“Great God This Is An Awful Place:” Robert Scott’s Doomed Journey To The Bottom Of The World
Today, a large research station stands right at the South Pole. It’s called the Amundsen-Scott South Pole station, after the two men who led the first expeditions to our planet’s southernmost point in 1912. But only one of those men made it back alive.
Getty Roald Amundsen (left) and Robert Scott (right)
Great Scott
Robert Falcon Scott was a British national hero in the early 20th century. After his Discovery expedition explored further south than anyone had ever been before, he returned to civilization as a living legend. It seems anywhere he turned there was some European dignitary waiting to pin a medal onto his chest or a crowd hoping to hear stories of his adventures.
Scott got to spend his post-Discovery years as a celebrity, traveling the world giving lectures on his travels and writing a detailed record of his expedition: The Voyage of the Discovery. But Scott wasn’t one to retire to a cushy life of speaking tours and memoirs. That entire time, he knew that the Antarctic’s greatest prize lay waiting in the frozen waste: the South Pole.
The Race to the South Pole
The world of the 20th century was smaller than it had ever been. There weren’t many “firsts” left for explorers like Scott. But the South Pole was still out there, and Scott wasn’t the only person who wanted to claim it. Around 1910-11, groups from many countries were planning expeditions to reach the South Pole. So Scott threw his hat in the ring.
Scott was the obvious front-runner to make it to the Pole first. His biggest rival, the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, couldn’t be further away—Amundsen publicly announced that he was going to attempt to be the first person to reach the North Pole.
But then, when Scott's Terra Nova expedition reached Australia on his way south, he found an unwelcome message waiting for him. It was from Roald Amundsen, and it simply said: “Beg leave to inform you Fram [Amundsen’s ship] proceeding Antarctica.” Amundsen had tricked them all. Suddenly, the race was on; and Scott was way behind.
Getty SS Terra Nova
The Journey to the Bottom of the World
Scott left his base camp on November 1, 1911, headed south. To give him the best chance of reaching the Pole, he started with 16 men, all of them lugging gear.
As they pressed on, they would set up depots with supplies for the return journey, and some of the men would then head back to base camp.
By January 3, 1912, after two months of trudging through the snow, Scott selected the four men who would accompany him to the South Pole: Edward Wilson, Lawrence Oates, Henry Bowers, and Edgar Evans. The remaining men were sent back the way they’d come, and those final five set out to win the race to the South Pole. This was the last time that anyone would ever see them alive.
Getty Edward Evans
Defeat
Scott and his men continued their painful march across the Antarctic, but on January 16, they encountered a sight that left them hollow: a black flag poking up out of the tundra in the distance.
From the moment they saw it, they knew what it meant: Amundsen had been here already. They’d lost.
They reached the South Pole the next day. In his diary, Scott wrote: “Great God! This is an awful place and terrible enough for us to have laboured to it without the reward of priority. Well, it is something to have got here.”
He planted a British flag near the Norwegian one that Amundsen had left there 30 days earlier, then he and his men simply turned around and started heading back, defeated.
Getty Scott's Party