‘The Competition Was On’: Curator MacPhee’s New Book on Polar Race

Wednesday, May 26 9:41 am

In June, 1910, Roald Amundsen left Norway on a ship called the Fram.  His stated plan: sail north to the Arctic. In October, Royal Navy Captain Robert Falcon Scott, leader of the highly publicized British expedition to the Antarctic, whose ship Terra Nova was then docked in Melbourne, received a terse telegram indicating the Fram had turned south to the Antarctic. Curator Ross D. E. MacPhee describes the fallout in his book Race to the End: Amundsen, Scott, and the Attainment of the South Pole.

It was vitally important for Scott to have his expedition seen as scientifically significant. To that end, he took along 12 researchers or scientists, including a bespectacled young Oxford graduate, Apsley Cherry-Garrard, who paid £1,000 pounds (equivalent in buying power to $120,000 to $150,000 today) to join the team as assistant zoologist. These are his snow goggles, fitted with prescription lenses, atop a copy of his book The Worst Journey in the World, which includes a harrowing account of a side trip in search of emperor penguin eggs. It became an instant classic. © Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge

After reading the telegram Scott summoned Tryggve Gran, the young Norwegian ski expert appointed to the expedition on the recommendation of Fridtjof Nansen. Scott had hoped that Gran, as Amundsen’s fellow countryman, could help him make sense of the message. But little could be gleaned from the deliberately curt wording, sent according to plan by Leon Amundsen [the explorer’s brother] after Fram was well away from Madeira.

For a man like Amundsen, whose exploration career was built on a continuing cascade of firsts, there could be only one goal in Antarctica. As Scott told Gran, “Amundsen is acting suspiciously…In Norway he avoided me in every conceivable manner…Let me say it right out. Amundsen was too honorable to tell me lies to my face. It’s the pole he is after, all right.”

…As [Apsley Cherry-Garrard] later recollected,“The last we had heard of [Amundsen] was that he had equipped Nansen’s old ship, the Fram, for further exploration of the Arctic. This was only a feint. Once at sea, he had told his men that he was going south instead of north; and when he reached Madeira he sent this brief telegram, ‘I shall be at the South Pole before you.’ It also meant, though we did not appreciate it at the time, that we were up against a very big man.”

…The fact is that, whatever Scott may have said to influential backers about the vulgarity of racing for the pole, to the public he plainly and unequivocally stated that “the Pole was the main objective.” Of course, it only became an actual race when Amundsen and his men showed up; but others had been sending out trial balloons well before the Terra Nova expedition left for the south, and no one could have been in any doubt that, if there was to be any kind of competition for the pole on the Antarctic ice, Britain intended to get there first.

Newspapers had begun to trumpet Amundsen’s change of plans even before the Terra Nova had docked in Melbourne. Challenge had been served, and the competition for the South Pole was now very much on.

Reprinted with permission from Race to the End: Amundsen, Scott, and the Attainment of the South Pole © Ross D. E. MacPhee 2010, Sterling Innovation.

Behind the Scenes at the New Exhibition: The Race Begins in 9 Days

Thursday, May 20 2:25 pm

Race to the End of the Earth recounts one of the most stirring tales of Antarctic exploration: the contest to reach the South Pole in 1911-1912. The exhibition focuses on the challenges that the two leaders — Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and British Royal Navy Captain Robert Falcon Scott — confronted as they undertook their journeys from the shores of the Ross Sea to the Pole and back.

Moving through the exhibition, visitors will find clues about the experiences of various members of Scott’s and Amundsen’s teams, see actual items of clothing and tools they used, and look in on life-sized models of rooms in Amundsen’s and Scott’s base camps–all against a spectacular backdrop of Aurora Australis, or the southern lights. Another section features a diorama of emperor penguins, the largest penguin species alive today and the subject of a dangerous expedition by three of Scott’s men to recover eggs for scientific study, while additional exhibits will acquaint visitors with scientists and staff at work in Antarctica today.

For a behind-the-scenes look at Race to the End of the Earth, check out this slideshow of Museum artists at work.

From the Museum's Collections: The Race Begins in 17 Days

Wednesday, May 12 4:59 pm

A temporary exhibition creates an excellent opportunity to showcase materials from the Museum’s vast collections — and Race to the End of the Earth, which opens May 29, is no exception.

The exhibition recounts one of the most stirring tales of Antarctic exploration: the contest between Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and British Royal Navy Captain Robert Falcon Scott to reach the South Pole in 1911-1912. Through a special relationship between Amundsen and U.S. explorer and Museum Trustee Lincoln Ellsworth (1880-1951), the Museum Library’s Memorabilia Collection boasts a number of personal effects the Norwegian explorer carried with him in his quest. Displayed in the exhibition are a sledge, chronometer, binoculars, and shotgun, as well as an enameled tin cup inscribed with the name of Amundsen’s ship, Fram, the Norwegian word for “forward.”

Roald Amundsen likely brought these binoculars to the South Pole. Inscriptions on the faceplate list some of his accomplishments, among them being the first to travel the Northwest Passage and the second to navigate the Northeast Passage. © AMNH/C. Chesek

Read more »

Sneak Peek: Race to the End of the Earth

Monday, May 10 11:35 am

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.

Get a sneak peek at this upcoming exhibit below.

Southern Exposure: The Race Begins in 26 Days

Monday, May 03 3:26 pm

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.

Robert F. Scott photographed in his quarters during the British Antarctic Expedition. © AMNH Library

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 »