The Terra Nova Expedition: An Antarctic Adventure

2417 Words5 Pages

The expedition, named after its supply ship, was a private venture, financed by public contributions augmented by a government grant. It had further backing from the Admiralty, which released experienced seamen to the expedition, and from the Royal Geographical Society. The expedition's team of scientists carried out a comprehensive scientific programme, while other parties explored Victoria Land and the Western Mountains. An attempted landing and exploration of King Edward VII Land was unsuccessful. A journey to Cape Crozier in June and July 1911 was the first extended sledging journey in the depths of the Antarctic winter. The Terra Nova Expedition, officially the British Antarctic Expedition, was an expedition to Antarctica which took place …show more content…

Scott's entire party died on the return journey from the pole; some of their bodies, journals, and photographs were found by a search party eight months later. Since then there is a discussion going around whether Scott was a real hero or not. A Real Hero or Not: The Terra Nova Expedition: Robert Falcon Scott he reached his goal but when he arrived he found a Norwegian team had beaten him to it. Disaster struck on the return journey and its entire party perished in the brutal cold. Scott’s final haunting diary entry shock the outside world. For years after his death, Scott was regarded as a hero; a British icon who had shown courage and nobility in the face of insurmountable odds but as time went by critics began to question his aptitude calling him an ill-prepared adventurer whose bad judgment had cost his team their lives. He was portrayed as irrational consistently, inept, a heroic bunglers. In November of 1910, Robert Scott arrived in the Antarctic aboard the ship Terranova he established his base camp in a hut at Cape Evans and on November 1st 1911 after a year of preparation he set off for the poll. Two weeks later Scott and his party of 16 men 10 ponies and 22 dogs …show more content…

To get data from the interior he trained the men to take temperature readings three times a day on every one of their Depot supply journeys. By comparing the records from the depot trips with the corresponding measurements from Cape Evans, Simpson came to the conclusion that throughout the year the ice shelf was consistently 20 degrees colder than Cape Evans. From his findings he was able to forecast the temperature on the ice shelf for every month of the polar journey. When Scott left the pole, he was relying on Simpson’s forecast for the return journey. He had planned his schedule around the temperatures he knew he could expect and so far everything had gone according to plan. The team made its way back across the high plateau and Simpson had predicted temperatures hovered near frigid negative 25 degrees Fahrenheit. The party was averaging more than 15 miles a day but Edgar Evans was suffering from worsening frostbite and his situation was getting serious. When they arrived their way down Evans sustained a severe head injury when he and Scott fell into a crevasse .Scott had hope the warmer temperatures on the ice shelf would help them recover but after the accident his situation began to

Open Document