The story of polar conquest, the complete history of arctic and antarctic exploration, including the discovery of the South Pole by Amundsen and Scott; the tragic fate of the Scott expedition and the discovery of the North Pole by Admiral Peary

Front matter

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PEARY* AMUNDSEN* SCOTT nmi

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Chapter I. Page

The Scott Expedition and Its Tragic Fate ■. . . . .r 7

CHAPTER n.

Robert F. Scott, Antarctic Martyr ■. 28

CHAPTER HI.

First at the South Pole: The Thrilling Story of the

Amundsen Expedition 38

CHAPTER IV.

Roald Amundsen, Intrepid Discoverer of the South Pole 50

CHAPTER V.

Shackleton on the Threshold of the South Pole , 54

CHAPTER VI.

Previous Attempts to Penetrate the Antarctic Region. 62

CHAPTER VII.

The Discovery of the North Pole: The Story of Peary's

Great Exploit 79

CHAPTER VIII.

Side-Lights on the Peary Expedition 99

CHAPTER IX.

Robert E. Peary, the Indomitable Polar Explorer 116

CHAPTER X.

The Search for the Northwest Passage 131

CHAPTER XI.

The Ross and Parry Polar Voyages . ..;.,. 143

Contents

CxtAPXxLR X.II. PAGE

CHAPTER XIII.

The Terrible Fate of the Sir John Franklin Expedition 157

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"These rough notes and our dead bodies must tell the tale, but surely, surely, a great rich country like ours will see that those who are dependent on us are properly provided for.

"R. SCOTT.

Efforts had not been wanting on the part of those at Cape Evans to carry help to Scott and his companions. As they had not made their appearance as expected, efforts were made to find them.

The first relief party, composed of Garrard, a geologist, and Dimitri, a Russian dog driver, went out at the end of February. On March 3d Garrard and Dimitri reached One Ton Camp, but had to return on March loth because of the poor condition of the dogs, lack of dog food and the awful weather. Captain Scott then was within 60 miles, or possibly 40 miles, of the relief party. Surgeon Atkinson and Keokane then made a short journey to Corner Camp and returned, "realizing they could be of no assistance."

The approach of the winter season made impossible further eft'orts to relieve Scott, but on October 30th, the Western Party having returned, a new searching party left Cape Evans in two divisions. The party, with Surgeon Atkinson in command, soon reached One Ton Camp, from which they proceeded along the old southern route, and on November 12th they sighted Captain Scott's tent.

Inside were found the bodies of the three heroes — Captain Scott, Dr. Wilson and Lieutenant Bowers. To the end they had carried all of their records with them, as was discovered by the searching party. Wilson and Bowers were found in their sleeping bags, where Captain Scott had placed them, while Scott was sitting upright against the pole of the tent with his diary behind his head, as if for a pillow.

Surgeon Atkinson read the burial service over the bodies and, after gathering together the records and effects of the dead men, erected a cairn of snow and a cross over the tent in which the bodies were left buried. The cross bears the following inscription :

"This cross and cairn erected over the remains of Captain R. F. Scott, C. V. O., R. N. ; Dr. E. A. Wilson and Lieutenant H. H. Bowers, S. R. N., as a slight token to perpetuate their gallant and successful attempt to reach the Pole. This they did on the i8th of January, 191 2, after the Norwegians had already done so on the 14th of December, 191 1.

"Also to commemorate their two gallant comrades, Captain R. E. G. Gates, of the Inniskilling Dragoons, who walked to his death in the blizzard willingly about 20 miles south of the place to try and save his comrades beset by hardship, and Petty Officer Edgar Evans, who died at the foot of the Beardmore glacier.

"The Lord gave and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord."

Atkinson and his party then continued southward in search of the body of Captain Gates, which, however, they were unable to find. Locating the approximate spot described by Captain Scott in his diary as the place at which Gates perished, they erected this inscription:

Hereabout died

A Very Gallant Gentleman,

Inniskilling Dragoons,

Who on the return from the Pole, in

March, 19 12, wilHngly walked to his

death in a blizzard to try and save

his comrades beset by hardships.

The party then returned to Cape Evans, where they were picked up by the "Terra Nova," which returned to New Zealand on February 11, 191^.

Chapter II

CAPTAIN ROBERT FALCON SCOTT, R.N., C.V.O., the intrepid Antarctic explorer who reached the South Pole thirty-five days after Roald Amundsen, but was lost, together with his party of four, in the endeavor to get back to civilization, was a man born to lead. He was a man of great physical strength, fearless, with a striking personality that exuded vitality and strength, yet one felt that he was a man of caution. He was never impetuous or headstrong, having too much consideration and sympathy to take unnecessary risks. If occasion demanded it, however^ he would take any risk to attain his looked-for end. Captain Scott was a sailor, and one of the best type that the British navy has ever produced.

Captain Scott was born at Devonport, the famous naval station on the south coast of England, on June 6, 1868. He was the son of Edward Scott, and was educated at Stubbington House, Forham. At the age of fourteen he entered the British navy.

While a cadet on board the training ship he showed signs of leadership and was chosen as one of the five captains of his time from among sixty boys. These captains were the ones who proved themselves the most popular and efficient as leaders at sports. On leaving the "Britannia" he was sent to the Cape of Good Hope Station and from there returned after three years, tall, strong and manly, having outgrown all his clothes. His next station was in the Pacific, and from there he returned a lieutenant in the service, ready qualified to take up a special course of training, for which he chose torpedo work. After completely qualifying, he was again appointed to one ship after another, pursuing the usual course that is followed by men of his standing.

When he had been eight years a lieutenant, and had gained his extra stripe, he was appointed torpedo-lieutenant on the "Majestic," a first-class battleship. Here he was among men of the highest promise in the Navy and was associated with a group of keen Arctic explorers, men who had served under Sir Leopold Mac- Clintock in the expedition to accomplish the Northwest Passage. A short time after Captain Scott's appointment, Captain Egerton, later Sir George Egerton, succeeded Prince Battenbtirg as captain of the '"'Majestic." He was very much in sympathy with all exploration work and the glamour of the North had always clung to him, so that he was an enthusiast on the subject.

Here came the turning point in Captain Scott's career in a truly romantic manner. Captain Scott's family was at this time in very great trouble. Several deaths and the loss of money had left him the oldest, and now the only, son in a position of having to help his people. He rose nobly to the responsibility, as he has always risen to it, and knowing well that a lieutenant's pay in the Royal Navy left no margin on which to support his family, he went to London to see by what means he could augment it and generally better matters.

Strolling along the streets of London, he met by chance that great old man, Sir Clements Markham, at this time chairmian of the Royal Geographical Society. Sir Clements recognized Captain Scott as a midshipman in whom, he had always been very much interested when he had stayed on his cousin's (Admiral Markham's) ship, and greeted him with great warmth. Sir Clements' great desire was to organize an expedition to explore the unknown Antarctic Continent. This object he had materialized at this time to the extent that a ship was being constructed to be called the "Discovery" for the purpose of ice exploration, and the scientific staff was being appointed.

Sir Clements, like all men who have an intimate knowledge of the Royal Navy, was anxious to have a navy man in command of the ship, and had been promised one by the Admiralty, when by chance he met Captain Scott, or as he then was, Lieutenant Scott. He impetuously seized his arm, and while strolling along, unfolded his plans and urged Captain Scott to apply for the post. The latter demurred as he had no leaning to work of that character. However, to find a well-paid job was necessary, and one that did not interfere with his naval career was desirable. On the ground that one name added to the list of applicants would not matter, he sent his in with little or no hope of being successful. To his great astonishment he was chosen.' He had every qualification, was of the right age, just 29, a healthy, strong, well-built man, standing 5 feet 9 inches, and had had no worse illness than an attack of measles at 17 and a touch of Maltese fever. He was just the man to undertake the strenuous work of such a position.

He now entered on what was the real work of his life, to prepare for the conquest of the Antarctic. He had a year's work of preparation. This was one of the hardest years in Captain Scott's life. It meant mostly office-work in London, a place abhorred by healthy sailors, men who crave fresh air and exercise. It was, however, one of the most important parts of the expedition, for on it largely depended success or failure in the future. Captain Scott set to it with the vigor and judgment he afterwards proved to possess to such a very great extent. He had now begun to be enthusiastic over the idea and what had been to him such a short time before an undreamed of scheme became a living reality. He set to work with a will to master all the details of planning such an expedition for three years, and of preparing the outfit for the voyage and for the landing parties.

He had a more difficult task still, namely, to settle on his stafif. To the experienced explorer this is a sufficiently arduous task, but much more so to the young naval officer who had very little experience. He was given much well-meant and good advice, tendered on all sides by young and old, expressed by able and intellectual men, but had to sift all this for himself. The trying difficulties were increased at this time by the fact that a leader had been appointed for the expedition, a very able scientist quite unaccustomed to exploration, who had been chosen to direct landing operations and the whole affairs of the expedition. This left Captain Scott as a cipher on the ship he commanded, to go when and where a non-nautical man directed, a position, of course, untenable for Captain Scott. The Royal Geographical Society, who number so many Arctic explorers among their members, saw the force of this argument and finally declared that Captain Scott must take supreme command, as he was responsible for the safety of the men and the ship. This led to the retirement of the scientist. From now on preparations went more smoothly, but they still required a sixteen-hour working day for the leader.

It was not an easy task to choose men with whom one had to live in closest fellowship for three years. The Admiralty were generous and allowed three of its officers, in addition to the leader, and twenty blue jackets and petty officers to join the expedition. These were mostly men who had sailed in the same ship with Captain Scott and were known by him. Thus he was able to assemble a staff who proved themselves in every way worthy of his choice by their achievements and characters, while he demonstrated his capacity for judging men. The last month was devoted to the final fitting out of the "Discovery," with all the necessary equipment for a stay of three years in the Antarctic, far from any kind of civilization.

At the time when Captain Scott first went to the Antarctic regions in 1900, it was not known that any food of any kind could be obtained there. This he found later was not the case. Seals^ penguins and gulls provided good, fresh food. On June 28, 1900, the expedition was ready to start from the Thames. The ship had a very enthusiastic send-off, and as one watched the leader standing on the bridge while the ship slowly made her way from the East

India dock, one realized that the boyish young face meant work^ and if humanly possible, success also. The "Discovery," a wooden whaler built for the expedition, made its way to Portsmouth and Cowes.

The honors now began to come to Captain Scott. His ship was honored by King Edward and Queen Alexandria, during which the leader was given a decoration by his majesty, being made a member of the Victorian Order. On the morning of August 5th, a windy, sunny day, a start was made for New Zealand, amid a following crowd of yachts and boats, all dipping their pennants, as the ship sailed on its way to the Southern seas. In spite of many difficulties the ship arrived safely at Cape Town, where Captain Scott had to show his character as leader by weeding out some of the members of the crew. There had been a case of insubordination on board during the voyage south, as the result of which Captain Scott dismissed the offender and wired to the Society that he had done so. This was an unexpected proceeding on his part as the offender was a man picked by the Royal Geographical Society for his knowledge of ice work.

Captain Scott now advertised for some one to replace the dismissed man, and had several hundred applications from the blue jackets in the ffeet stationed at Cape Town where Scott was already well known as a smart officer and a good man to follow. From there the ship went on to New Zealand having to rough it in the terrible 40's.

At New Zealand, Captain Scott again had to make a change in his crew, but as before, was met with generous help from the Admiralty, so that on December i, 1900, he had what he most desired, namely, his ship manned almost entirely by blue jackets accustomed to naval discipline, fine men who were to be thoroughly depended on. These, with the very able scientific staff, brought the ship's complement up to forty.

The two years which followed were full of adventures and manifold hardships, not the least of which was the close chance of death by starvation many times and innumerable narrow escapes from other perils. Sailing from New Zealand on Christmas Eve, 1901, the "Discovery" ran down to the barrier, which Borchgrevink's expedition had noted thirty miles south of where it was recorded by the Ross expedition in 1842. Scott confirmed Borchgrevink's findings, but Scott discovered, where Ross had noted only an "appearance," a wide stretch of country, which he named King Edward VII Land. Scott explored more than 400 miles of the Great Antarctic Barrier, a wider stretch than any other Antarctic explorer.

The "Discovery" was laid up in McMurdo Sound, in latitude yy degrees 49 minutes south, and longitude 166 east, and exploration was started on sledges. The outward journey of 380 miles to latitude 82 degrees and 17 minutes south occupied fifty-nine days. A little further south two peaks. Mount Markham and Mount Longstafif, named after the chief promoters of the expedition, were sighted. On November 30, Captain Scott covered a distance of 300 miles westward from the ship, reaching latitude yy degrees 59 minutes south, and longitude 146 degrees 33 minutes east.

On Christmas Day, Captain Scott returned to the "Discovery," and on January 5, 1904, the "Terra Nova," the ship with which Captain Scott made his latest Antarctic expedition, arrived, with orders for an immediate return, even at the cost of abandoning the "Discovery." The expedition ship, however, broke loose from the ice on February 16, and Captain Scott had the satisfaction of taking her home in good order.

On his return to England, Captain Scott became the hero of the hour with honors showered on him from all over the world. It was at this time that he received his rank as captain, and the day after his promotion he was raised to be Commander of the Victorian Order by King Edward. From that time on he was the daily recipient of medals, diplomas, letters and congratulations from every

European country. He was also elected a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. The gold medals of the Royal Geographical Society, the Scottish Royal Geographical Society, and the American, Swedish, Danish, Philadelphia and Antwerp Geographical Societies were also conferred on him for this expedition. The Universities of Manchester and Cambridge conferred on him the honorary degree of Doctor of Science. He has been known as a keen explorer, a scientist and an admirable leader, a man who always conducted his expeditions with the spirit of a sportsman and who never permitted his ambition to cloud his judgment. As a consequence, his expeditions were never marred by the bickering that has disgraced so many Arctic and Antarctic ventures.

Not even when Sir Ernest Shackleton, who was a subordinate officer in the "Discovery" expedition of 1901, made use of all he had learned under Scott in an independent expedition toward the South Pole, did Scott express jealousy of the mark of farthest south set up by Shackleton, though much of the success was due to him. Instead, he heartily congratulated the younger man, and waited until Shackleton had announced that he was out of the arena before he came forward with his own announcement that he would make another try for the Pole himself.

Those who knew Scott say that the bad feeling toward Captain Roald Amundsen, on the occasion of his discovery of the South Pole, which was displayed in England in 191 2, would never have been tolerated or countenanced by Scott. He asked no favors from any man. All he wanted was a fair chance to do what he set out to do, and if any man could do it better than he, he was willing that the other man should have the credit. Quiet, well poised, slow of speech and somewhat retiring in disposition, he was a man in whom other men instinctively reposed trust, who av^s looked up to by his associates and who never found difficulty in getting men to follow him to the death.

In the wardrooms of many a British ship to-day the men who sit about the mess tables will tell stories of "Bob" Scott and of things he did in the old days when he was a midshipman on the "Rover," or later, perhaps, on others of the King's ships.

In 1909 he turned his attention to the raising of funds to fit out another expedition, and this proved an almost superhuman task. However, with his usual perseverance he succeeded in raising sufficient money to justify the purchase of the "Terra Nova," the whaler that had already braved the Antarctic Seas when she went south in company with the "Morning" to the relief of the "Discovery," in 1902. Many people came forward with generous aid, but the task of collecting money for any scheme is not an easy one, and to a man of Captain Scott's temperament, whose dislike for publicity was strong, begging even for the cause of science, was abhorred. It had to be done, however, if funds were to be raised, and so putting self aside, he started to work. The result was to enable him to start south in 19 10 with the best fitted expedition that ever embarked for the perilous Antarctic shores.

The immense confidence which Captain Scott inspired in his followers may be judged by the fact that all except three of his old party again volunteered to accompany him, and in the formation of the expedition he had more than 1,000 volunteers. It required all his judgment to select the fittest men.

The death of Captain Scott and the four men who went with him to the South Pole has shown the world that, in this age of supposed materialism, men of the Anglo-Saxon fibre still go to meet death unafraid, as one lies down to sleep and peaceful dreams. There is in Scott's last message no wail of despair, no word of complaint, only the prayer for protection for the widowed and the fatherless on the other side of the world. Yet that message was written when two of the five explorers were dead, and the writer and the two others were dying on a desolate plain in a blizzard, knowing that they were within eleven miles of plenty. The tortures of Tantalus were nothing compared with that.

Captain Scott writes with a hand and a mind as unshaken as though this were an address to be deUvered before the Royal Geographical Society. "These rough notes and our dead bodies must tell the tale." It is not rhetorical fustian, the orator's swelling period, when he sets down with his cramped and stiffening fingers : "But for my own sake, I do not regret this journey, which has shown that Englishmen can endure hardships, help one another and meet death with as great a fortitude as ever in the past."

There at home was a little boy, too young when the father left to understand, putting little flags in a map and eagerly asking questions of his mother. When she started for New Zealand to meet England's hero and her own, the little boy said, "Mother has gone to bring him home, and then I am going to meet him at the station."

One thinks of men and women in gilded pleasure halls eating and drinking and making merry — one thinks of all the oblivious gaiety and the selfish cynicism of the epicure — and then in sharp and poignant contrast there comes a vision of a wide gray, dreary plain, and four men staggering, stumbling, pitching their forlorn bit of canvas, huddled under it and dying there, with the sleety blast wailing a dirge above them, instead of the organ in the cathedral, and the snow falling where there is no earth to cover even a fallen hero. And eight months later other men come and find them there, and the world speaks of them for a flitting hour and returns to its fleshpots and its foibles, its gossip and its interrupted games. But here and there, it may be, there is one who will remember the wife and child at home.

By his modesty no less than by his resolution Captain Scott had endeared himself alike to those who had served with him and to the public at large, and in the grief that his death has occasioned there is the personal note of sorrow far beyond the perfunctory mourning when "great kings return to clay, or emperors in their pride."

In 1908 Captain Scott married Miss Kathleen Bruce, daughter of the late Canon Lloyd Bruce. Mrs. Scott is a sculptor of some repute. They have a fascinating son, Peter, who is the image of his father in looks, with ail his health, vitality and intellect so f-ar as one can judge in such a small person. When Captain Scott sailed on the "Terra Nova" the child was only eight months old. His first baby idea was to hug and cover up a photograph. "Keep Daddy warm," he said. After this, need any more be said about all Captain Scott has foregone to attain his object of conquering the Southern Hemisphere and rescuing some of its secrets from it?

Chapter III

First at the South Pole: The Thrilling Story of the Amundsen Expedition

NEARLY four hundred years have passed since the first recorded expedition set sail for the exploration of the Arctic regions, and more than one hundred and forty years have elapsed since the Antarctic circle was first penetrated. Taking into account the innumerable voyages that have been made into polar regions in this long period of time, the persistence, daring and skill of the explorers, and the financial and scientific support which they had behind them, one is able to form some idea of the almost insurmountable barriers that lay in the way of those heroic adventurers who have undertaken to gain the extremities of the earth. From this point it is easy to appreciate the elation and satisfaction with which the world received the news that, within three years after Admiral (then Lieutenant-Commander) Robert E. Peary discovered the North Pole, Captain Roald Amundsen, the Norwegian explorer, had succeeded in planting the flag of his country on the South Pole. This news was contained in a terse cablegram received in Christiania, Norway, by Lean Amundsen, brother of Captain Amundsen, on March 7, 1912, reading as follows:

i "HoBART, Tasmania,

"Thursday, March 7, 1912.

"Pole attained, I4th-i7th December, 191 1. All well.

"Roald Amundsen."

The Amundsen expedition to the South Pole started out as a North Pole expedition. In April, 1909, Amundsen, already famous as the first to take a ship from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean by means of the long-sought Northwest Passage and as an explorer of the region of the magnetic North Pole, published in the Geographical Journal and other papers, exhaustive details of a proposed North Pole expedition he was to undertake.

He left Norway, ostensibly to proceed by way of Cape Horn and Bering Strait to the North Polar Basin. The expedition was to take seven years. It was reported that he had trained polar bear cubs instead of dogs to draw him to the Pole. Suddenly, on arriving at Madeira in October, he announced that he had changed his plans and was going to do some sailing in the Antarctic. Nothing further was heard of him until March 27, 191 1, when news was flashed to civilization from Stewart Island by Lieutenant Pennell, of the British Antarctic Expedition of Captain R. F. Scott, telling that he had come upon Amundsen's ship, the "Fram," in the Bay of Whales, where he had landed and set up winter quarters for a dash toward the South Pole.

News from Amundsen himself was received in June, 191 1, in a letter dated February 9th, at Framheim, in longitude 164 west, latitude 78 degrees 40 minutes south. In it he told how, on a dark, hot evening in the Fuchal Roadstead, he laid before his expedition his plan for extending the programme by an attempt to reach the South Pole. As a man, he said, they voted in favor of doing so. He made the goal of the voyage the Bay of Whales, which indents the great Antarctic barrier in longitude 164 west and latitude 78 degrees 30 minutes south, a voyage of 16,000 miles from home. They expected to reach the barrier by the middle of January.

The "Fram" was a 400-ton gasoline auxiliary, and probably the strongest ship ever built for Polar exploration. She was only 113 feet long and 36 feet of beam. Her hull was made of four and five thicknesses of heavy timber, and at the bow was four feet thick, while at the stern three feet. It was in the "Fram" that Nansen made his "Farthest North" in 1905.

On the "Fram" each man had his own separate quarters, which, though only six feet square, were comfortable, warm and well lighted. A piano in the officers' quarters added to the entertainment of the voyage. Amundsen's cabin which was a little larger than the others was the same one which Nansen occupied in his voyage on the "Fram," and contained maps and plans for use on the trip to the Pole.

A canary which was named Fridtjof, in honor of Nansen, was taken along, and remained in good health and song on the "Fram" during the whole time.

The motor power of the boat consisted of an 80 horse-power petroleum engine, which proved exceedingly reliable, giving no trouble at all during the whole of the journey.

There were nineteen men aboard the "Fram" when Amundsen determined to try for the South Pole, and neither among them nor among his 115 Eskimo dogs was there a single ailment when, on better than schedule time, he landed at the edge of the barrier. On January ist ice was sighted for the first time. The next day the "Fram" crossed the Antarctic Circle and the Antarctic drift was before her. The Great Barrier was sighted on January nth, and on the following day the Bay of Whales, Amundsen's objective point, was reached. A landing place was found on January 14th, and then, the 16,000-mile voyage safely accomplished, Amundsen found he was a day ahead of his schedule.

After mooring his ship safely, he set about finding a place for wintering, about two and a half kilometers from the ship at the foot of a ridge well protected from southeast winds, and on January 1 6th he began to unload his cargo. It was hard work, but his 115 dogs, all picked and trained animals from Greenland, went to work with a will, and the task was soon accomplished. Three weeks later Amundsen described the scene as follows:

"It is three weeks since we began the building of our station, and now everything is ready. The desolate, icy landscape has under-

MRS. ROBERT F. SCOTT, WIFE OF THE EXPLORER, AND THEIR

CHILD

The wife of the Antarctic martyr and her little son, in her studio. Mrs. Scott was on the way to welcome her husband when the news of the disaster was given to the world. His last words were a plea to the English^nation_to_care for them.