Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
The legacy of the Scott e in Buenos Airesen Peninsulaxpedition was profound.
Scientifically, the Terra Nova Expedition with its multiple parties, including the less well-
known Northern Party and Western geological parties, contributed greatly to the sum of
human knowledge. Politically, notwithstanding the disappointment of being eclipsed by a
Norwegian team, the Antarctic was appropriated for the imperial portfolio. Photographs,
along with maps and charts, played their part in establishing proof of arrival and subsequent
departure. In the aftermath of the First World War, this continued apace, with the Antarctic
being ever more visualized as appropriated imperial territory, and pictures of imperial
heroes such as Titus Oates being shown to British troops serving in the trenches in Europe.
Economically, the expedition reaffirmed the resource value of the region, and helped to fire
speculation about future mineral-based wealth. Finally, and most significantly, the loss of
Scott and his party - disseminated through surviving diaries, photographs, and the films of
Herbert Ponting - helped to cement in the British and wider imagination a vision of tragic
heroic figures battling against the odds, enriched by a dedication to duty and to one another.
Stung by this loss, coinciding as it did with another icy disaster involving the passenger ship
the
RMS Titanic
, the British government and public played their part in ensuring that the
Heroic Age of Antarctic exploration was commemorated solemnly. A subsequent filmic
treatment starring John Mills in
Scott of the Antarctic
(1948) reinforced for post-war
audiences the stoical achievements of Scott and his final party, and interestingly used still
shots from the Antarctic Peninsula, and members of the Falkland Islands Dependencies
Survey (FIDS) were expected to dress up and reconstruct Scott and his party's man-hauling
exploits.
After the Heroic Age (1918-40)
After the Scott-Amundsen saga, there were no further journeys to the South Pole until the
1950s. Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (1914) floundered due to his ship
Endurance
being trapped in the icy waters of the Weddell Sea. Considered to be the last
expedition of the Heroic Age, it was notable for its feats of 'endurance' rather than the
planned trans-continental trek. Beset by ice in the Weddell Sea, Shackleton and his party of
28 men were stranded on the pack ice in the winter season of 1915. Their ship sunk after
being crushed by the ice, and the men had to endure the Antarctic winter in a series of
makeshift camps, surviving on remaining food stores and captured animals. Shackleton took
a decision to use the lifeboats in order to journey to Elephant Island to the north of the
Weddell Sea. He left the bulk of the expedition there and, together with his five companions,
sailed 800 nautical miles in an open boat (the
James Baird
) to South Georgia. Once there,
they clambered over the mountains and reached a Norwegian whaling community. The
