famously, the decision to
turn back from their final destination, the South Pole, was immortalized in the expedition
account,
The Heart of the Antarctic
, as a decision based on a judgement that it was better to
be 'a live donkey than a dead lion'. These words were to acquire a prophetic quality.
The cumulative impact of this exploratory endeavour was mixed. On the one hand, these
overwhelmingly European expeditions sponsored by a combination of industrialists,
commercial companies, government departments, and academic societies led to ever greater
areas of the Antarctic being visited, explored, and studied. On the other hand, the reported
discoveries were of variable quality, with complaints that maps and charts were incomplete
and irreconcilable. The physical geography of the Antarctic remained confusing and
confused. As a consequence, there appeared to be plenty of new geographical milestones to
strive for, none greater than the geographic pole.
Racing to the pole
Coinciding with the invention of the modern Olympics, the 'race to the pole' was driven by
a combination of geopolitical, imaginative, and scientific ambition. Shackleton's Nimrod
Expedition (1907-9) played a notable role in alerting others to the glaciated geography of
the interior. As Edward Larson notes in his topic
An Empire of Ice
, men like Robert Scott,
Ernest Shackleton, and the Anglo-Australian Douglas Mawson were agents of the British
Empire but they were also curious about the environments they encountered. This was also
the case for other Europeans such as the Norwegian Roald Amundsen and the German
explorer/scientist Wilhelm Filchner. Amundsen's Fram/South Pole Expedition (1910-12),
involving four sledges, up to 52 dogs, and five men, arrived at the South Pole on 14
December 1911, and named the Antarctic Plateau, King Haakon VII Plateau. About the
same time, the Japanese Antarctic Expedition (1910-12) led by Nobu Shirase encountered
Amundsen's ship the
Fram
, which was moored in the Bay of Whales. The Japanese party
landed on the continent and journeyed towards the South Pole to reach 80°S, and carried out
some exploration of King Edward VII Land. While the Norwegian foreign ministry never
really used Amundsen's claiming in a legal sense, it did give symbolic depth to Norway's
claims. Japan was forced to renounce any claims to polar territory in the aftermath of the
Second World War.
The Terra Nova Expedition (1910-13), led by Robert Scott, aimed explicitly to be the first
to reach the South Pole and enjoyed the strong support of the Royal Geographical Society.
