Norwegian explorer was the first to conquer the South Pole. Conquest of the Pole

Conquering the “green island” Greenland has long attracted the attention of residents of neighboring islands and the mainland, as well as travelers. One of the brightest events of 1887 was the expedition to the ice island, led by Fridtjof Nansen, a former laboratory assistant at the Bergen Museum.

Conquest of the Libyan Desert After G. Rolfs, who visited the outskirts of the Kufra oasis, located in the very center of the Libyan Desert, in the second half of the 19th century, not a single European set foot on its rocky and sandy lands. Settled in an oasis

How do you celebrate reaching the top? No, it is not customary to take wine with you when climbing, nor is it recommended. Dizziness is undesirable not only from alcohol, but also from “miner stress”, epoxy, as mountain sickness is called. And the euphoria from success in reaching the top marks is better

Who was the first to reach the South Pole? In 1911, two independent groups of polar explorers almost simultaneously set out on a difficult and dangerous journey through the ice of the Antarctic. The goal of the researchers was the South Pole, where no human had ever set foot. We went to try our luck

Once man managed to conquer the North Pole, sooner or later he had to reach the South Pole, located in the center of the icy continent of Antarctica.
It's even colder here than in the Arctic. In addition, the fierce hurricane winds almost never subside... But the South Pole also surrendered, and the history of the conquest of the two extreme points of the Earth was curiously linked together. The fact is that in 1909, like Piri, the famous polar explorer Roald Amundsen intended to set out to conquer the North Pole - the same one who, several years earlier, managed to navigate his ship from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean by the northwest sea route. Having learned that Piri had achieved success first, the ambitious Amundsen, without hesitation, sent his expedition ship "Fram" to the shores of Antarctica. He decided that he would be the first to the South Pole!
They have tried to get to the southernmost point of the Earth before. In 1902, Captain Robert Scott of the English Royal Navy, together with two companions, managed to reach 82 degrees 17 minutes south latitude. But then I had to retreat. Having lost all the sled dogs with which they began the journey, the three brave souls were barely able to return to the coast of Antarctica, where the expedition ship Discovery was moored.

In 1908, another Englishman made a new attempt - Ernst Shackleton. And again, failure: despite the fact that only 179 kilometers remained to the goal, Shackleton turned back, unable to withstand the hardships of the journey. Amundsen actually achieved success the first time, having thought through literally every little detail.
His journey to the Pole was played out like clockwork. Between 80 and 85 degrees south latitude, at every degree, the Norwegians had pre-arranged warehouses with food and fuel. Amundsen set off on October 20, 1911, with four Norwegian companions: Hansen, Wisting, Hassel, Bjoland. The travelers traveled on sleighs pulled by sled dogs.

The costumes for the participants in the hike were made... from old blankets. Amundsen's idea, unexpected at first glance, fully justified itself - the costumes were light and at the same time very warm. But the Norwegians also faced many difficulties. The blows of the blizzard cut the faces of Hansen, Wisting and Amundsen himself until they bled; These wounds did not heal for a long time. But seasoned, courageous people did not pay attention to such trifles.
On December 14, 1911, at 3 pm, the Norwegians reached the South Pole.
They stayed here for three days, making astronomical determinations of the exact location to eliminate the slightest possibility of error. At the southernmost point of the Earth, a tall pole with the Norwegian flag and the Fram pennant was erected. All five left their names on a board nailed to the pole.
The return journey took the Norwegians 40 days. Nothing unexpected happened. And early in the morning of January 26, 1912, Amundsen and his companions returned to the shore of the icy continent, where the expedition ship Fram was waiting for him in Whale Bay.

Alas, Amundsen's victory was overshadowed by the tragedy of another expedition. Also in 1911, Robert Scott made a new attempt to reach the South Pole. This time she was successful. But on January 18, 1912, Scott and four of his companions found a Norwegian flag at the South Pole, left by Amundsen back in December. The disappointment of the British, who arrived only second to the goal, turned out to be so great that they no longer had the strength to withstand the return journey.
A few months later, British search parties, concerned about Scott’s long absence, found a tent in the Antarctic ice with the frozen bodies of the captain and his companions. In addition to pitiful crumbs of food, they found 16 kilograms of rare geological samples from Antarctica, collected during the trip to the pole. As it turned out, the rescue camp, where food was stored, was only twenty kilometers away from this tent...

Roald Amundsen (1872-1928) Norwegian polar traveler and explorer. He was the first to navigate the Northwest Passage on the ship Joa from Greenland to Alaska (1903-1906). He led an expedition to Antarctica on the ship Fram (1910-1912). He was the first to reach the South Pole (December 14, 1911). In 1918-1920 he sailed along the northern shores of Eurasia on the ship Maud. In 1926, he led the first flight over the North Pole on the airship Norway. He died in the Barents Sea during the search for the Italian expedition of U. Nobile. Years later, Fridtjof Nansen would say about his younger colleague: Some kind of explosive force lived in him. Amundsen was not a scientist, and did not want to be one. He was attracted by exploits. Amundsen himself said that he decided to become a polar traveler at the age of fifteen, when he read a book by John Franklin. This Englishman in 1819-1822 tried to find the Northwest Passage, a route from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean around the northern shores of North America. The participants of his expedition had to starve, eat lichens and their own leather shoes. It’s amazing, Amundsen recalled, that... what most attracted my attention was the description of these hardships experienced by Franklin and his companions. A strange desire arose within me to someday endure the same suffering. As a child, he was a sickly and weak boy. Preparing himself for future challenges, he began to train daily and make long ski trips in the winter. To the horror of his mother, he opened the windows in his room and slept on a rug near the bed, covering himself with only a coat, or even just newspapers. And when the time came to serve military service, the old army doctor was incredibly surprised and even called officers from the next room: Young man, how did you manage to develop such muscles? Life turned out in such a way that only at the age of twenty-two Amundsen first stepped on board a ship. At twenty-two he was a cabin boy, at twenty-four a navigator, at twenty-six he spent the first winter in high latitudes. Roald Amundsen was a member of the Belgian Antarctic expedition. The forced, unprepared wintering lasted 13 months. Almost everyone suffered from scurvy. Two went crazy, one died. The reason for all the troubles of the expedition was the lack of experience. Amundsen remembered this lesson for the rest of his life. He re-read all the polar literature, trying to study the advantages and disadvantages of various diets, different types of clothing, and equipment. Returning to Europe in 1899, he passed the captain's exam, then enlisted Nansen's support, bought the small yacht Joa and began preparing his own expedition.

Any person can only do so much, Amundsen said, and each new skill can be useful to him. He studied meteorology and oceanology, learned to conduct magnetic observations. He was an excellent skier and drove a dog sled. Characteristically: later, at the age of forty-two, he learned to fly and became the first civilian pilot in Norway. He wanted to accomplish what Franklin had failed to do, what no one had managed so far, to pass the Northwest Passage. And I carefully prepared for this journey for three years. Nothing justifies itself more than spending time selecting participants for a polar expedition, Amundsen liked to say. He did not invite people under thirty years of age on his travels, and each of those who went with him knew and was able to do a lot. There were seven of them on Gjoa, and in 1903-1906 they accomplished in three years what mankind had dreamed of for three centuries. Fifty years after the so-called discovery of the Northwest Passage by McClure, in 1903-1906, Roald Amundsen was the first to circumnavigate North America on a yacht. From Western Greenland, he, following the instructions of McClintock's book, first repeated the path of Franklin's unfortunate expedition. From Barrow Strait he headed south through the Peel and Franklin Straits to the northern tip of King William Island. But, taking into account Franklin’s disastrous mistake, Amundsen circled the island not from the western, but from the eastern side by the James Ross and Rey Straits and spent two winters in the harbor of Gjoa, off the south-eastern coast of King William Island. From there, in the fall of 1904, he explored the narrowest part of Simpson Strait by boat, and in the late summer of 1905 he moved due west along the mainland coast, leaving the Canadian Arctic Archipelago to the north. He passed a series of shallow, island-studded straits and bays and finally encountered whaling ships; arrived from the Pacific Ocean to the northwestern shores of Canada. Having wintered here for the third time, Amundsen in the summer of 1906 sailed through the Bering Strait into the Pacific Ocean and ended his voyage in San Francisco, delivering significant material on the geography, meteorology and ethnography of the surveyed shores. So, it took more than four hundred years from Cabot to Amundsen for one small ship to finally follow the Northwest Sea Route from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. Amundsen considered his next task to be the conquest of the North Pole. He wanted to enter the Arctic Ocean through the Bering Strait and repeat, only at higher latitudes, the famous drift of the frame. Nansen lent him his ship, but the money had to be collected bit by bit.

While preparations were underway for the expedition, Cook and Peary announced that the North Pole had already been conquered... To maintain my prestige as a polar explorer, Roald Amundsen recalled, I needed to achieve some other sensational success as soon as possible. I decided to take a risky step... Our route from Norway to the Bering Strait went past Cape Horn, but first we had to go to the island of Madeira. Here I informed my comrades that since the North Pole was open, I decided to go to the South Pole. Everyone agreed with delight... On a spring day, October 19, 1911, a pole party of five people on four sleighs pulled by 52 dogs set off. They easily found the former warehouses and then left food warehouses at every degree of latitude. Initially, the route passed along the snowy, hilly plain of the Ross Ice Shelf. But even here, travelers often found themselves in a labyrinth of glacial crevasses. In the south, in clear weather, an unknown mountainous country with dark cone-shaped peaks, with patches of snow on the steep slopes and sparkling glaciers between them, began to loom before the eyes of the Norwegians. At the 85th parallel the surface went steeply upward and the ice shelf ended. The ascent began along steep snow-covered slopes. At the beginning of the ascent, the travelers set up the main food warehouse with a supply of 30 days. For the entire further journey, Amundsen left food for 60 days. During this period, he planned to reach the South Pole and return back to the main warehouse. In search of passages through the maze of mountain peaks and ridges, travelers had to repeatedly climb and descend back, and then climb again. Finally they found themselves on a large glacier, which, like a frozen icy river, cascaded down from above between the mountains. This glacier was named after Axel Heiberg, the patron of the expedition, who donated a large sum. The glacier was riddled with cracks. At the stops, while the dogs were resting, the travelers, tied together with ropes, scouted the path on skis. At an altitude of about 3,000 meters above sea level, 24 dogs were killed. This was not an act of vandalism, for which Amundsen was often reproached, it was a sad necessity, planned in advance. The meat of these dogs was supposed to serve as food for their relatives and people. This place was called the Slaughterhouse. 16 dog carcasses and one sleigh were left here. 24 of our worthy companions and faithful helpers were doomed to death! It was cruel, but it had to be so. We all unanimously decided not to be embarrassed by anything to achieve our goal. The higher the travelers climbed, the worse the weather became.

Sometimes they climbed in the snowy darkness and fog, distinguishing the path only under their feet. They called the mountain peaks that appeared before their eyes in rare clear hours after Norwegians: friends, relatives, patrons. The highest mountain was named after Fridtjof Nansen. And one of the glaciers descending from it received the name of Nansen’s daughter Liv. It was a strange journey. We passed through completely unknown places, new mountains, glaciers and ridges, but saw nothing. But the path was dangerous. It is not for nothing that certain places received such gloomy names: the Gates of Hell, the Devil's Glacier, the Devil's Dancing Ass. Finally the mountains ended, and the travelers came out onto a high-mountain plateau. Beyond stretched frozen white waves of snowy sastrugi. On December 7, 1911, the weather became sunny. The midday altitude of the sun was determined using two sextants. Determinations showed that the travelers were at 88° 16 south latitude. There were 193 kilometers left to the pole. Between astronomical determinations of their place, they kept the direction south by compass, and the distance was determined by a bicycle wheel counter with a meter in circumference and an odometer tied to the back of the sleigh. On the same day, they passed the southernmost point reached before them: three years ago, the party of the Englishman Ernest Shackleton reached latitude 88°23, but, facing the threat of starvation, was forced to turn back, only 180 kilometers short of reaching the Pole. The Norwegians easily skied forward to the pole, and the sledges with food and equipment were carried by quite strong dogs, four per team. On December 16, 1911, taking the midnight altitude of the sun, Amundsen determined that they were approximately 89°56 south latitude, that is, seventy kilometers from the pole. Then, splitting into two groups, the Norwegians dispersed to all four cardinal directions, within a radius of 10 kilometers, in order to more accurately explore the polar region. On December 17, they reached the point where, according to their calculations, the South Pole should be located. Here they set up a tent and, dividing into two groups, took turns observing the height of the sun with a sextant every hour around the clock. The instruments said that they were located directly at the pole point. But so as not to be accused of not reaching the pole itself, Hansen and Bjoland walked another seven kilometers further. At the South Pole they left a small gray-brown tent, above the tent they hung a Norwegian flag on a pole, and under it a pennant with the inscription Fram. In the tent, Amundsen left a letter to the Norwegian king with a brief report on the campaign and a laconic message to his rival Scott.

On December 18, the Norwegians set off on the return journey following the old tracks and after 39 days they safely returned to Framheim. Despite poor visibility, they easily found food warehouses: when arranging them, they prudently laid gurias out of snow bricks perpendicular to the path on both sides of the warehouses and marked them with bamboo poles. The entire journey of Amundsen and his comrades to the South Pole and back took 99 days. Here are the names of the discoverers of the South Pole: Oscar Wisting, Helmer Hansen, Sverre Hassel, Olaf Bjaland, Roald Amundsen. A month later, on January 18, 1912, Robert Scott's pole party approached the Norwegian tent at the South Pole. On the way back, Scott and four of his comrades died in the icy desert from exhaustion and cold. Amundsen subsequently wrote: I would sacrifice fame, absolutely everything, to bring him back to life. My triumph is overshadowed by the thought of his tragedy, it haunts me! When Scott reached the South Pole, Amundsen was already completing the return route. His recording sounds like a sharp contrast; it seems that we are talking about a picnic, about a Sunday walk: on January 17 we reached the food warehouse under the 82nd parallel... The chocolate cake served by Wisting is still fresh in our memory... I can give you the recipe... Fridtjof Nansen: When a real person comes, all difficulties disappear, since each one is separately foreseen and mentally experienced in advance. And let no one come talking about happiness, about favorable circumstances. Amundsen's happiness is the happiness of the strong, the happiness of wise foresight. Amudsen built his base on the Ross Ice Shelf. The very possibility of wintering on a glacier was considered very dangerous, since every glacier is in constant motion and huge pieces of it break off and float into the ocean. However, the Norwegian, reading the reports of Antarctic sailors, became convinced that in the area of ​​Whale Bay the glacier configuration has remained virtually unchanged for 70 years. There could be one explanation for this: the glacier rests on the motionless foundation of some subglacial island. This means you can spend the winter on a glacier. In preparation for the polar campaign, Amundsen laid out several food warehouses in the fall. He wrote: ...The success of our entire battle for the Pole depended on this work... Amundsen threw more than 700 kilograms at 80 degrees, 560 at 81, and 620 at 82. Amundsen used Eskimo dogs. And not only as a draft force. He was devoid of sentimentality, and is it even appropriate to talk about it when in the fight against polar nature the immeasurably more valuable human life is at stake?

His plan can amaze with both cold cruelty and wise forethought. Since the Eskimo dog produces about 25 kilograms of edible meat, it was easy to calculate that each dog we took to the South meant a reduction of 25 kilograms of food both on the sleds and in the warehouses. In the calculation drawn up before the final departure to the Pole, I established the exact day when each dog should be shot, that is, the moment when it ceased to serve us as a means of transportation and began to serve as food. The choice of wintering site, the preliminary loading of warehouses, the use of skis, lighter, more reliable equipment than Scott’s all played a role in the final success of the Norwegians. Amundsen himself called his polar travels work. But years later, one of the articles dedicated to his memory would be entitled quite unexpectedly: The Art of Polar Exploration. By the time the Norwegians returned to the coastal base, Fram had already arrived at Whale Bay and took away the entire wintering party. On March 7, 1912, from the city of Hobart on the island of Tasmania, Amundsen informed the world of his victory and the safe return of the expedition. And so... having completed his plan, writes Liv Nansen-Heyer, Amundsen first of all came to his father. Helland, who was in Pylhögd at that time, vividly remembers how they met: Amundsen, somewhat embarrassed and unsure, looking steadily at his father, quickly entered the hall, and his father naturally extended his hand to him and cordially greeted him: Happy return, and congratulations on a perfect feat! . For almost two decades after the expedition of Amundsen and Scott, no one was in the South Pole area. In 1925, Amundsen decided to make a test flight by plane to the North Pole from Spitsbergen. If the flight was successful, then he planned to organize a trans-Arctic flight. The son of American millionaire Lincoln Ellsworth volunteered to finance the expedition. Subsequently, Ellsworth not only financed the air expeditions of the famous Norwegian, but also participated in them himself. Two seaplanes of the Dornier-Val type were purchased. Famous Norwegian pilots Riiser-Larsen and Dietrichson were invited as pilots. mechanics Feucht and Omdahl. Amundsen and Ellsworth took on the duties of navigators. In April 1925, expedition members, aircraft and equipment arrived by ship at Kingsbay on Spitsbergen. On May 21, 1925, both planes took off and headed for the North Pole. On one plane were Ellsworth, Dietrichson and Omdahl, on the other Amundsen, Riiser-Larsen and Voigt.

About 1000 kilometers from Spitsbergen, the engine of Amundsen’s plane began to malfunction. Fortunately, in this place there were polynyas among the ice. I had to go to land. We landed relatively safely, except that the seaplane stuck its nose into the ice at the end of the hole. What saved us was the fact that the hole was covered with thin ice, which slowed down the speed of the plane during landing. The second seaplane also landed not far from the first, but during landing it was severely damaged and failed. But the Norwegians were unable to take off. Over the course of several days, they made three attempts to take off, but all ended in failure. The situation seemed hopeless. Walk south on ice? But there was too little food left; they would inevitably die of hunger on the way. They left Spitsbergen with enough food for one month. Immediately after the accident, Amundsen carefully counted everything they had and established hard rations. Days passed, all participants in the flight worked tirelessly. But more and more often, the expedition leader cut the food allowance. A cup of chocolate and three oat biscuits for breakfast, 300 grams of pemmican soup for lunch, a cup of hot water flavored with a pinch of chocolate, and the same three biscuits for dinner. That's the entire daily diet for healthy people engaged in hard work almost around the clock. Then the amount of pemmican had to be reduced to 250 grams. Finally, on June 15, on the 24th day after the accident, it froze and they decided to take off. For takeoff, at least 1,500 meters of open water was required. But they managed to level a strip of ice only a little over 500 meters long. Behind this strip there was a hole about 5 meters wide, and then a flat 150-meter ice floe. It ended with a high hummock. Thus, the take-off strip was only about 700 meters long. Everything was thrown out of the plane except the essentials. Riiser-Larsen took the pilot's seat. The other five barely fit in the cabin. The engine was started and the plane took off. The next seconds were the most exciting of my entire life. Rieser-Larsen immediately gave full throttle. As the speed increased, the unevenness of the ice affected itself more and more, and the entire seaplane tilted so terribly from side to side that I was more than once afraid that it would somersault and break its wing. We were quickly approaching the end of the starting track, but the bumps and jolts showed that we were still not off the ice. With increasing speed, but still not separating from the ice, we approached a small slope leading into the wormwood. We were transported across the ice hole, fell onto a flat ice floe on the other side and suddenly rose into the air... The return flight began. They flew, as Amundsen put it, with death as their closest neighbor.

In the event of a forced landing on the ice, even if they had survived, they would have starved to death. After 8 hours and 35 minutes of flight, the rudder drives jammed. But, fortunately, the plane was already flying over open water near the northern shores of Spitsbergen, and the pilot confidently landed the car on the water and drove it like a motor boat. The travelers continued to be lucky: soon a small fishing boat approached them, the captain of which agreed to tow the plane to Kingsbay... The expedition ended. From Spitsbergen, its participants traveled by boat along with the plane. The meeting in Norway was solemn. In Oslofjord, in the port of Horten, Amundsen's plane was launched, the members of the air expedition boarded it, took off and landed in Oslo harbor. They were met by crowds of thousands of cheering people. It was July 5, 1925. It seemed that all Amundsen's troubles were a thing of the past. He again became a national hero. In 1925, after lengthy negotiations, Ellsworth bought an airship called Norge (Norway). The leaders of the expedition were Amundsen and Ellsworth. The creator of the airship, Italian Umberto Nobile, was invited to the position of captain. The team was formed from Italians and Norwegians. In April 1926, Amundsen and Ellsworth arrived by ship in Spitsbergen to take delivery of the hangar and mooring mast, built over the winter, and generally prepare everything for the reception of the airship. On May 8, 1926, Americans set off to the North Pole. The plane, named Josephine Ford, probably in honor of Ford's wife, who financed the expedition, carried only two people: Floyd Bennett as pilot and Richard Byrd as navigator. After 15 hours they returned safely, having flown to the Pole and back. Amundsen congratulated the Americans on the happy completion of the flight. At 9:55 a.m. on May 11, 1926, in calm, clear weather, Norge headed north toward the Pole. There were 16 people on board. Everyone was doing their own thing. The motors ran smoothly. Amundsen observed the ice conditions. He saw endless ice fields with ridges of hummocks under the airship and recalled his last year’s flight, which ended with a landing at 88° north latitude. After 15 hours and 30 minutes of flight, at 1 hour and 20 minutes on May 12, 1926, the airship was over the North Pole. First, Amundsen and Wisting dropped the Norwegian flag onto the ice. And at that moment Amundsen remembered how he and Wisting planted the flag at the South Pole on December 14, 1911. For almost fifteen years, Amundsen strived for this cherished point. Following the Norwegians, American Ellsworth and Italian Nobile dropped the flags of their countries. Further the path ran through the Pole of Inaccessibility, a point equidistant from the shores of the continents surrounding the Arctic Ocean and located almost 400 miles from the North Geographic Pole towards Alaska.

Amundsen peered down carefully. They flew over places that no one had seen before. Many geographers predicted land here. But before the eyes of the balloonists passed endless ice fields. If between Spitsbergen and the Pole and further beyond the Pole to 86° north latitude, there were sometimes polynyas and clearings, then in the area of ​​the Pole of Inaccessibility there was solid ice with powerful ridges of hummocks. To his surprise, even at this point farthest from the coast, Amundsen saw bear tracks. At 8:30 a.m. the airship entered dense fog. Icing of external metal parts has begun. Plates of ice, torn off by a stream of air from the propellers, pierced the shell of the apparatus. The holes had to be repaired right there, on the fly. On May 13, on the left along the course, travelers saw land. This was the coast of Alaska, approximately in the area of ​​Cape Barrow. From here the airship turned southwest, towards the Bering Strait. Amundsen recognized the familiar surroundings of the Eskimo village of Wenrait, from where he and Omdahl were planning to fly across the pole in 1923. He saw the buildings, the people, and even the house they had built here. Soon the airship entered thick fog. A stormy wind blew from the north. The navigators are off course. Having risen above the strip of fog, they determined that they were in the area of ​​​​Cape Serdtse-Kamen on the Chukotka Peninsula. After this, we turned east again towards Alaska and, seeing the coast, headed south along it. We passed Cape Prince of Wales, the westernmost point of North America. The flight over the ice was calm and smooth. And here, over the open stormy sea, the airship was thrown like a ball, up and down. Amundsen decided to end the flight and gave the order to land. The return of the travelers was triumphant. They crossed the United States from west to east on the transcontinental express. At the stations they were greeted with flowers by crowds of people. In New York, the solemn meeting was led by Richard Bard, who had just returned from Spitsbergen to his homeland. On July 12, 1926, Amundsen and his friends arrived by ship in Norway, in Bergen. Here they were greeted with a salute from the fortress guns. Like winners, they drove through the streets of Bergen under the rain of flowers, to the enthusiastic applause of the townspeople. From Bergen to Oslo, along the entire coast, the steamer on which they sailed was greeted by flotillas of decorated ships. Arriving in Oslo, they drove through crowded streets to the royal palace, where they were given a grand reception. On May 24, 1928, Nobile reached the North Pole on the airship Italia and spent two hours above it. On the way back he crashed. On June 18, Roald Amundsen flew from Bergen to rescue the Italian crew.

After June 20, his plane went missing. So, trying to save polar explorers, Amundsen, the greatest polar explorer in terms of the scope of his research, died. He was the first to reach the South Pole and the first to fly from Europe to America (Svalbard Alaska); He was the first to go around America from the north on the yacht Joa and the first to follow along the entire coast of the Arctic Ocean, after he went around Europe and Asia from the north on the ship Maud in 1918-1920.

The expedition on the barque Terra Nova was a private enterprise with government financial support under the patronage of the British Admiralty and the Royal Geographical Society. Scientifically, it was a direct continuation of the British National Antarctic Expedition of 1901-1904 on the Discovery ship.

The main goal of the expedition was scientific exploration of Victoria Land, as well as the western spurs of the Transantarctic Ridge and Edward VII Land. Shackleton's success in 1908 (he did not reach the South Pole by only 180 km) and Cook and Peary's statements about their conquest of the North Pole set Scott primarily with a political task - ensuring British primacy in the extreme South of the Earth.
Robert Falcon Scott

The expedition plan, announced by Scott on September 13, 1909, envisaged work in three seasons with two wintering quarters:
1. December 1910 - April 1911
Establishment of a wintering and scientific research base on Ross Island in McMurdo Sound. Sending an autonomous research group to Edward VII Land or, depending on ice conditions, to Victoria Land. Geological surveys in mountain spurs near the base. Most of the team is involved in laying out warehouses for the expedition next Antarctic spring.
2. October 1911 - April 1912
The main task of the second season is a trip to the South Pole along the Shackleton route. All personnel are involved in its preparation; 12 people work directly in the field, four of them reach the pole and return back, using intermediate warehouses. Comprehensive climatic, glaciological, geological and geographical studies.
3. October 1912 - January 1913
Completion of scientific research started earlier. In case of an unsuccessful trip to the pole in the previous season, a repeated attempt to reach it according to the old plan. In an interview with the Daily Mail, R. Scott said that “if we don’t achieve the goal on the first attempt, we will return to base and repeat it next year.<…>In short, we won’t leave there until we achieve our goal.”
Main results
The plan was carried out down to the details (minus the cost of its implementation). Scientifically, the expedition carried out a large number of meteorological and glaciological observations and collected many geological samples from glacial moraines and spurs of the Transantarctic Mountains. Scott's team tested a variety of modes of transportation, including motorized sleds in polar environments as well as sounding balloons for atmospheric research. Scientific research was led by Edward Adrian Wilson (1872-1912). He continued his penguin research at Cape Crozier and also carried out a program of geological, magnetic and meteorological research. In particular, meteorological observations made by Scott's expedition, when compared with data from Shackleton and Amundsen, led to the conclusion that there is an Antarctic anticyclone near the South Pole in the summer.

The political task of the expedition was not directly fulfilled. The Norwegians spoke especially harshly about this, in particular, Roald Amundsen’s brother Leon wrote in 1913:
“...(Scott's) expedition was organized in ways that did not inspire confidence. It seems to me... everyone should be happy that you have already visited the South Pole. Otherwise... they would have instantly assembled a new British expedition to achieve the same goal, most likely without changing the method of the campaign at all. The result would be disaster after disaster, as was the case with the Northwest Passage."
However, the death of Scott and the primacy of Amundsen brought many problems to British-Norwegian relations, and Scott's tragedy in a political sense became a symbol of the heroism of a true gentleman and representative of the British Empire. Public opinion prepared a similar role for E. Wilson, who, despite everything, dragged 14 kg of fossils from the Beardmore Glacier. The presence of polar expeditions, and in the second half of the twentieth century, the stationary bases of Britain and the subjects of the British Commonwealth (Australia, New Zealand) in this sector of the Antarctic became permanent.

The Terra Nova expedition was initially viewed as a private initiative with very limited government support. Scott set a budget of £40,000, which was significantly higher than the budgets of similar Norwegian expeditions, but was more than half the budget of the 1901-1904 expedition. The ship's commander, Lieutenant Evans, wrote:
We would never have raised the funds necessary for the expedition if we had emphasized only the scientific side of the matter; Many of those who made the largest contributions to our foundation were not at all interested in science: they were fascinated by the very idea of ​​\u200b\u200bgoing to the Pole.
As a result, national subscription, despite the appeal of the London Times, provided no more than half of the required funds. The money came in small amounts from 5 to 30 pounds. Art.:161 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle made an appeal for funding for Scott, declaring:
...There is only one pole left, which should become our pole. And if the South Pole can be reached at all, then... Captain Scott is the one who is capable of this.
Scott and his wife in Altrincham while collecting donations for the expedition

However, the capital grew very slowly: the Royal Geographical Society donated 500l. Art., Royal Society - 250 f. Art. The matter moved forward in January 1910, when the government decided to provide Scott with £20,000. Art. The actual cost estimate for the expedition in February 1910 was £50,000. Art., of which Scott had 32,000 pounds. Art. The largest item of expenditure was the expedition vessel, the rental of which from a hunting company cost £12,500. Art. The collection of donations continued as it reached South Africa (the government of the newly formed Union of South Africa provided 500 pounds, Scott's own lectures brought 180 pounds), Australia and New Zealand. The expedition began with a negative financial balance, and Scott was forced, already during the wintering period, to ask the expedition members to waive their salaries for the second year of the expedition. Scott himself donated both his own salary and any kind of remuneration that would be due to him to the expedition fund. In Scott's absence in the summer of 1911, the fundraising campaign in Great Britain was headed by Sir Clement Markham, the former head of the Royal Geographical Society: the situation was such that by October 1911 the treasurer of the expedition, Sir Edward Speyer, could no longer pay the bills, the financial deficit had reached 15 thousand .f. Art. On November 20, 1911, an appeal was published to raise £15,000 for the Scott Fund, written by A. Conan Doyle. By December, no more than £5,000 had been raised, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lloyd George, flatly refused any additional subsidy.

Scott's expedition plans, with comments from famous polar explorers, were published in the Daily Mail on September 13, 1909. The term "polar race" was coined by Robert Peary in an interview published in the same issue. Piri stated:
Take my word for it: the race to the South Pole that begins between the Americans and the British over the next seven months will be intense and breathtaking. The world has never seen such racing before.
By this time, of the iconic geographical objects on Earth, only the South Pole remained unconquered: on September 1, 1909, Frederick Cook officially announced that he had reached the North Pole on April 21, 1908. On September 7 of the same year, Robert Peary announced that he had reached the North Pole; according to his statement, this happened on April 6, 1909. Rumors persisted in the press that Peary's next goal would be the South Pole. On February 3, 1910, the National Geographic Society officially announced that an American expedition would set sail for the Weddell Sea in December. Similar expeditions were prepared by: in France - Jean-Baptiste Charcot, in Japan - Nobu Shirase, in Germany - Wilhelm Filchner. Filchner planned a passage across the entire continent: from the Weddell Sea to the Pole, and from there along Shackleton’s route to McMurdo. Expeditions were being prepared in Belgium and Australia (Douglas Mawson together with Ernest Shackleton). For Scott, he believed that only Peary and Shackleton could be serious competitors, but Shackleton in 1910 left the implementation of plans to Mawson alone, and Peary moved away from polar research. Roald Amundsen in 1908 announced the trans-Arctic drift from Cape Barrow to Spitsbergen. During his 1910 Easter visit to Norway, Scott expected his Antarctic expedition and Amundsen's Arctic team to follow a single research plan. Amundsen did not respond to Scott's letters, telegrams, or telephone calls.
The expedition was divided into two detachments: a scientific one - for wintering in Antarctica - and a ship one. The selection of personnel for the scientific detachment was led by Scott and Wilson, the selection of the ship's crew was entrusted to Lieutenant Evans.

A total of 65 people were selected from more than eight thousand candidates. Of these, six participated in Scott's expedition to Discovery and seven in Shackleton's expedition. The scientific team included twelve scientists and specialists. A scientific team of this type has never been on a polar expedition. The roles were distributed as follows:
Edward Wilson is a physician, zoologist and artist.

Apsley Cherry-Garrard - Wilson's assistant, the youngest member of the team (24 years old in 1910). Included in the expedition for a donation of 1000 pounds, after his candidacy was rejected in a competition.

T. Griffith-Taylor (Australia) - geologist. According to the contract, his stay on the expedition was limited to one year.
F. Debenham (Australia) - geologist

R. Priestley - geologist
J. Simpson - meteorologist

E. Nelson - biologist

Charles Wright (Canada) - physicist

Cecil Mears is a horse and sled dog specialist. In March 1912 he left Antarctica.

Cecil Mears and Lawrence Oates

Herbert Ponting is a photographer and cinematographer. In March 1912 he left Antarctica.

The team included many representatives of the Royal Navy (Navy) and the Royal Indian Service.
Victor Campbell, a retired Navy lieutenant, senior mate on the Terra Nova, became the leader of the so-called Northern Party in Victoria Land.
Harry Pennel - Navy lieutenant, Terra Nova navigator

Henry Rennick - Navy lieutenant, chief hydrologist and oceanographer
G. Murray Levick - ship's doctor with the rank of lieutenant

Edward Atkinson - ship's doctor with the rank of lieutenant, acted as commander of the wintering party from December 1911. It was he who examined the found remains of Scott and his companions.

The pole detachment also included:
Henry R. Bowers - Lieutenant, Royal Indian Navy

Bowers, Wilson, Oates, Scott and Evans

Lawrence Oates - Captain of the 6th Inniskilling Dragoons. A pony specialist, he joined the expedition, contributing 1000 pounds to its fund.

Among the foreigners who participated in Scott's expedition were:
Omelchenko, Anton Lukich (Russia) - expedition groom. Scott calls him simply "Anton" in his diaries. He walked with the pole team to the middle of the Ross Glacier, and after the expiration of the contract, he returned to New Zealand in February 1912.
Girev, Dmitry Semyonovich (Russia) - musher (dog driver). Scott wrote his last name in his diary as Geroff. Accompanied Scott's expedition to 84° south. sh., then with most of the expedition remained in Antarctica and participated in the search for Scott’s group.
Jens Trygve Gran (Norway) - musher and specialist skier. Included at the insistence of Fridtjof Nansen in the team after Scott's visit to Norway. Despite the lack of mutual understanding with the head of the expedition, he worked until its end.

Scott decided to use a triad of draft equipment: motor sleds, Manchurian horses and sled dogs. The pioneer of the use of ponies and motor vehicles in Antarctica was Shackleton, who became convinced of the complete practical uselessness of both.
Ponies on board the Terra Nova and on the expedition

Scott had an extremely negative attitude towards dogs; his diaries are full of complaints about the difficulties of handling these animals.
Expedition sled dogs

However, Scott, as in the campaign of 1902, relied most of all on the muscular strength and fortitude of a person. The sled performed rather poorly during tests in Norway and the Swiss Alps: the engine constantly broke down, and its own weight pushed the snow to a depth of at least a foot. However, Scott stubbornly rejected Nansen's advice and took three motor sleds on the expedition.
Motor sleigh

A significant part of the equipment was 19 short, white Manchurian horses (called "ponies" by crew members), delivered to Christchurch, New Zealand, by October 1910. 33 dogs were delivered, along with Russian mushers. Stables and dog kennels were erected on the upper deck of the Terra Nova. The fodder consisted of 45 tons of pressed hay, 3-4 tons of hay for immediate consumption, 6 tons of cake, 5 tons of bran. 5 tons of dog biscuits were taken for the dogs, while Mirz claimed that seal meat consumption by dogs was extremely harmful.
The British and Colonial Airplane Company offered the expedition an aircraft, but Scott refused the experience, saying that he doubted the suitability of aviation for polar exploration.
"Terra Nova"

"Terra Nova" in the port

Scott expected to use radiotelegraphy to communicate between the research teams at the main McMurdo base and Edward VII Land. A study of this project showed that radio transmitters, receivers, radio masts and other equipment simply would not find a place on Terra Nova due to their bulkiness. However, the National Telephone Company provided Scott with several telephone sets for the McMurdo base for promotional purposes.
The main supplies of provisions were received in New Zealand and were gifts from local residents. Thus, 150 frozen sheep carcasses and 9 bovine carcasses, canned meat, butter, canned vegetables, cheese and condensed milk were sent. One of the weaving factories produced special hats with the emblem of the expedition, which were presented to each of its members along with a copy of the Bible.
Scott and his wife in New Zealand. Last joint photo. 1910

Terra Nova sailed from Cardiff on July 15, 1910. Scott was not on board: desperately struggling to finance the expedition, as well as with bureaucratic obstacles (the barque had to be registered as a yacht), he boarded his ship only in South Africa.
Team "Terra Nova"

Terra Nova officers and Robert Scott

Bark arrived in Melbourne on October 12, 1910, where a telegram was received from Roald Amundsen's brother Leon: “I have the honor to inform the Fram is heading to Antarctica. Amundsen."

The message had the most painful effect on Scott. On the morning of the 13th, he sent a telegram to Nansen asking for clarification, Nansen replied: “I’m not aware of the matter.” At a press conference, Scott said that he would not allow scientific results to be sacrificed for the sake of the polar race.
Members of Scott's expedition

Local newspapers wrote: Unlike some researchers, who seem to be bending under the burden of what awaits them, he is cheerful and cheerful. He goes to Antarctica in the mood of a man who is about to have a pleasant date.
If in Australia and New Zealand the press and public followed the progress of the expedition with close attention, then in London Scott's plans were completely crossed out by the excitement around the case of Dr. Crippen.
"Terra Nova" before sailing

On October 16, the Terra Nova sailed for New Zealand; Scott remained with his wife in Australia to settle matters, sailing from Melbourne on October 22. He was met in Wellington on the 27th. By this time, Terra Nova was receiving supplies at Port Chalmers.
Loading supplies

The expedition said goodbye to civilization on November 29, 1910.
On December 1, the Terra Nova found itself in the zone of a severe squall, which led to great destruction on the ship: bags of coal and gasoline tanks poorly secured to the deck acted like battering rams. We had to throw 10 tons of coal off the deck. The ship began to drift, but it turned out that the bilge pumps were clogged and were unable to cope with the water continuously drawn by the ship.
December 24, 1910

As a result of the storm, two ponies died, one dog choked in the floodwaters, and 65 gallons of gasoline had to be dumped into the sea. On December 9, we began to encounter pack ice, and on December 10, we crossed the Antarctic Circle.

It took 30 days to cross a 400-mile strip of pack ice (in 1901 it took 4 days).
Captain Robert Falcon Scott (pipe in hand) with his crew aboard the Terra Nova during the second expedition (1910-1912)

A lot of coal was spent (61 tons out of 342 on board) and provisions. On January 1, 1911, they saw land: it was Mount Sabine, 110 miles from Victoria Land. Scott's expedition reached the Ross Islands on January 4, 1911. The wintering place was named Cape Evans in honor of the ship's commander.
First of all, 17 surviving horses were landed ashore and two motor sleighs were unloaded, and provisions and equipment were carried on them. After four days of unloading work, on January 8, it was decided to put into operation the third motor sled, which fell through the fragile ice of the bay under its own weight.
By January 18, the expedition house, measuring 15 × 7.7 m, was roofed. Scott wrote:
Our home is the most comfortable place you can imagine. We have created for ourselves an extremely attractive refuge, within the walls of which peace, tranquility and comfort reign. The name “hut” does not fit such a beautiful dwelling, but we settled on it because we could not think of anything else.
Interior of the officer's quarters of Scott's hut. Photo by Herbert Ponting. From left to right, Cherry-Garrard, Bowers, Oates, Mears, Atkinson

The house was made of wood, with dried seaweed insulation between two layers of planks. The roof is made of double roofing felt, also insulated with sea grass. The double wooden floor was covered with felt and linoleum. The house was lit with acetylene torches, the gas for which was produced from carbide (Day was in charge of the lighting).

To reduce heat loss, stove pipes were stretched throughout the room, but during the polar winter the temperature in the house was maintained no higher than +50 °F (+9 °C). The single internal space was divided into two compartments by provision boxes, in which supplies that could not withstand frost, such as wine, were stored.

Near the house there was a hill where meteorological instruments were located, and nearby two grottoes were dug in a snowdrift: for fresh meat (frozen lamb from New Zealand became moldy, so the team ate canned food or penguins), in the second there was a magnetic observatory. Stables and premises for dogs were located next door, and over time, when the pebbles on which the house was built caked, fumes from the stables began to seep into the house through the cracks, the fight against which had not the slightest success
Meanwhile, in Britain, Scott's expedition became a successful advertising product