Race to the End of the Earth recounts one of the most stirring tales of Antarctic exploration: the contest to be the first to reach the South Pole in 1911-1912. The exhibition focuses on the challenges that two competing explorers — Norwegian Roald Amundsen and Captain Robert Falcon Scott of the British Royal Navy — faced as they undertook their 1,800-mile journeys from the edge of the Ross Ice Shelf to the Pole and back.
Each team faced not only Antarctica’s extreme weather conditions — some of the harshest in the world — but also the risk of starvation, the hazards of losing their way, and the limits of human endurance. Amundsen had only one goal inAntarctica: to be the first to stand at the South Pole. Scott wanted victory as well, but he was also committed to the scientific exploration of the last unknown continent.
Race to the End of the Earth is on exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History from May 29 to January 2, 2011.
The story has been likened to Indiana Jones with snow. Thrilling and action-packed, yes, but it was no film fantasy when two men — Roald Amundsen of Norway and Britain’s Robert Falcon Scott — set out in 1910 on a quest to plant their county’s flag on the last great geographical prize: the South Pole. Only one could be first. Only one would return home.
This high-stakes drama is played out in all its chilling detail in the Museum’s new exhibition Race to the End of the Earth, which opens May 29 and runs through January 2, 2011. The exhibition is curated by Ross D. E. MacPhee, a curator in the Museum’s Division of Vertebrate Zoology and author of Race to the End: Amundsen, Scott, and the Attainment of the South Pole, which is being published this month by Sterling Innovation in conjunction with the exhibition.
To heighten the experience of Race to the End of the Earth, each visitor, on entering the exhibition, will be offered a card featuring information about one of the members of either Amundsen’s or Scott’s team. Moving through the exhibition, visitors will find clues about their characters’ experiences, see actual items of clothing and tools they used, and look in on life-sized models of rooms in the respective base camps—all set against a spectacular backdrop of Aurora Australis, or Southern Lights, and field recordings of cracking ice, gusting snow, and howling winds. Compelling interactive exhibits will help visitors understand the challenges of exploration a century ago, along with paintings, astonishingly beautiful photographs reminiscent of images that captivated the public’s imagination in the Museum’s exhibition The Endurance: Shackleton’s Legendary Antarctic Expedition a decade ago, and rare historical artifacts, including personal effects of Amundsen’s and a copy of one of Scott’s last letters home. Read more »
The real monsters, dragons, and basilisks are back! More than 60 live lizards and snakes from five continents are now displayed in exquisitely prepared habitats. In addition to the live animals, the exhibit uses interactive stations, significant fossils, and an award-winning video to acquaint visitors with the world of the Squamata, the group that includes lizards and snakes.
In Lizards & Snakes: Alive! visitors will see representatives of 26 species, including crowd favorites such as the Gila Monster, Eastern Water Dragon, Green Basilisk, Veiled Chameleon, Blue-tongued Skink, Rhinoceros Iguana, Eastern Green Mamba, and a fourteen-foot Burmese Python. The Water Monitor habitat is equipped with a web camera, enabling virtual visitors from around the globe to observe the daily behavior of one of the largest living species of lizard on earth.
Join Darrel Frost, curator of Lizards & Snakes: Alive!, as he walks through the exhibit and describes some of the fascinating traits these creatures possess.
The exhibit is now open and runs through September 6 at the American Museum of Natural History.
Highway of An Empire: The Great Inca Road, an exhibition of over 35 striking photographs featuring the 25,000 miles of roads and trails that the Incas built six centuries ago in South America is now open at the American Museum of Natural History. In this series of stunning photographs, Highway of An Empire reveals the diversity of this road system—from broad paved highways to woven suspension bridges to beaten tracks through barren desert—and of the landscape through which it travels.
The Great Inca Road will be on view through September 2010.
