AND SO THE JOURNEY BEGINS!    

Many of you have come to follow my various journeys across the globe over the years.  You've been with me in Spain, Japan, Africa, New Zealand, and of course, my previous trips to Antarctica.  Well, I've decided to return to the land that I fell in love with over a decade ago - this time as the sole physician in attendance at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Base, located at the geographic south pole!

In order to appreciate the history of the South Pole, one must be introduced to Robert Scott and Roald Amundsen.  The two explorers in which the base is named for today.  But let's go back to 1839, when it's believed the first explorer set foot on the coastline of Antarctica.  

Royal Navy Captain, Sir James Clark Ross, commanding the HMS Erebus, is believed to have landed at the "Great Ice Barrier" (a term he coined), sometime in the austral summer.  Today, we know this area of oceanic ice as the Ross Ice Shelf.  The HMS Erebus departed Van Diemen's Land (known today as Tasmania) on 21 November 1840.  In January of 1841, Sir Ross landed on what is today, called the Ross Ice Shelf and proceeded to name the large volcano Mount Erebus, after the ship.  Today, the still active Mt. Erebus, looms over the entire ice shelf as a ominous warning of the continent's geographic past.  Sir Ross would return to the ice shelf three more times, attempting to penetrate it.  His party were unsuccessful, each time being forced to return to Van Dieman's land.  There were no more recorded voyages into this sector of the Antarctic for 50 more years...

Robert Falcon Scott was an Englishman, born in Plymouth 1881, and a member of the Royal Navy.  He eventually led two expeditions to the Antarctic region - his first, aboard the RRS Discovery (built in Dundee, Scotland as a one of a kind, ice going barque-rigged steamship) in 1901.  He had learned of the Royal Geographic Society's plan in 1899 and volunteered to lead the party.  Mr. Scott was the first to attempt a over land route to the pole, from the coastline.  He was accompanied by two other famous polar explorers - Ernest Shackleton and Edward Wilson.  More on them later! Documentation states that on 31 December 1902, the party reached as far south as they could:  82 degrees 16 south.  Not quite to 90.  And so the first attempt to reach the pole was unsuccessful. 

Back to the 1904 Irish-born Ernest Shackleton.  Ernest Henry Shackleton led three expeditions to the Antarctic.  His first, the Nimrod expedition of 1907,  established a new record Farthest South latitude of 82 degrees south - only 112 miles from is today's geographical south pole.  At the time, it was the largest advance to the pole in exploration history.  He and members of his team, also became the first to summit Mt. Erebus.  For these achievements, he was knighted by King Edward VII on his return home.  

Sir Ernest Shackleton died on November 10, 1922 in the Falkland Islands, of an apparent heart attack.  But his life had been filled with tragedy prior to his demise.  In 1914, three years after Roald Amundsen's conquest of the geographic south pole (He's up next!), Sir Shackleton turned his attention to crossing of the Antarctic, from sea to sea.  It would be the first attempt at crossing the continent by land and was christened the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition.  Unfortunately, like his multiple previously failed business ventures back home in Ireland, his attempt at crossing the continent was doomed - and eventually, it's story unraveled as one of the most harrowing tales in Antarctic exploration history.  

Disaster struck the Endurance when it became trapped in the pack ice and finally sank in the Weddell Sea off the Antarctic peninsula in November 1915.  Shackleton gave the order to abandon ship on October 27, about 5pm in the evening.  The crew escaped by camping on the sea ice, until the ship disintegrated; ravaged by a storm packing 70 mph winds and temperatures of -33F.  

The crew of 28 men, Mrs. Chippy the ship's cat, and 69 sled dogs, attempted for 10 months to survive on the ice, waiting for it to break up as summer approached. Unfortunately, several of the younger dogs, and Mrs. Chippy had to be sacrificed when it became apparent they would not survive the cold.  

The crew eventually launched lifeboats, reaching Elephant Island first.  It was the first time they were on dry land in over 497 days!  Here, 22 of the men would eventually become marooned; their survival tools put to the test everyday.  Shackleton had decided after 9 days of recuperation and preparation, that he and 4 others would set sail on one of the lifeboats, the James Caird, with their sights on the whaling station of South Georgia in the Falklands.  For 16 days, they battled monstrous swells and angry winds, bailing water constantly, and beating ice from the sails.  When they eventually landed on the island, they did so on the other side from the whaling station.  And so, Shackleton, and three of the others set off to reach the station by foot.  It took them 36 hours of desperate hiking, climbing over mountains and sliding down glaciers, forging their own path, until they finally staggered into the station at Stromness.  

Once the other member of the James Caird crew had been retrieved, attention turned to rescuing the 22 men remaining on Elephant Island.  However, this final task would prove to be the most trying and time-consuming of all.  The first ship on which Shackleton set out ran dangerously low on fuel while trying to navigate the pack ice and was forced to turn back to the Falklands.  The government of Uruguay proffered a vessel that came within 100 miles of Elephant Island before also being beaten back by the ice.  But Shackleton procured a third vessel, the Yelcho, from Chile, and finally on August 30, 1916, rescued the remaining 22 men of the Endurance - 128 days after the James Caird set off.  Amazingly, 20 months after setting out for the Antarctic, every one of the Endurance crew was alive and safe!

Ernest Shackleton never did reach the South Pole, or cross the Antarctic.  He made one last attempt in late 1921, but some of the Endurance veterans noticed he appeared weaker, more diffident and drained of spirit.  On January 5, 1922, he died at the age of 47 aboard ship in his bunk - while still moored in the Falklands.  The second in command, Mr. Wild, sailed the ship to Antarctica; but it proved unequal to the task.  After a month spent futilely attempting to penetrate the ice pack, he set a course for Elephant Island - a place they had been before.  From the safety of the deck, he and his comrades peered through binoculars at the beach where so many of them had lived a nightmare.  "Once more I see the old faces and hear the old voices - of old friends scattered everywhere," wrote the first officer Macklin.  "But to express all I feel, is impossible."  And with that, they turned north one last time and went home.  Death in exploration of the continent is part of it's history.  

Let's return to Mr. Robert Falcon Scott.  He returned to the Pole for his second expedition, Terra Nova,  in 1911.  His hope was to be the first to reach the geographic South Pole.  He set out with 65 men, chosen from over 8000 applicants!  As his Chief Scientist, Dr. Edward Wilson was Scott's closest confidant among the party.  As well as being a physician, Wilson was a research zoologist and a talented illustrator.  Scott believed in a "mixed transport strategy," relying on dog sleds, motorized sleds and horses.  Unfortunately, he chose a gentlemen named Meares to be in charge of the ponies.  Meares, who knew nothing of horses, was instructed to buy and train them - with unfortunate consequences for their quality and performance.  On Jan 4, 1911, Scott landed at McMurdo Sound, setting up his camp, which he named Cape Evans.  A prefabricated accommodation hut measuring 50 x 25 feet was erected and made habitable on 18 January 1911.  It was named Discovery Hut, and is still visited by many stationed at the United States McMurdo base.  (Pictured below, you can see the modern day buildings of McMurdo base in the backround.)

Scott made several ventures towards the pole that summer, including building a small hut within 35 miles of the pole - but was never able to reach the pole itself.  He thus returned to Cape Evans and wintered over there. 

On 13 September, 1911, with the austral summer coming, Scott revealed his plans for the South Pole journey.  On 24 October, two motorized sledges (precursors to today's snow cats) set out with heavy loads to a preselected latitude of 80 degrees 30mins south.  However, by 01 November, both sledges had failed to move little more than 50 miles.  The motorized party ended up man-hauling 740 pounds of gear for the remaining 150 miles to the rendezvous point!  Scott's main party joined them on 21 November.  He still had not decided who exactly would traverse with him on the final journey across the Beardmore Glacier and onto the high altitude Antarctic Plateau. On 03 January 1912,  at a latitude of 87 degrees, 32 south, Scott eventually decided on five men, (Scott, Wilson, Oates, Bowers and Edgar Evans) as the final members of his team. On Jan 16, 1912, only 15 miles from their goal, Scott and his team could see the Norwegian flag of Amundsen, and knew they had been beat.  They reached the pole the next day on 17 January, 1912.  He was reported to have said, "The Pole - but under very different circumstances from those expected....Great God this is an awful place!  Well, it is something to have got here."  

However, fate was still to await the Scott party.  Dejected, they turned and headed back to their base - crossing again, the expanse of the Ross Ice Shelf.  By the end of March 1912,  all five members of the team would be dead.  Petty Officer Edgar Evans died of a probable brain injury after falling into a crevasse on February 17, 1912.  Next was Captain Lawrence Oates, who suffered from severe frostbite.  Scared of holding up the team further, he walked out into the snow on March 17 with the now famous line "I'm just going outside and may be some time."  The three remaining men struggled on.  On March 21, they camped for the last time, all three dying of frostbite and hypothermia around March 29, 1912.  There bodies were discovered by a search party in November 1912.  

I finish this first part of my blog with the other member of this saga: Norwegian, Roald Amundsen.  He and his party of four others, were the first to reach the geographic south pole, 34 days before Sir Scott.  The party's mastery of the use of skiis, and expertise with sled dogs, ensured a rapid and relatively trouble-free journey towards the center of the continent.  He ordered 100 North Greenland Sledge Dogs - the best and the strongest - and himself developed specialized ski boots, that were the product of two years of testing and modification. The party's clothing was made from insulated seal skin; garments further developed in gratitude to Greenland's Netsilk Inuit tribe.  These were made of reindeer skin, wolf skin, burberry cloth and gabardine.  He chose the Swedish Primus stove because it took up little room - a precursor to today's camp stoves.  On 08 September, with the temperature a balmy -17F,  Amundsen and his team set out.  

Initially, they made good progress, traveling around 18 miles per day.  However, on 12 September, with temperatures down to -69F, they halted after only 3 miles and built igloos for shelter.  2 days later, Amundsen admitted to his team that he decision to leave as early as he did in the season was wrong.  They dumped their supplies, and returned to Whale Bay - his Norwegian base on the Antarctic coastline.  

Despite his excitement to start out again, Amundsen decided to wait until the first hints of Spring.  So on 19 October, with five men, four sleds, and 52 dogs, they began their journey.  They reached 82 degrees south on 5 November, and on 17 November reached the edge of the Transantartic mountains.  He then spent the next 4 days traversing the mountains, to a pass height of 5000 feet.  Upon reaching 10,600 feet, at the summit of the newly named Axel Heiberg Glacier (after the man who was his chief financial backer), he found himself at 85 degrees 36 mins south.  Faced with a severe lack of food,  Amundsen decided to sacrifice several dogs for meat.  "There was a depression and sadness in the air; we had grown so fond of our dogs.  But regrets did not prevent the team from enjoying the plentiful food as hunger was dire."  Bad weather further prevented their departure until 25 November, when the entire team voted to set off cautiously in dense fog and over unknown ground.  Amundsen writes of listening in the dense silence for a "hollow" sound that was made with a man's foot would step find the space between ice and snow that covered concealed crevasses hundreds of feet deep!  On 13 December they camped at 89 degrees 45 mins south, 17 miles from the pole.  The next day on 14 December 1911, they reached the pole and planted the Norwegian flag in the name of King Haalon VII.  They spent the next three days taking sextant readings over and over, to precisely prove the location of the South Pole.  Amundsen wanted to leave an unmistakable marker for Scott to see.  He took things a step further when inside the tent they had assembled, he left equipment for Scott's team, and a letter addressed to King Haalon which he requested Scott to deliver.  Ouch!

And so there you have it!  A brief summary of the men and animals that made discovery of the South Pole possible - and why the base located at 90 degrees 0 minutes south is aptly named the "Amundsen-Scott South Base."  

In my next chapter, I'll talk about how the three American bases were started, eventually became property of the National Science Foundation, and how the hell did I get myself into this mess?!!

Oh, and please excuse any gross spelling or grammatical mistakes.  I try to get these blogs out quickly to you all, and sometimes miss a correction or two!