MovieChat Forums > The Last Place on Earth Discussion > This wasn't even a race to begin with.

This wasn't even a race to begin with.

posted 16 years ago by taskoghe
6 replies | jump to latest

I feel the need to comment when Ephraim Gadsby concludes that it was more or less pure luck that decided who survived and who died in this race. Fact is, Scott's expedition was doomed from the start. I agree, Huntford is biased towards Amundsen, but that doesn't hide the fact that Scott was an unpractical and arrogant explorer. As for the unfortunately bad weather he had to endure, the men's clothing were still highly flawed and the transportation system hopelessly intricate and poorly planned above all. As one example, the motorized sledges broke down almost instantly, and the men had to carry even more right from the start! He willingly and knowingly made this expedition more difficult than it had to be. For him heroism meant great personal agony and sacrifice. No pain, no gain. But when you face such extreme elements as you do in Antarctica this approach has nothing to do with heroism, but pure stupidity. In his mind nature was something that had to be fought against to be defeated.

Amundsen had a completely different approach, get to the pole and get out asap! Work with nature to overcome it! He had the practical and humble approach. Having already been the first to pass through the North West passage, he learned from the Inuits how to be properly clothed to be able to face the elements. And the shoes they used are still a model for today's explorers. Amundsen knowingly had half of the dogs on the men's diet, and they never carried more than necessary during the race. He was ruthless in his eager to be the first! This fact is another reason why Amundsen won, contrary to Scott this race had no scientific meaning for him. I'm a Norwegian, but I think that fact doesn't disqualify me from concluding that Scott was more a dreamer than a real explorer. And ironically, that's a big part of the explanation why so many consider him to be a true hero.

[–] TrevorAclea 16 years ago

Scott's champions claim that the weather is the conclusive factor in 'vindicating' Scott, yet they ignore two crucial facts: Amundsen set out in the same season (and over uncharted terrain - Scott at least started on known territory he had covered before) and the only reason Scott ran into the worst of the weather was his insistence on manhauling. Even had he been properly supplied and not taken one more man than they had rations for, his method of travel was his undoing.

One big factor in Scott enduring is that he's simply a better writer. His diary, edited though it was, is simply a better read than any of Amundsen's dry partially ghostwritten volumes. Similarly, Amundsen's survival ensured that he had plenty of chances to publicly blot his copybook with his poor social skills - something that Scott probably would have done himself had he survived.

"This time it's no more Mr. Passive Resistance!"

[–] deeveed 16 years ago

Good point trevoraclea about the weather. But I think when researchers figured out what kind of temperatures Scott and his group had to deal with out there
it was discovered that conditions were really very cold for that time of the year when they were "traveling". I don't think Amundsen ran into such bad weather as Scott did. Apparently, it's been argued that he just walked into some bad luck and the weather just didn't cooperate.

[–] LesterFester 16 years ago

I remember reading the book 20+ years ago in record time. As far as the opinion that Scott was met by 'bad luck', I say, &%($@*. You could say it was bad luck about Scott's reliance on horses or his dissmissal of the use of ski or the men he chose or any of the countless other errors in judgement he made. If Amundsen had been in such a situation there is no doubt he would have dealt with it.

The sad part of the saga for me has always been the fact that in death Scott became the hero. Even to this day every once in a while an answer on 'Jeopardy' will appear where the question is 'Who is Scott?'

(updated 05/16) If you saw yesterday's 'Jeopardy' the final question was 'Who is Scott?'

It is Amundsen who deserves all the credit ...

[–] deeveed 16 years ago

Re: "bad luck"...maybe you might be familiar with the comment someone said about Scott and I'm paraphrasing and it's that that he would be a fellow who, even in Antarctica, would complain about the weather thus giving some insight into the man.

Scott, to me, was an interesting leader and I know he had the devotion of his men, not all but most. He was much different than Amundsen since, being a RN man, he ran the expedition the "RN way" with a top-down way of commanding.
Amundsen was more collegial I think. In hindsight, it does look that there were flaws in Scott's decision-making and that with the weather which didn't "cooperate", comprised him and his men out there on the ice. And yes it's ironic that he kind of gets high top of mind awareness rather than Amundsen who succeeded in his goal. And it was in death for Scott that he got a sort of final "victory"

[–] LesterFester 16 years ago

If you saw yesterday's 'Jeopardy' the final question was 'Who is Scott?'

" ... never send to know for whom the bell tolls ... "

[–] TrevorAclea 16 years ago

And it was in death for Scott that he got a sort of final "victory"

Ironically, it was also in death that Amundsen finally found some measure of victory. His poor social skills and financial problems got him a bad press, and the fallout from the expedition to the North Pole and his very public dispute with Nobile over the command of the expedition didn't endear him to the public. His disastrous memoir, My Life as an Explorer, was pretty much the last nail in the coffin for his image - he writes those he feels slighted him out of his life (he never even names the brother who saved his life) and settles a lot of scores in a rather petty fashion. Yet ironically when Nobile's second attempt to fly to the Pole ended in disaster when his airship crashed, Amundsen himself died trying to find him in a plane donated by the French government that simply wasn't suited to the conditions (Amundsen had given an interview about wanting to die attempting something heroic, so he was probably well aware that he wasn't coming back, and may even have been semi-suicidal - it appears he was seriously ill at the time)). The fact that he died trying to save the life of an enemy turned his (in truth rather pointless) death into a national tragedy. But then it's a curious feature of the Heroic Age of Polar exploration that it is the failures - Scott, Shackleton, even Nansen - that are celebrated rather than the successes. And no-one ever matched Amundsen's record as an explorer: part of the Belgica Expedition, the first to winter in Antarctica; the first man to navigate the NorthWest Passage; the first man to the South Pole; the first man to be proven to get to the North Pole (making him the first man to go to both Poles)... none of which ever seem to have excited the imagination of posterity as much as Scott and Shackleton's failures.

"Life flash before your eyes? Cup of tea, cup of tea, almost got a shag, cup of tea."