Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
5
Beyond the Horizon
Discoveries in the Queen Maud Mountains
Scott's Final March
From the planning stages of the British Antarctic Expedition of 1910, Scott
knew that he would be following largely in the footsteps of Shackleton. The winter quar-
ters would be on Ross Island, as deep into McMurdo Sound as ice conditions allowed.
Scott had claimed that real estate nine years before. And from Minna BluV to the mouth
of Shackleton Inlet, the polar party would be on the old trail that Shackleton, Wilson,
and he had blazed in 1902. South of that was Shackleton territory, with its proven route
through the mountains at Beardmore Glacier and onto the polar plateau. Only after he
had closed on the last 111 miles to the pole would Scott be breaking a new trail. To be
sure, the expedition had been touted for its scientific goals, and the learned societies had
all stepped forward in its support, but clearly to the British public the South Pole was the
prize. Given the discoveries of the two prior British expeditions that had opened the gate-
way to the interior, was it not the British destiny to set foot first at the pole? And was not
Robert Falcon Scott the man to do it?
The expedition sailed from London on June 1, 1910, aboard the Terra Nova, already
a veteran of Antarctic waters as the relief ship second to Morning in the austral summer
of 1903-1904. When the ship arrived in Melbourne on October 12, Scott was shocked
to receive a cablegram from the island of Madeira that read, “Beg leave to inform you
Fram proceeding Antarctic. Amundsen.” For several years Roald Amundsen had been
garnering support for an expedition of his own to sail the Fram into the Arctic Sea, drift
with the ice for several years conducting oceanographic research, and perhaps take a side
