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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: And Katy Lambert and I'm Sarah Downy. And some say

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Speaker 1: that the only frontier that we have left to explore

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Speaker 1: is space, but Sarah and I were talking about it

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Speaker 1: earlier and we think the depths of the Ocean should

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Speaker 1: be at the top of that list instead. You do

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Speaker 1: kind of have to argue for that though. There aren't

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Speaker 1: that many places left on Earth to explore, and it's

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Speaker 1: been that way for at least a hundred years or so.

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Speaker 1: By the time we get into the twentieth century, there's

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Speaker 1: not really that much out there that we have no

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Speaker 1: clue about, or at least not stuff that's very easy

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Speaker 1: to reach. But in nineteen o nine, Robert Peary announced

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Speaker 1: that he'd reached the North Pole. So all those young

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Speaker 1: men keen on making the history books realize that they

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Speaker 1: had to adventure elsewhere, and these roving explore eyes had

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Speaker 1: to settle on something else. The natural choice the South Pole. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so we have two big players in our South Pole story.

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Speaker 1: One is Robert Falcon Scott. One rolled Almondson. And it's

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Speaker 1: interesting because there's gonna be one man here whose whose

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Speaker 1: name is forever linked to the South Pole, and one

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Speaker 1: who people don't even really know much about. And it's

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Speaker 1: not what you might think as far as the winner

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Speaker 1: and the loser go. So let's talk a little bit

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Speaker 1: more about these two guys. Robert Falcon Scott was a

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Speaker 1: British naval officer who had participated in another Antarctic expedition

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Speaker 1: on the Discovery, which was nineteen o one to nineteen

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Speaker 1: o four with Ernest Shackleton and Edward Wilson. They tried

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Speaker 1: to reach the South Pole, but their dogs died and

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Speaker 1: they almost died too, so that went really well. And

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Speaker 1: our other player, Rolled Almondson is actually named Rolled ingle

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Speaker 1: Brick Governing Almondson. So that's that was a valiant tries.

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Speaker 1: That's my attempt at Norwegian. So yes, this is obviously

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Speaker 1: a Norwegian explorer. And Almondson has also had his shot

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Speaker 1: at Antarctica before though he was first mate on an

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Speaker 1: expedition there, and in nineteen o three he commanded the

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Speaker 1: first single ship to make it through the Northwest Passage,

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Speaker 1: which if you've listened to anything we've said about the

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Speaker 1: Northwest Passage, or if you've read my article about exploring

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Speaker 1: the Northwest Passage. You know that that is a very

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Speaker 1: impressive feat. Indeed, people forever to make it all the

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Speaker 1: way through. But more importantly, on his travels he learned

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Speaker 1: as much as he could from the Canadian Inuits on

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Speaker 1: how to survive in polar weather, which will come in

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Speaker 1: handy when you're traveling to the South Pole. So, as

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Speaker 1: we mentioned, Pierry reached the North Pole in nineteen o nine,

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Speaker 1: or at least he announced that he did. Nowadays we're

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Speaker 1: not actually so sure if he did make it when

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Speaker 1: he said he did. But at the time the man

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Speaker 1: had the spotlight and he was American, which made it

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Speaker 1: worse in the eyes of Scott, who was quoted as saying,

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Speaker 1: what matters now is that the South Pole should be

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Speaker 1: attained by an Englishman. Yeah, but Perry reaching the North

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Speaker 1: Pole also throws Almondson for a loop because he had

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Speaker 1: been planning a North Pole track. So, hey, what's the

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Speaker 1: point if somebody else has already done it first, That's

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Speaker 1: what they're thinking. They're not really appreciating the full extent

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Speaker 1: of what you can learn from going to these places.

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Speaker 1: So Scott had already been planning this South Pole trip

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Speaker 1: and Almondson knew it, so he's tricky. He tells everyone

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Speaker 1: that he's still going to the North Pole when he

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Speaker 1: sails from Oslo in June. Scott leaves twelve days after

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Speaker 1: him from Wales, and Almondson didn't even tell the men

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Speaker 1: on his own ship that they were going to the

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Speaker 1: South Pole instead of the North until October. I'm going

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Speaker 1: to say he's pulling into Poleon here and going to Egypt.

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Speaker 1: And he tells Scott about it in a rather cryptic

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Speaker 1: telegram that read beg leave inform you preceding Antarctica. And

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Speaker 1: even though it was rather unclear, Scott said, Almondson is

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Speaker 1: acting suspiciously in Norway. He avoided me in every conceivable manner.

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Speaker 1: Let me say it right out. Almondson was too honorable

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Speaker 1: to tell me lies to my face. It's the pole

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Speaker 1: he is after all right. So Scott knows that the

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Speaker 1: two of them are in a race. The races on

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Speaker 1: the other races on. So Almondson sets off on the

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Speaker 1: from with some very experienced sled dog drivers, which is

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Speaker 1: going to come in handy. Scott ship is called the

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Speaker 1: Terra Nova, and his aim isn't just to reach the

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Speaker 1: South Pole, he also does want to make some contributions

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Speaker 1: to science. Sorry if I if I suggested otherwise in

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Speaker 1: minute ago, but he wanted to collect specimens and bring

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Speaker 1: back information about the rocks and the minerals and the

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Speaker 1: animals and possibly plants, if any exists in this extreme

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Speaker 1: environment that people have very little idea about. So he

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Speaker 1: brought twelve researchers with him on his ship, and one

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Speaker 1: fantastically named grad absolutely Cherry Gerard paid to join them.

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Speaker 1: I think that could be a house to works freelance now,

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Speaker 1: I'm putting that on my possible baby nuns list. Almondson,

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Speaker 1: on the other hand, brought a lot of sled dogs,

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Speaker 1: but Scott, after this dying dog expedition the Discovery, decided

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Speaker 1: that ponies and man holds sledges were a better idea,

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Speaker 1: which is mystifying to me because it seems like you

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Speaker 1: would make it as difficult as possible a man hauling,

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Speaker 1: you know, eight hundred pounds over hundreds of miles in

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Speaker 1: these steep glaciers. Mistake. I think this might be a

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Speaker 1: new podcast theme to bringing really inappropriate transport on your

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Speaker 1: long arduous expedition, Champagne. So far it happens over and over.

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Speaker 1: So Almondson plans to use dogs to help transport everybody.

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Speaker 1: You know, he's got experience with them after all, But

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Speaker 1: he also plans to eat them along the way, which

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Speaker 1: I don't think Scott would like that very much. As

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Speaker 1: an Englishman, you know, it was below him certainly wouldn't

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Speaker 1: like that idea. But uncivilized it is. You know, if

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Speaker 1: we look at it practically, and we look at it,

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Speaker 1: you know, considering the reality of what it's like in Antarctica,

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Speaker 1: it's a practical idea. It made sense for Almondson. So

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Speaker 1: both ships arrived at the Ross Ice Shelf in January

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Speaker 1: nineteen eleven and set up their bases. Scott called his

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Speaker 1: Cape Evans and it was at McMurdo Sound, and Almondson

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Speaker 1: set up his at Wales Bay, which he called Fromheim.

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Speaker 1: And the crucial difference was that Almondson's base was almost

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Speaker 1: ninety miles closer to the pole. But lest you think

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Speaker 1: that this is Scott being stupid, which you might think

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Speaker 1: a couple of times in this podcast, Shackleton had already

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Speaker 1: taken this route, the one that he was planning on

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Speaker 1: taking before, right, so it was at least a little

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Speaker 1: bit better known to him, and he thought that might

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Speaker 1: be an advantage. Yeah, exactly. So now we get to

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Speaker 1: the preparation point because they've made it, but it's obviously

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Speaker 1: too close to Antarctic winter to set up coaching for

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Speaker 1: the pole. So Antarctica has two seasons, basically summer and winter.

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Speaker 1: But since they do has cold and one is cold,

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Speaker 1: is a lot colder. Since they do have a little

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Speaker 1: bit more of these warmer summer months left, they have

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Speaker 1: a little time to start preparing for this big truck

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Speaker 1: they're going to be doing later. So since this route

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Speaker 1: was so long, almond Sin's men start setting up supply roots.

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Speaker 1: They travel by their sledges pulled by dogs, um, you know,

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Speaker 1: up a little ways, set up a supply depot, come back,

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Speaker 1: go even further next time, set up a supply depot.

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Speaker 1: So they'll have these depots along their future route before

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Speaker 1: this you know, terrible way taking a long hike exactly,

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Speaker 1: and there's no time to go back. They'll need this

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Speaker 1: along the way. And they also set up near some

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Speaker 1: ice caves so they'll they'll be able to still work

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Speaker 1: on stuff even in the worst weather. Scott tries to

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Speaker 1: do this too, but he's working with the ponies, not dogs,

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Speaker 1: and I guess what. Ponies don't really do that great

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Speaker 1: and snow dogs are faster and they're not as quick

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Speaker 1: to freeze and slate Scott should have brought more of them.

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Speaker 1: And when someone suggests that they used the ponies to

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Speaker 1: feed the men or the dogs, Scott says, the ponies

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Speaker 1: are our friends. I'm not going to kill them, my

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Speaker 1: little pony, which is yeah, it's it's sad right now,

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Speaker 1: it gets sadder, but some of the ponies die anyways,

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Speaker 1: they're just not suited to these temperatures. Well, and the

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Speaker 1: Brits didn't even bring the right clothes. They brought wool

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Speaker 1: versus the reindeer and seal skins of the Norwegian team

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Speaker 1: brought because of course, Almondson had learned from the Inuits

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Speaker 1: and realize, hey, they don't starve or freeze to death,

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Speaker 1: so let's quit being so snooty and listen to what

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Speaker 1: they have to say, which again, um Scott and his

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Speaker 1: men thought might be a little beneath them. So Scotsman

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Speaker 1: may have been dressed in wool, but they also had

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Speaker 1: a pretty hefty supply of opium pills and also cigars.

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Speaker 1: This is again kind of like the Champagne Safari bringing

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Speaker 1: things that we have are in the Foi Gras. Do

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Speaker 1: not need your truffles. You probably don't need thirty five

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Speaker 1: thousand cigars on your trip. And their supply depots during

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Speaker 1: the styme aren't quite set up as well as Almondson's are.

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Speaker 1: They've got one one ton depot with a black flag

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Speaker 1: to market because you know, that's really easy to spot

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Speaker 1: when you're snow blind. Just this, this little black flag

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Speaker 1: in the middle of nowhere. Not so, now we enter

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Speaker 1: the waiting period. Preparation has ended. It's winter, and it's

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Speaker 1: just weeks and weeks and weeks of complete dark, like

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Speaker 1: as in no light at all, and of course it's

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Speaker 1: extremely cold, so you have to find something to entertain

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Speaker 1: yourselves to keep from getting cabin fever and going totally nuts.

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Speaker 1: So how would you do it, Sarah if you were

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Speaker 1: in Scott's expedition. Well, if I were in Scott's exhibition,

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Speaker 1: I'd be watching movies and reading books and listening to

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Speaker 1: the gramophone, maybe reading some poetry, painting, having interesting intellectual

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Speaker 1: discussions with my peers. Or maybe you would adopt an

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Speaker 1: Emperor penguin chick like Wilson did um or learn to

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Speaker 1: make a lovely seal consume with the rest of your expedition,

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Speaker 1: which these do sound like pretty good ways to avoid

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Speaker 1: cabin fever. Unfortunately, they aren't the most practical things to

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Speaker 1: be doing, because meanwhile at their camp, the Norwegians are

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Speaker 1: working on maintaining their equipment, maintaining their dogs, keeping up

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Speaker 1: their health. They had their eyes on the prize. So

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Speaker 1: on September eight, Almondson decides, let's do this. It's warm enough,

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Speaker 1: the winter's finally ending, he thinks, so he takes eight

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Speaker 1: guys and eighties six dogs out, but they do have

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Speaker 1: to turn back a bit when it becomes too cold

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Speaker 1: and foggy. They're stuck at a supply depot for a while.

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Speaker 1: Um and they make it forty five point five miles

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Speaker 1: in nine hours, which is so much faster than Scott

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Speaker 1: can do with ponies and man hauled sledges. Dogs are

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Speaker 1: definitely the way to go. I wonder how you'd get

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Speaker 1: the lot to be the the man hold hold sledge driver.

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Speaker 1: I don't know, but I don't want it. And as

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Speaker 1: a side note, during this time this journey occasioned a quarrel.

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Speaker 1: Some say a mutiny from one of his men, Johanssen,

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Speaker 1: and Almondson dismissed him and basically erased his record with

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Speaker 1: the expedition when he came back like just wouldn't even

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Speaker 1: acknowledge that he'd ever been there, and uh Kalmar Johansen

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Speaker 1: later committed suicide mostly because of that. So by October

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Speaker 1: we have the Norwegians finally heading back out again. This

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Speaker 1: time they have five men, four sledges, and fifty two dogs,

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Speaker 1: and they get pretty nice weather for Antarctica. At least

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Speaker 1: they make it and there a head of schedule, and

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Speaker 1: Almondson plants the Norwegian flag of the poll on December seventeenth,

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Speaker 1: nineteen eleven, and he writes in his journal, so we

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Speaker 1: arrived and we're able to plant our flag at the

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Speaker 1: geographical south Pole. God be thanked, and they make it

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Speaker 1: back to their Bay of Whales base at the end

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Speaker 1: of January nineteen twelve. They covered seven eighty nine miles

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Speaker 1: in ninety nine days and to Tasmania on March seventh,

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Speaker 1: nineteen twelve, where they can announce their big win. So

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Speaker 1: Norway had triumphed over Britain, but no one knew yet

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Speaker 1: what had happened to Scott's expedition. So let's go back

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Speaker 1: to our man catch up with Scott. So he leaves

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Speaker 1: later than Amondson two weeks. It doesn't sound like very long,

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Speaker 1: but it's a crucial amount of time. That puts his

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Speaker 1: return journey right in the middle of a particularly awful winter.

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Speaker 1: And the motor sledges break pretty quickly. The ponies keep them,

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Speaker 1: only going about five and a half miles a day,

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Speaker 1: and they switched to those awful sounding man hauled sledges. Finally,

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Speaker 1: two ponies fall through the ice and are eaten by

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Speaker 1: killer whales, which I mean, I don't think you could

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Speaker 1: make that up. That's a kind of the craziest part

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Speaker 1: of the day. I read that in a Wall Street

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Speaker 1: Journals story by Mark Yost, and I wrote it all

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Speaker 1: in caps on my outline, although I do have to

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Speaker 1: say I think I screwed up the chronology a little bit. Uh.

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Speaker 1: The motor sledges broke at the beginning of their journey

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Speaker 1: and not at the end, so they were already pretty

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Speaker 1: tired by this point, and by December thirty one, only

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Speaker 1: five of the men were left. The others had all

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Speaker 1: returned to base or to a supply deep how we've

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Speaker 1: got Scott, Wilson, Bowers, Oates, and Evans and Scott finally

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Speaker 1: reaches the Pole January eighth, and there he found a

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Speaker 1: letter to the King of Norway from Amondson asking Scott

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Speaker 1: to deliver it to the King to let him know

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Speaker 1: crushing he'd gotten there and told him he could use

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Speaker 1: any of the supplies that he'd left, and he wished

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Speaker 1: him a safe return. First, truly read the letter. It's

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Speaker 1: it's just so just imagine this guy finding this after

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Speaker 1: all the trouble he's gone through. Okay, So, dear Captain Scott,

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Speaker 1: as you probably are the first to reach this area

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Speaker 1: after us, I will ask you kindly to forward this

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Speaker 1: letter to King Hawk on the seventh. No idea if

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Speaker 1: I said that right, if you can use any of

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Speaker 1: the supplies left in the tent, please do not hesitate

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Speaker 1: to do so. I wish you a safe return yours truly.

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Speaker 1: So they do use the supplies, But what a crushing

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Speaker 1: disappointment for the brit heartbreak, Scott writes the Pole. Yes,

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Speaker 1: but under very different circumstances from those expected. Great God,

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Speaker 1: this is an awful place and terrible enough for us

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Speaker 1: to have labored to it without the reward of priority.

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Speaker 1: So now they would have to make this grueling return

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Speaker 1: journey without even the prospect of this victorious trip home,

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Speaker 1: which isn't a great place to be psychologically. But you know,

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Speaker 1: at least they collected some rocks on the way back.

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Speaker 1: They weren't in as much of a hurry as they

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Speaker 1: should have been. They decided, if they weren't first anyways,

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Speaker 1: they might as well bring some stick around and you know,

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Speaker 1: pick up more heavy things to put on their man holes.

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Speaker 1: Sledge is clearly unstuck on that old sledge thing. But

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Speaker 1: the weather had gotten much much worse, and this Arctic

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Speaker 1: winter was even worse than it was, of course in

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Speaker 1: the summer, but this one was particularly bad, according to

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Speaker 1: the records that we have, probably somewhere in the negative

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Speaker 1: forties or negative fifties fahrenheit, and the men were probably starving.

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Speaker 1: They were working at as fast a pace as they

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Speaker 1: could manage, but they were nearly out of food, so

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Speaker 1: they're cloric intake is not going with the energy expenditure.

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Speaker 1: Need a lot of energy to haul the sledge too.

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Speaker 1: And it's also possible that they had scurvy, but that's

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Speaker 1: a point of debate. So the first man to die

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Speaker 1: was Evans. He had fallen behind and when they finally

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Speaker 1: went back to check on him, he was very disoriented

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Speaker 1: and said that he'd fallen and he went into a

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Speaker 1: coma and died in February. But the next is perhaps

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Speaker 1: the best known Oats and he was already severely frost

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Speaker 1: bitten and exhausted and starving in on his thirty second birthday,

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Speaker 1: which was March seventeen, he said to the men, I'm

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Speaker 1: just going outside and maybe sometime, which is probably again

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Speaker 1: the most quietly heartbreaking British thing you could say too.

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Speaker 1: And so he thought that they might have a better

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Speaker 1: chance at survival without him, And Scott writes, Oates died

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Speaker 1: like a good Englishman. And so we have three left,

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Speaker 1: and they're hit by yet another blizzard, and this one

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Speaker 1: lasts for nine whole days, and they're out of food,

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Speaker 1: they're freezing. You know, they're in this like light tent

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Speaker 1: kind of contraption, hardly anything to weather a blizzard. In

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Speaker 1: that they're only eleven miles from one tund which is

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Speaker 1: so frustrating. That would take Almondson and those dogs like

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Speaker 1: half an hour probably, So they're only eleven miles away,

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Speaker 1: but they know they're going to die, and Scott writes

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Speaker 1: a final letter home to eleven letters. Actually this is

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Speaker 1: the one that he wrote to the British people. We

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Speaker 1: have shown that Englishmen can endure hardships, help one another,

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Speaker 1: and meet death with as great fortitude as ever in

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Speaker 1: the past. And then we have an excerpt his last

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Speaker 1: diary entry, which was March nine. Every day we have

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Speaker 1: been ready to start for our depot eleven miles away,

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Speaker 1: but outside the door of the tent it remains a

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Speaker 1: scene of whirling drift. We shall stick it out to

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Speaker 1: the end, but we are getting weaker, of course, and

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Speaker 1: the end cannot be far. It seems a pity, but

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Speaker 1: I do not think I can write more. And that

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Speaker 1: is the last thing that Robert Malcolm Scott ever wrote.

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Speaker 1: So their bodies are found in November nineteen twelve, along

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Speaker 1: with their writings and the specimens. They had collected thirty

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Speaker 1: five pounds of rock. So yeah, that weight on that

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Speaker 1: sledge unfortunate. But people are moved by how these men died,

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Speaker 1: and the public raised seven million dollars for their families.

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Speaker 1: According to a New York Times article by Edward Rothstein,

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Speaker 1: and Scott left behind a little baby and a wife,

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Speaker 1: and his widow is actually given the knighthood that would

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Speaker 1: have been bestowed upon him had he lived. And people

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Speaker 1: were so enamored with this romantic tragedy that Amindson's triumph

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Speaker 1: was overshadowed despite it being this huge accomplishment, because Scott's

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Speaker 1: story is simply more interesting. Amondson was incredibly capable and efficient,

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Speaker 1: but you know, he's just missing that certain genesee klaw

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Speaker 1: that Scott had. Everything went went perfectly with his mission,

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Speaker 1: it's there's after you run through the details of what happened,

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Speaker 1: there's there's not much more to tell. Or perhaps his

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Speaker 1: reputation just has a dearth of cigars. And we should

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Speaker 1: note that while Scott's expedition maybe argued to be a

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Speaker 1: spectacular failure, the scientific aspect of it was successful. This

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Speaker 1: thirty five pounds of rock meant a lot because we

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Speaker 1: learned quite a bit from all of their observations on

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Speaker 1: glaciers and the mapping they did, and all those specimens

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Speaker 1: they collected, including that little Emperor penguin chick. So my

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Speaker 1: introduction to Captain Scott was in and Fataman's ex libris,

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Speaker 1: which if you haven't read it, please please go by it.

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Speaker 1: It's not a book about polar expeditions. It's about the

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Speaker 1: love of books and what she calls her odd shelf,

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Speaker 1: the one that's home to all of your strange obsessions,

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Speaker 1: and for her it's polar expeditions and the romance of

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Speaker 1: the failed but gallant British explorers. And it was from

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Speaker 1: fat Amon that I knew. Scott's literary picks for the

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Speaker 1: journey were Russian and Polish novels, chilly novels. Well. Oates

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Speaker 1: preferred a five volume work on Napoleon's campaigns in Iberia,

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Speaker 1: and Wilson was a lover of Tennyson. And it made

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Speaker 1: me go back to the question that can make or

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Speaker 1: break a date and maybe even a friendship of your

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Speaker 1: very snooty what are your desert island or polar ice

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Speaker 1: scape book picks? They have to be a different, different

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Speaker 1: kind of lists for each. We'll give you two, and

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Speaker 1: since Oates had five volumes, will let you have five choices.

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Speaker 1: You can eat. Mail us in history podcast at how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works at dot com with something about books in

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Speaker 1: the subject title. You know we love a good read

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Speaker 1: and we do read all of your emails, so drop

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Speaker 1: us aline and that brings us to listener mail. So

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Speaker 1: since we've already talked about possibly eating ponies and ponies

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Speaker 1: getting eaten by killer whales, I feel like we should

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Speaker 1: come back with something a little more positive. Happy pony,

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Speaker 1: a happy pony, a happy horse story. And this email

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Speaker 1: is from Lauren. She was writing in reply to our

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Speaker 1: episode we did a while back on famous horses of history.

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Speaker 1: She wrote, this interesting tidbit is a perfect example of

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Speaker 1: how history directly affects current actions. You may know that

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Speaker 1: horseback riders, especially those of us who ride English, always

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Speaker 1: get on the horse from the left side. It's strongly

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Speaker 1: frowned upon to mount from the right, and some horses

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Speaker 1: even become spooked if mounted on the off side. The

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Speaker 1: reasoning for this dates back to medieval times. Horses were

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Speaker 1: taught to be mount it from the left so that

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Speaker 1: knights who wore their swords from their right hip pointing

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Speaker 1: to the left toe could properly mount the horse. Despite

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Speaker 1: our obvious lack of stores and current riding attire, we

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Speaker 1: still persist in doing things the old fashioned way, and

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Speaker 1: this is the kind of trivia that we really love.

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Speaker 1: So again, our email address is history of podcast at

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Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. We also have a Twitter

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Speaker 1: feed at mist in History and a Facebook fan page

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Speaker 1: if you want to keep up with what we're doing

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Speaker 1: on a day to day basis. And we have some

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Speaker 1: really great survival articles um on our website, stuff like

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Speaker 1: I Had to Build a Shelter and how to find

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00:21:36,119 --> 00:21:38,919
Speaker 1: water in a desert if you'd like to search for

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00:21:39,000 --> 00:21:42,600
Speaker 1: them on our homepage at www dot how stuff works

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Speaker 1: dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics,

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Speaker 1: is that how stuff works dot com. And be sure

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Speaker 1: to check out the stuff you missed in History Glass

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