"Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?"
I think tales of heroic disaster generally are more compelling than ones of meticulously planned expeditions going off like clockwork.
Case in point: Why is Robert Scott generally better known than Roald Amundsen?
In 1912, British naval officer Robert Scott and Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen raced to be the first to reach the South Pole.
Amundsen won. He planted the Norwegian flag at the South Pole, then left and returned home with all his men intact.
Scott and his 4 comrades also succeeded in reaching the South Pole, only to find the Norwegian flag already there. They were second. Then they left the South Pole to return home, and died one by one on the return trip, with the last three dying trapped in their tent by a blizzard, cold hungry and out of supplies only 11 miles from their resupply depot.
And guess who the best-known hero of Antarctic exploration has been for the last 100 years, who has had the most books written about his expedition, and who had a film done in 1948 about his heroic expedition, called "________ of the Antarctic"? That's right. NOT Amundsen.
At the time, British popular opinion was that Amundsen had won by an unsportsmanlike trick. Apparently Scott used ponies (?!!) to carry his supplies inland from his landing point. As most thinking people would expect, the ponies didn't thrive on the ice floes, so the expedition ended up hauling their supplies on sledges themselves. (Granted the northern Lapps or Saami have also used hooved quadrupeds to transport themselves and their belongings in the Scandinavian Arctic for millenia, but those are reindeer naturally adapted for polar conditions, not ponies. Maybe if Scott had used reindeer it would have come out differently.) On the other hand, Amundsen, an experienced Norwegian polar explorer, being a totally unscrupulous (i.e. non-British) rat, decided that conditions in the icy wastes of Antarctic were probably similar to conditions in the icy wastes of the Arctic, and he used dogs sleds like those used for generations in the Canadian Arctic. Which worked very well.
Amundsen was made an honorary member of the Royal Geographic Society for his achievement, but resigned almost immediately when, at a banquet supposedly given to honor the first men to reach the South Pole, the President of the RGS toasted them with: "Here's to the dogs."
I think the first movie to show Amundsen's successful expedition was 'The Last Place on Earth', a 1985 mini-series detailing the race between the two expeditions. That was 40 years after Robert Scott became "Scott of the Antarctic" to a generation of filmgoers.
reply
share
honkers1323
11 years ago
The main reason the British... and others... were disdainful of Amundsen's getting tot he Pole first was that it was his only objective... and the reason he used dogs which, other things being equal, are faster than pony/men hauling... he kept his Polar objective secret
Scott had two objectives: a scientific research program ... and en route, to reach the Pole (which he and Shackleton ... and others...had failed to do previously)
He made meteorological and geological observations.... and was still carrying rock samples when they died... his weather records are regarded as v important pieces of research used for many years.... he use ponies and dogs to drag food up to food dumps which would feed his team on the return... the ponies were either eaten or went back with the support parties who created the dumps
His plan was always going to be slower than Amundsen's secret timetable but he was also slowed by injury/illness and so ran into some of the worst weather ever recorded and which was out of line with predictable cycles in Antarctic weather patterns
Amundsen was congratulated by King George V, the UK press in general and even Scott's wife... actually widow but not known for certain at the time.
But a couple of things tainted Amundsen's clearly magnificent achievement.... his furtiveness; the hasty return to Hobart so he could announce his triumph to the World... and, so distasteful to the Poms, the eating of most of his dogs, which was part of his plan... the Brits also ate their ponies... but horse meat is apparently less objectionable.
The Scott Relief parties which set out from base to meet Scott as planned did use dogs because of the need for speed ... but they failed to reach the rendezvous with Scott because of the weather and because the primary navigator in the expedition was diverted to more research work
Later UK/Aus/NZ expeditions also relied upon (and sometimes ate) dogs.
Whether Scott would have changed his plans and gone for the single objective of racing to the Pole .. is not clear
He knew about Amundsen's presence in Antarctica from the previous southern winter... but decided to continue with his expedition's scientific program
Anyway, as Screwtape says; the valiant death of Scott and his team... and Oates gallant self-scrifice... has completely overshadowed Admundsen's triumph
reply
share
cowboykalira
11 years ago
I guess the biggest problem for Amundsen was that he was a Norwegian, and not an Englishman. It would have been such a good show if the smashing chap Scott had made it to the pole first and made it back in time for tea, don't you know? And as usual when the brits fail to achieve something they blame the winners for trying too hard to win, wich is supposedly against "sportsmanship".
The bottom line is Scott tried and failed, he made a good effort, but he failed. Sorry, next time bring some dogs, dude.
Roald Amundsen is one of the last great explorers the world has seen, and the sooner he gets the recognition he deserves for his ingenuity, his ambition, and his methods based on experience rather than foolhardy stubbornness, the better.
I am by the way a dutchman, and not a norwegian nationalist as you might want to accuse me of. I love the british for their humour, their scientific achievements, and their culture. Most of the TV shows I watch are british, and I think Great Britain is one of the greatest countries on earth in terms of their people. But they have to let go of this nonsense that Scott's achievement is somehow more admirable than Amundsens. He lost. Like your national football team does every two years, and like Tim Henman lost Wimbledon again and again until a Scotsman finally won the fakey Wimbledon event at the olympics. I know it hurts, but that's the simple truth.
reply
share