Antarctica Ships

Between 1839 and 1843 Royal Naval Captain James Clark Ross, commanding his two ships HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, completed three voyages to the Antarctic continent. During this time he discovered and explored a new sector of the Antarctic that would provide the field of work for many later British expeditions.

Ross established the general geography of this region, and named many of its features; the Ross Sea, the Great Ice Barrier (later renamed the Ross Ice Shelf), Ross Island, Cape Adare, Victoria Land, McMurdo Sound, Cape Crozier and the twin volcanoes Mount Erebus and Mount Terror.

He returned to the Barrier several times, hoping to penetrate it, but was unable to do so, achieving his Farthest South in a small Barrier inlet at 78°10', in February 1842. Ross suspected that land lay to the east of the Barrier, but was unable to confirm this.

The Discovery Expedition was planned during a surge of international interest in the Antarctic regions at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. A German expedition under Erich von Drygalski was leaving at about the same time as Discovery, to explore the sector of the continent south of the Indian Ocean. The Swedish explorer Otto NordenskiĂśld was leading an expedition to Graham Land, and a French expedition under Jean-Baptiste Charcot was going to the Antarctic Peninsula. Finally, the Scottish scientist William Speirs Bruce was leading a scientific expedition to the Weddell Sea. The Discovery Expedition, like those of Ross and Borchgrevink before it, was to work in the Ross Sea sector of Antarctica. Other areas of the continent had been considered, but the principle followed was that "in going for the unknown they should start from the known".

The two main objectives of the expedition were summarised in the joint committee's "Instructions to the Commander" as: "to determine, as far as possible, the nature, condition and extent of that portion of the south polar lands which is included in the scope of your expedition", and "to make a magnetic survey in the southern regions to the south of the fortieth parallel and to carry out meteorological, oceanographic, geological, biological and physical investigations and researches".

The instructions stipulated that "neither of these objectives was to be sacrificed to the other"

Map showing the Discovery Expedition's general field of work, 1902–04. Main journeys: RED line; Southern journey to Farthest South, November 1902 to February 1903.

BLACK line; Western journey through Western Mountains to Polar Plateau, Oct–Dec 1903.

BLUE line; Journeys to message point and Emperor Penguin colony at Cape Crozier, October 1902, September and October 1903.

On his 1907–09 Nimrod expedition, Shackleton was highly successful.

His first experience of the polar regions was as third officer on Captain Scott’s Discovery Expedition, 1901–04, from which he was sent home early on health grounds. Determined to make amends for this perceived personal failure, he returned to Antarctica in 1907 as leader of the Nimrod Expedition. In January 1909 he and three companions made a southern march which established a record Farthest South latitude at 88°23'S, 97 geographical miles (114 statute miles, 190 km) from the South Pole, while its northern party reached the location of the South Magnetic Pole.

During the 1910–13 Terra Nova expedition, a large-scale scientific and geographical expedition with the conquest of the South Pole as its principal objective. Scott was anxious to avoid the amateurism that had been associated with the Discovery Expedition's scientific work. He appointed Edward Wilson as his chief scientist, and Wilson selected an experienced team.

Its programme was complicated by the simultaneous arrival in the Antarctic of Roald Amundsen's Norwegian expedition.

Using the ship Fram ("Forward"), earlier used by Fridtjof Nansen, he left Norway for the south, leaving Oslo on June 3, 1910.

At Madeira, Amundsen alerted his men that they would be heading to Antarctica in addition to sending a telegram to Scott notifying him simply: "BEG TO INFORM YOU FRAM PROCEEDING ANTARCTIC—AMUNDSEN." The expedition arrived at the eastern edge of Ross Ice Shelf at a large inlet called the Bay of Whales on January 14, 1911 where Amundsen located his base camp and named it Framheim. Further, Amundsen eschewed the heavy wool clothing worn on earlier Antarctic attempts in favour of Eskimo-style skins.

Amundsen's party reached the South Pole on 15 December 1911 and returned safely.

Scott and four companions, including Wilson, arrived at the Pole on 17 January 1912.

All five perished on the return journey.

After the race to the South Pole ended in 1912 with Roald Amundsen's conquest, Shackleton turned

his attention to what he said was the one remaining great object of Antarctic journeying—the crossing of the continent from sea to sea, via the pole. To this end he made preparations for what became the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, 1914–17.

Disaster struck this expedition when its ship, Endurance, was trapped in pack ice and slowly crushed, before the shore parties could be landed. There followed a sequence of exploits, and an ultimate escape with no lives lost, that would eventually assure Shackleton's heroic status, although this was not immediately evident.

Map of the sea routes of Endurance, the James Caird, and Aurora, the overland supply depot route of the Ross Sea Party, and the planned overland route of the Weddell Sea Party led by Ernest Shackleton on his trans-Antarctic expedition of 1914–15: Voyage of Endurance Drift of Endurance in pack ice Sea ice drift after Endurance sinks

Voyage of the James Caird Launching the James Caird from the shore of Elephant Island, 24 April 1916 Planned trans-Antarctic route Voyage of Aurora to Antarctica Retreat of Aurora Supply depot route

In 1921 he went back to the Antarctic with the Shackleton-Rowett Expedition, intending to carry out a programme of scientific and survey activities.

Before the expedition could begin this work Shackleton died of a heart attack while his ship, Quest, was moored in South Georgia.

December 1911: Roald Amundsen's Norwegian expedition becomes the first to reach the South Pole.

Edward Wilson took part in two British expeditions to Antarctica, the British National Antarctic Expedition (Discovery Expedition) and the Terra Nova Expedition, both under the leadership of Scott.

On the first, from 1901 to 1904, Wilson acted as Junior Surgeon, Zoologist and expedition artist, setting off with the expedition on 6 August 1901. They reached Antarctica in January 1902.

On 2 November 1902, Wilson, Scott and Ernest Shackleton set off on a journey that, at the time, was the southern-most trek achieved by any explorer. The party had dogs but they were not experienced in using them and the food brought for the dogs had gone bad. With many of the dogs dead, they turned back on 31 December 1902 having reached latitude 82째17'S. They had travelled 300 miles farther south than anyone before them and were only 480 miles from the Pole.

Shackleton was deteriorating rapidly, coughing blood and suffering fainting spells and unable to help pull the sledge. Scott and Wilson, themselves suffering, struggled to get the party home.

It was a close call but 93 days after setting off, having covered 960 miles, they reached the Discovery and safety in February 1903. The following month, Shackleton, having suffered particularly badly from scurvy and exhaustion, was sent home early by Scott on the relief ship, Morning.

On his return, Shackleton asked Wilson to join his Nimrod expedition to Antarctica in 1907, but partly out of loyalty to Scott, he declined.

On 15 June 1910, Wilson set sail from Cardiff on the Terra Nova, as Chief of the Scientific Staff of Scott's final expedition. After making stops in Madeira, South Trinidad, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, the Terra Nova was trapped for 3 weeks by pack ice, and finally arrived at Cape Evans in McMurdo Sound in early January 1911. A base camp hut was built and 3 weeks later work began to establish the supply depots in preparation for the journey to the South Pole the following austral Spring.

In the austral winter of 1911, Wilson led "The Winter Journey", a journey with Henry Robertson Bowers and Apsley Cherry-Garrard, to the Emperor penguin breeding grounds at Cape Crozier to collect eggs for scientific study. The 60 mile journey was made in almost total darkness, with temperatures reaching as low as −70 °F (−56.7 °C). Frozen and exhausted, they reached their goal only to be stopped by a blizzard during which their tent was ripped away and carried off by the wind, leaving the men trapped in their sleeping bags for a day and a half under a thickening drift of snow. When the winds subsided, by great fortune they found their tent lodged about half a mile away in rocks. Having successfully collected three eggs and desperately exhausted they returned to Cape Evans on 1 August 1911, five weeks after setting off.

On 1 November 1911, 14 men set off from Cape Evans on the long trip to the South Pole. 79 days later, Wilson was one of the five-man Polar party that reached the Pole on 18 January 1912, only to find the pole had been claimed by Norwegian Roald Amundsen and his team just 5 weeks earlier.

Their return journey soon became a desperate affair mainly due to the exceptionally adverse weather. On 17 February, near the base of the Beardmore glacier, Petty Officer Edgar Evans died, suspected to be from a brain injury sustained after a fall into a crevasse two weeks earlier. Then, in a vain attempt to save his companions, Captain Lawrence Oates deliberately stumbled out of their tent to his death on 16 March after his frostbitten feet developed gangrene. Wilson, Scott and Bowers continued on for 3 more days, progressing 20 more miles, but were stopped 11 miles short of the 'One Ton' food depot that could have saved them by a blizzard on 20 March. The blizzard continued for days, longer than they had fuel and food for. Too weak, cold and hungry to continue, they died in their tent on or soon after 29 March (Scott's last diary entry), still 148 miles from their base camp. Their bodies were found by a search party the following spring on 12 November 1912.

Their tent was collapsed over them by the search party who then buried them where they lay, under a snow cairn, topped by a cross made from a pair of skis.

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Shackleton's whisky recovered That's the spirit! Cases of Mackinlay's 'Rare Old' scotch whisky have been recovered from the ice outside Shackleton's Antarctic hut. What will it taste like?

Cases of Mackinlay's whisky found intact under the hut used by the British Antarctic Expedition of 1907-1909 (The SS Nimrod expedition), led by Sir Ernest Shackleton. Cape Royds, McMurdo side, Antarctica. Photograph: New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust

After some hype and anticipation news has emerged that the crates of whisky long suspected to have been entombed by ice outside Sir Ernest Shackleton's Antarctic hut have finally been recovered.

A team from the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust have managed to extract five cases, three of Chas Mackinlay & Co's whisky and two containing brandy made by the Hunter Valley Distillery Limited, Allandale (Australia), which were abandoned by the expedition in 1909 as encroaching sea ice forced a hasty departure.

Anything related to Shackleton's 1907 attempt to reach the south pole is emotive.

His most famous exploit, an 800 mile voyage in an open lifeboat across the southern ocean in 1916, was an appalling feat which made him the hero of generations of Britishs. Even the string vest he wore on that occasion is a carefully preserved relic.

Extracting the whisky may not be as simple as it sounds as inevitably ice has got into the cases and broken at least some of the bottles, and if the corks have come into contact with the alcohol they will have degenerated.

Other foodstuffs are preserved inside and outside Shackleton's hut, including "dried spinach, mint, stewed kidneys, oxtail soup, India relish, mutton cutlets in tomato sauce, Irish brawn, marrow fat, stewed rump steaks, tripe, concentrated egg powder, kippered mackerel, minced collops, and red currants ... there's also the Antarctic classic, pemmican: dried meat mixed with fat, available in varieties for men and dogs."