In her new book A History of Polar Exploration in 50 Objects: From Cook’s Circumnavigations to the Aviation Age, polar historian Anne Strathie weaves the story of exploration in both the Antarctic and Arctic through a series of objects that often have surprising interconnections.
For Swoop, she has picked five of her favourites that help unlock the stories of many of the destinations favoured by modern expedition cruises to Antarctica.
‘A Great Icy Barrier’
The first serious exploration of Antarctica was the Ross Expedition which set sail in 1839, led by the dynamic Captain James Ross in HMS Erebus. In late January 1841, at around 78°S, Ross and Francis Crozier, captaining HMS Terror, saw a huge icy barrier which blocked their progress south. It was so high that from their crow’s nests they could barely glimpse a flat top and distant, ice-capped peaks.
Ross and Crozier, in hopes of finding a low point where they could land, followed the barrier eastwards for over 400 miles. Failing to find one, they returned west in hopes of locating the South Magnetic Pole – but again found no suitable landing-place. Consoled by having set a new Farthest South record, they returned to their last port-of-call, Hobart in Tasmania, to overwinter. Returning south, they resumed surveying the barrier but still found no safe landing-places. Defeated by the barrier, they continued on their circumnavigation and, following a hair-raisingly dangerous encounter with huge icebergs and other challenges, returned to Britain after a four-year absence.
Ross was duly knighted and offered several senior posts; but with expedition reports to write and a new wife, he declined command of a long Arctic expedition on Erebus and Terror (the position fell to Sir John Franklin). Following their Antarctic circumnavigation, people remarked that Ross and Crozier seemed like brothers – so it is appropriate that they and their ships’ names were soon commemorated through the Ross Sea, Ross Island, Cape Crozier and Mounts Erebus and Terror: names that would become familiar to later generations of Antarctic explorers – and modern expedition cruises. A final tribute to this pioneering expedition was paid in the 1950s when the ‘great icy barrier’ was formally renamed the Ross Ice Shelf.
A Stereoview of Adrien de Gerlache and a Weddell Seal
The beautiful Gerlache Strait is a whale watching hotspot and one of the most iconic locations along the Antarctic Peninsula. It takes its name from the Belgian explorer Adrien de Gerlache, whose Belgica expedition of the 1890s helped kickstart the ‘Heroic Era’ of Antarctic exploration.
Stereoview of de Gerlache and a Weddell seal (Image: author’s collection)
After failing to meet his expedition’s initial goals, De Gerlache deliberately let Belgica become frozen into the winter ice near the Antarctic Circle. As darkness descended and provisions dwindled, American ship’s doctor and Arctic veteran Frederick Cook encouraged everyone to eat seal meat as a preventative to scurvy. De Gerlache declined the unfamiliar fare but after he and others fell ill, Cook and his Norwegian shipmate and ally – a certain Roald Amundsen on his first polar expedition – insisted everyone follow Cook’s advice. Thanks to the humble Weddell seal, the outcome of the Belgica expedition was less catastrophic than Cook and Amundsen at one time feared.
Amundsen and Cook kept in touch, but never travelled together again. By 1912 Amundsen was famous for having transversed the Northwest Passage and being first to the South Pole – while Cook was best known for his contested claim to have reached the North Pole.
Due to Amundsen’s worldwide fame, stereoview publishers Keystone View reissued a set of Belgica expedition photographs – three-dimensional ‘windows on the world’ for armchair travellers. Included was an image of de Gerlache and a Weddell seal and another showing a distant figure on the ice, which was re-captioned as showing the ‘discoverer of the South Pole’. Needless to say that during his post-Belgica expeditions, Amundsen always made sure to include seal meat in his ration packs.
ARA Uruguay
In October 1903, Argentinian search-and-rescue vessel ARA Uruguay left Buenos Aires, heading for Snow Hill Island in the Weddell Sea. The island, charted and named by James Ross, was currently the expedition base of Sweden’s Otto Nordenskjöld and his fellow scientists. Concern for their well-being had risen after their ship, Antarctic, failed to return earlier in the year.
To everyone’s surprise, Larsen and a few more Antarctic crewmembers suddenly arrived. Antarctic had, Larsen explained, been crushed by ice and sunk in February, leaving Larsen and his men no option but to overwinter on tiny, remote Paulet Island. Larsen then guided Irízar from Snow Hill to Paulet Island, where the remaining Antarctic crew members were brought aboard Uruguay.
Back in Buenos Aires, Irízar was promoted and decorated. He was widely praised for his efforts, including in Britain, where he had previously served as Argentina’s naval attaché. He met Ernest Shackleton, who was working in the Admiralty following his return from Robert Scott’s Discovery expedition. Shackleton had been happy to give Irízar advice in advance of his first polar voyage – a search-and-rescue mission now recognised as integral to one of the most remarkable stories in Antarctic history.
ARA Uruguay, now 150 years old, is a dock-side naval museum in Buenos Aires, where visitors can learn more about her and Irízar’s remarkable roles in polar exploration history – a perfect polar stopover to mark the start or end of an expedition cruise in a modern (and ice-safe) expedition cruise ship. A bust of Irízar can also be seen on Ushuaia’s waterfront.
Shackleton’s expedition prospectus
Perhaps no ship in Polar history is as storied as Shackleton’s Endurance, which sank during his Imperial Trans-Antarctic expedition, only to be famously rediscovered under the ice of the Weddell Sea in 2022.
Polar expeditions are complex and costly and funding them has never been easy, so in early 1914 Shackleton produced a prospectus he hoped would secure substantial contributions from wealthy individuals. The professionally-printed 32-page document provided details of routes, ships, potential expedition members and numerous endorsements from official bodies, fellow explorers, newspapers and periodicals. By June, early donations from loyal supporters of his celebrated Nimrod expedition, were supplemented by a generous ‘no strings’ donation from Dundee industrialist James Caird.
Shackleton’s plans were now effectively underwritten, but circumstances changed with the outbreak of the First World War in early August. Ever the patriot, Shackleton offered his ship and men to the Royal Navy, but was told instead to proceed with his expedition. His last port of call before Antarctica was at the whaling stations of South Georgia. That season’s ice conditions in the Weddell Sea were reportedly poor, but with no time to lose, Shackleton pressed on. Initially they made good progress, but by mid-January 1915, at around 76°S, Endurance was frozen in and drifting helplessly in the pack ice. While men prepared to overwinter on the ship, ice-floes began crushing her, so Shackleton gave orders to evacuate. As Endurance sank beneath the ice, Shackleton mentally tore up the plans in his prospectus and turned his mind to keeping his men safe and well and ensuring their safe return to Britain.
Shackleton recalled that Julian Irízar had, during his Uruguay rescue mission, replenished food depots at Snow Hill and Paulet Island – but ice conditions and currents soon eliminated that option. Instead, Shackleton and his men set out for Elephant Island – and from there, the epic voyage in the newly-christened James Caird whale boat across treacherous seas to South Georgia.
An expedition hut
In 1911 Robert Scott’s Terra Nova expedition hut at Cape Evans became, at 50ft by 25ft, the largest man-made building on Antarctica. In addition to relatively spacious living quarters it included scientific and photographic laboratories and storage-cum-animal quarters. Although generally known as ‘Scott’s Hut’, it soon became a shared resource for later explorers, and went on to inspire a conservation programme which has preserved historic expedition huts on both sides of the continent.
In April 1915, Shackleton’s Ross Sea party’s ship, Aurora, was swept out of McMurdo Sound, the men – who expected to overwinter on the ship – began living in the hut. They also found ample provisions, which had been abandoned by Scott’s landing party who, in early 1913, left on Terra Nova following the deaths of Scott and his South Pole party companions.
Four decades later, members of 1956-8’s successful trans-Antarctic expedition visited the hut and, after noticing long-term deterioration caused by ice or snow, raised the issue with the New Zealand authorities on their return. By 1960 the first work to restore and conserve a historic hut began – the seed-corn of an ongoing programme of work by New Zealand’s Antarctic Heritage Trust and British and other counterparts.
Thanks to these efforts, Scott’s and other historical huts on both sides of Antarctica can still be visited today by those on expedition cruise ships to the Ross Sea. Their fittings, equipment and artefacts recall previous occupants over the years, but the tangible link to Scott’s final expedition means that the chance to step inside the Terra Nova hut remains the culmination of a dream for many modern polar travellers.
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A History of Polar Exploration in 50 Objects: From Cook’s Circumnavigations to the Aviation Age by Anne Strathie is published by The History Press.
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